Three down, four to go.<\/p>\n
So, yesterday I went to Brooklyn for a family reunion.\u00a0 Driving through the Bronx and Queens I could see the Manhattan skyline and as much as the city has become a cesspool, that skyline is beautiful and impressive.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bittersweet sight.\u00a0 My family has lived in New York City for a hundred and forty years.\u00a0 We loved it and were proud of its grandeur and dynamism.\u00a0 And now?\u00a0 Well, pride is impossible.\u00a0 Just within the time we were travelling down the streets of Brooklyn I could see thuggery and depravity on display.\u00a0 A city of eight million people that used to be a showcase of culture, business and the Arts reduced to third world barbarity.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s a dysfunctional space where crime, poverty, homelessness and drug-use dominate the landscape.\u00a0 It infects everyone who lives there.\u00a0 It degrades all the magnificent monuments of the past and makes a mockery of their former achievements.\u00a0 And it makes travelling into its bowels dangerous, frightening and infinitely difficult.\u00a0 Where can and can\u2019t you drive?\u00a0 Where can you park your car and find it in one piece when you return?\u00a0 Where can you walk in the day but not at night?\u00a0 All the fun questions of NYC urban life.<\/p>\n
But ultimately it was worth it all.\u00a0 For the second time in a few months, I saw members of my extended family that I haven\u2019t otherwise seen in decades.\u00a0 I met the second and third generations on these branches of the family tree and saw the family resemblances and the new additions to the stock.\u00a0 Charming.<\/p>\n
Ultimately America is convulsing under the forces that the elites can bring to bear.\u00a0 How we react and compensate for these disturbances is all we have any power over.\u00a0 My family, for the most part, has abandoned the cities and looked for opportunities and safer surroundings where we could find them.\u00a0 And that process continues.\u00a0 Those that stay in these dangerous areas tend to pay a heavy price.\u00a0 There are physical and mental health consequences to trying to raise children in a hellscape.\u00a0 Premature death is not unheard of.\u00a0 And it\u2019s sad to see this reality.\u00a0 But it\u2019s inspiring when you see someone who has struggled with the traps of that world overcoming the problems and succeeding.<\/p>\n
And when it\u2019s over we always have the epic, \u201cEscape from New York!\u201d\u00a0 I was riding shotgun and the death-defying feats of my driver were truly inspiring.\u00a0 You haven\u2019t experienced real terror until you\u2019ve cut across five lanes of traffic to make an exit on the BQE.\u00a0 But we got out and then my drive home from the suburbs was uneventful.<\/p>\n
When I reached home Camera Girl was entertaining grandsons Tertius and Quartus with a hockey game on television.\u00a0 Apparently, this New England sport has caught on with this generation of my descendants.\u00a0 And I have no objections although I myself have never been able to see the puck on television.\u00a0 I have to go by the noise of the crowd to know when the puck has actually ended up in the net.\u00a0 Mostly I just watch the players assaulting each other around the periphery of the rink.\u00a0 Which is entertaining in its own right.\u00a0 By the time the boys left it was after midnight and I crashed into the blessed oblivion of sleep.<\/p>\n
Well, this was late for obvious reasons.\u00a0 And the next few days will be equally sketchy because of my slightly punchy condition and the length of my workdays tomorrow and Tuesday but I will attempt to produce some kind of content.\u00a0 Adios.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three down, four to go. So, yesterday I went to Brooklyn for a family reunion.\u00a0 Driving through the Bronx and Queens I could see the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,818,2860],"tags":[83,4488,2093],"class_list":["post-33303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-ocf","category-reclaiming-the-family","tag-family","tag-family-gathering","tag-reclaiming-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n