My Sunday mornings begin differently from the rest of the week, but I’m sure that’s true for most of you. Most of the week, I watch local news before 7 AM and then about the first half-hour of the Today Show. On Sunday, I’ll watch the entire Today Show with Willie Geist and then switch over and watch the first hour of Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley. It’s 9 AM, then it is time to get on with Sunday things.
Back at the beginning of this month, I posted a blog titled, “What’s your weirdness?” It was all about Morse code and how I had come to use it well enough to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC. It was a technology that started in the 19th century and was in use through the 20th century. However, it became obsolete at the start of this century. That makes me an oddity.
According to the latest census, I am also an oddity because I don’t live in a city. The closest town of any size is Bemidji, Minnesota. With a 2020 population of 15,678, it is the 72nd largest city in Minnesota and the 2254th largest city in the United States, according to the website https://worldpopulationrevew.com. I have lived in big cities or their suburbs in places like Toronto, Philadelphia, and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Going back to the television shows I saw this morning, I realized how distant cities seem to those who live in the country. I believe it is the cause of the political divide we have in this country. On Sunday morning with Jane Pauley, there was a piece titled “Shots Fired.” It was about the epidemic of deaths caused by gun violence in black communities.
Most of the homes around me will have at least three guns. There is a shotgun for hunting waterfowl and upland game birds such as Partridge. There will be a deer rifle which use is obvious. And likely, there will be 22 caliber rifle for nuisance critters such as gophers, groundhogs, and other things that like to eat our gardens. Occasionally, one of the guns will find another use. I have a friend who had a bear at her door trying to get in. It was probably because she was cooking and the bear could smell the food. Don’t ever get between a bear and its food! She shot the bear through the door and then called the Minnesota DNR. They told her they’d be out to pick up the bear the next day. She told him she couldn’t get to work if they removed that 250-pound bear carcass holding her door shut. She made it to work on time!
My friend doesn’t understand the gun violence in cities. People in the cities wouldn’t understand this small woman calmly picking up a deer rifle and killing a bear at her door. In fact, many people in the big cities would like to outlaw guns. We live in vastly different worlds. Both sides get angry because they can’t understand why the other side does something. I don’t know what the answer is. Do you?
