New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

10 LISTENER JUNE 8 2019

D

riving towards DC during the

recent Memorial Day long

weekend, I encountered the

Rolling Thunder motorcyclists

leaving the capital. Rolling Thunder,

an annual event for 30 years, brings

together thousands of motorcyclists

outside the Pentagon for a ride along

the National Mall to near the Viet-

nam War Memorial.

The event was started by

Vietnam vets in 1988 to try to

keep a focus on those who had

died, been injured or were still

missing after the war. This year

is likely to have been the last

such parade because organis-

ers say getting permits for the

huge gathering has become too

difficult. The average age of US

soldiers in Vietnam was 19. First,

the Viet Cong defeated them,

and now bureaucracy. As the sur-

viving vets become elderly, it is

farewell to an event that seemed

to define American masculinity,

and deafened DC for a weekend

every year.

At least it felt more meaning-

ful than the latest protest trend

• which I see New Zealand has
  not escaped – for climate change
  protesters to block intersec-
  tions. Although I support young
  people being woke (kaching! –
  there goes $1 into my swearing
  jar), intersection occupation has

Bikers and climate

activists claim the

streets as snakes

and rabbits lurk in

the undergrowth.

How DC rolls

I love the fauna

here – especially

the lumpy

groundhogs

and mad-looking

raccoons.

TO

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HI

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BA

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“Life, liberty and the pursuit of something

a little more like Canada?”

to be the most backward protest tactic imaginable.

I regularly walk instead of taking the car and

always take the Metro when I can. (Flexibility and

route changes are not trains’ biggest selling points.)

So, when I take the car, I do not want to be diverted

by protesters occupying intersections for the sole

purpose of annoying motorists.

That is their aim, isn’t it? There surely can be no

other. Coming upon 100 or so students lying on

the road, I would not have an epiphany and think

that I, too, should worry about climate change,

because, like every literate person, I am already

worried. That I do not choose to lie in intersections

does not make me less concerned than they are.

They should get on their bikes.

R

ecently, I looked out the window to see a

rabbit standing on its hind feet nibbling furi-

ously at what was left of the blue lobelia that I

had planted in pots on the deck a fortnight earlier.

I know nothing about rabbits

other than the helpful hints I picked

up in the bestseller Watership Down,

and those parts of The Tale of Peter

Rabbit quoted around the edges of

Royal Doulton plates. One of the

latter says, “First he ate some let-

tuces and some French beans; and

then he ate some radishes”.

Beatrix Potter failed me. If she

had only written, “First he ate some

lobelia and some sweet peas”, my

garden might be healthier. And

if she had said, “First he ate some

poison ivy, and then that vine that

keeps choking the azaleas”, I would

be luring Peter and his whānau, and

Winnie-the-Pooh’s Rabbit and his

friends and relations, too, to help

themselves.

I should have noticed walk-

ing around the neighbourhood

that no one grew lobelia. A

few blocks away, no one grows

hostas, either, because they are

the preferred repast of the deer

that roam Washington DC’s

wild Rock Creek Park and that

regularly stray into suburban

gardens, though mostly in

winter.

I love the fauna here – espe-

cially the lumpy groundhogs

and mad-looking raccoons

• although on a walking
  track a couple of weeks ago,
  my sister-in-law suddenly
  stopped dead in front of me. A
  long black snake, possibly an
  eastern ratsnake, was ahead of
  her. It quickly slithered into
  the bush. It was a reminder
  that not everything in nature
  is benevolent, and also a
  reminder that although I have
  come to love this country, it is
  not my home. l

BACK TO BLACK

JOANNE

BLACK

IN WASHINGTON DC