PRIVATE EY
Easter Lilacs I
@johnsaltas
’ve never really enjoyed Utah’s summers or winters. Spring and fall, however? Well, that’s what living in Utah is all about. Most years. I love the spring when I see flowers rising, trees becoming sprays of green and fruit blossoms bursting into their Skittles rainbow colors. I equally love the fall harvests and thus thinking ahead on how to arrange this years’ vegetable garden. I want lively colors and lots of tomatoes. I like the welcoming fresh aromas of spring and equally favor the rich aromas of an autumn garden stew. Thinking of such gives me calm. However, it seems that our seasons overlap more than when I was a kid, when the changing seasons were in harmony with the changing sports seasons. People are quick to blame global warming and climate change for the disrespect that Mother Nature has for us these days, what with snow in late spring, December golf outings, trout streams that barely trickle and ski resorts making fake snow. Sure, gas guzzling on fossil fuels plays a role, but dear Mother Nature pulls the strings. Am I the first person to notice that our severe weather patterns create a perfect Venn diagram with the introduction of indoor baseball stadiums? Add domed football stadiums, and you’d have a Mickey Mouse Venn diagram trifecta, except that Mickey wouldn’t have ears. Once it became OK to manipulate a curve ball or punt, Mother Nature reacted with a curve ball of her own. She sent ever more thunder, lightning and floods, but we didn’t pay attention. We kept building domed arenas in such places as Phoenix (so that baseball can be played comfortably in 110-degree summer weather) and in Minneapolis (so that football can be played comfortably in sub-zero winter weather).
The result? The Minnesota Vikings football team is a nothingburger these days. And outside of one anomalous World Series title—thanks to the New York Yankees running out of gas in the bottom of the ninth inning in the seventh game of the 2001 World Series—the Arizona Diamondbacks are, too. In 2001, our American stage was grieving the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York City’s World Trade Center. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7, a weak Luis Gonzales blooper—hit off of future Yankee Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera—scored Jay Bell from third base. The Diamondbacks had their title. The Yankees returned home having delivered comfort and healing to our nation. Mother Nature did that. In her wisdom, and despite her better instincts, she believed it more comforting to our souls to let Arizona have that win. We all needed a win. Had she favored the Yankees—as thanks for not putting an all-season dome over the new Yankee Stadium—Americans would have regarded another Yankee title as overkill, thus robbing us of feeling universal unity with that great liberal city. For the next couple of years—until we attacked Iraq for a tragedy wrought upon us by Osama bin Laden, an Afghanistan cave dweller who was funded primarily by Saudi Arabian money—Americans were as united as they had ever been since the end of World War II. We were hit, and we wanted to hit back. We were scared, and we wanted to be free of fear. We were suspicious of anything and everything that was remotely connected to a part of the world we knew little about. And, we felt this way because so many Americans got their social and geopolitical news solely from comic books, TV and movies at the time. Americans simply weren’t exposed through any media channels back then to anything favorable to the goat-eating, camel-riding men with swarthy beards. It was just 100 years prior, when southern Europeans who also ate goats and wore swarthy beards were also coming to the United States. The
6 | MARCH 10, 2022
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only thing my grandparents lacked was the camel, but Americans distrusted them all the same. By the early 2000s, you’d think we would know better. We didn’t, so we lumped the whole of the Middle East into one big oil barrel and began shooting—except at the primary target, that is. Today, it’s the same. Many Americans get their social and geopolitical news from the comical memes on social media. As such, we blame everyone and everything in matters we don’t even try to fully understand, because basically, we don’t read or study any longer. We are just as easily angered and aggrieved, and we just as easily take aim at our friends, not our enemies. We all know people who were experts on race issues during the Obama administration, who morphed into immunologists during Trump’s presidency and who now are experts in macro- and microeconomics squawking about gas prices. Scroll through your social media and you’re bound to have at least one friend or follower who posts, “Thanks for the high price of gas, Brandon!” We all know that person. We all want to strike back. We are all afraid. But, the fear is misplaced. Talk to your neighbors—even the ones flying the “Let’s Go, Brandon” and “Uzi Freedom” flags. That’s the only way it can end well. Change. The spring awakening to Easter is here, a time of renewal and of promise. You don’t have to be religious to understand the symbolism of springtime. Grow a garden. Smell a rose. Start over. Take your anger out on the manipulative and deceptive politicians, not on your neighbors. If our elections were held during tax season—as Mother Nature intended— and not during domed football season—as team-owning billionaires intend—we’d vote the whole lot of them out. Meanwhile, create hope, and await the best blooms of spring, the eternal harbinger of Easter itself, the purple lilac—the blend of red and blue. CW Send comments to john@cityweekly.net.
