The world is too much with us

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William Wordsworth wrote “The world is too much with us, late and soon . . .” When I read the newspaper I am sometimes inclined to agree, but most times the world is with us and we are with the world. And it’s usually good.

On a national level, for instance, Ann Coulter has decreed from her infinite and mean-spirited wisdom that the United States is a Christian Country. She says that Jews, for instance, need to be “perfected,” whatever that means. Her solution to the Muslim “problem” is "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." She leaves no room for the myriad religions practiced – or not – in our country today. The founding fathers in the Constitution of the United States declared in the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights for those paying attention (obviously not A. C. who has confused herself somehow with J. C.) that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That doesn’t say to me that Ms. Coulter should become our own national Ayatollah who decides how people should believe or think. Somehow people who know they are right just know they are right.

But being part of the world isn’t all bad. More locally a close acquaintance died a couple of weeks ago. The opposite of mean-spirited Ann Coulter, Wilma was kind and generous and hard working. After she retired from teaching she started her own travel agency, which she was part of until just a couple of years ago. When she died, Wilma was 91, and we took a couple of river cruises with her within the last five years: one from Venice up the Po to several cities like Padua; and one from Bucharest, Romania, by coach to Constanta on the Black Sea, up the Danube to Budapest. She kept up with (or surpassed!) all of us in our group, saw all the sights, enjoyed a drink or two before dinner, discussed politics and current affairs knowledgeably, was a fascinating woman who never lost her mental alertness, played a mean game of bridge, loved the Cubs, and remained interested and interesting until the end of her life. She joined us occasionally at dinner with mutual friends, and also participated in their annual Passover Seder with enthusiasm. We shall miss her. More, however, we’ll cherish the time we spent together.

And the world isn’t always sad, either. Our grandson David is on Fall Break from Beloit College in Wisconsin. (We see his brother Jonathan at least once a week. He’s fifteen, and that’s sometimes enough said. He is a delight, though.) We haven’t seen David since August, and we’ll have an opportunity to spend time with him, bake him some cookies with black and orange Halloween M&M’s, and have a meal at our favorite restaurant, Flavor.

Sepaking of. Chicago Public Television’s program Check Please, which has three ordinary people review their favorite restaurants each week, reviewed my cousin Rochelle’s restaurant, Flavor in Flossmoor this weekend. Rochelle was pretty nervous, even after the show aired. But Flavor got good reviews for having great food, a friendly atmosphere, and as one reviewer said, the friendliness is “a digestive.” I never thought about using the word that way, but it’s true. I always meet new and interesting people when we eat at Flavor. Sometimes when it’s crowded we tell the host that we’ll be glad to share a table, and we always find interesting conversation when we do that.

This Thursday Margaret Murphy will appear with her trio on Flavor’s weekly jazz bill. She is a wonderful musician and vocalist, and has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand, if you’ll pardon the pun. We plan on being there and you can probably watch me steppin’ with my wife, who is a wonderful dancer, and my cousin Rochelle.

Despite Ann Coulter and her negative view of the world, people like Wilma, restaurants like Flavor, singers like Margaret Murphy, and grandchildren, what can be bad?