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The Long March

by Ailish M. Nic Phaidin
Brevard Technical Journal

"Let us pray." These are words I hear almost every time a group of people gets together to deliberate on a myriad of subjects in Brevard County. They are fine words indeed.

This time I'm going to use good old guilt - along with a heartfelt plea - to appeal to all of your better natures to help rebuild the lives of so many people, and businesses, in our county in the aftermath of our recently deceased hurricane season. This is a call to action to mentor your call to pray. If you're not inclined to a schedule of prayer, that's OK; it's your action that interests me.

I know one small service company that has a staff of nine working from their individual homes because their office was decimated by the combined forces of hurricanes Charlie, Frances and Jeanne. Mold is the least of their problems.

Then there is our very fine citrus industry. You have all read the statistics and heard the devastating news about their plight. Magnify those statistics and take one family's difficulties, check how long an orange tree takes to grow and bear fruit, and give me your answer in 10 minutes. Then check your wallet, take your spouse or partner out to dine in an expensive restaurant, use your gilt-edged credit card and say, "Hell, it's not my business." That fine bottle of Chablis is worth every dime.

Speaking of dimes - can you turn on a dime? If your answer is 'yes', read no further. However, if your answer is 'no, you have a good old U.S. democratic god-given choice to continue reading or not continue reading. Dimes are on every sidewalk, sparkling their cheery faces up at us from the mud, grime, grit and fodder of an exhaustively purchase-oriented society.

Speaking of purchases, I was recently in a medical waiting room furtively minding everybody else's business (eavesdropping on conversations between people there, one-sided cell phone conversations, staff mutterings, and builders jousting with each other), when I overheard a most uninteresting - if somewhat shocking - one-sided cell phone conversation. The woman seated sedately on the edge of a highly uncomfortable chair was telling her "someone" on the other end of her cell phone all about her family Halloween. "Just the usual," she said, "loads of candy, cookies, balloons and things like that for my daughter's friends." The she dropped, what was to me, a real clangor. "I even got her Halloween suit for only $85!!"she whispered audibly into her mouthpiece.

"Good Gawd," I thought, "85 bucks for a Halloween suit!!"

The speaker noticed my eyeballs standing outside my face on long stilts. One could not miss such a medical conundrum. She turned her face away from me. I won't deny her right to do that. Whoever wants to see the backs of someone else's eyeballs? Gruesome sight, I'm sure to everyone, except perhaps to the medical people beyond the outer limits of a waiting room.

Speaking of eye doctors, have you visited one recently? If not, maybe it's time for a little rendezvous. Enroute you could pause and smell the scent of Holiday pandemonium. In fact, you could avoid the Holiday pandemonium, except if you are one of those people who simply thrives on being tossed around by the throngs of wild-eyed and stampeding Holiday shoppers.

I will not quote the millions of dollars that will be needed to get Brevard County back to our pre-hurricane status. You've heard them all, you've seen the destruction, you've suffered yourself (if only from a lack of electricity), and now you want some respite from the whole unseemly mess. Of course, your mess may be large and ugly. It may indeed be worse than your neighbor's mess. Your neighbor may have a tidy home but no job because their place of work has been damaged, either temporarily or permanently. We have all suffered, some more than others, but if our eyes are off the ball of earning a living, running our companies, researching new and innovative technologies, catering for our tourists or simply thankful to be alive, we need to continue to have our eyes on the ball of progress.

It is not progress if your neighbor is scrambling to pay a mortgage, car loan, child's medical bill, or worse still, trying to put employees' bums on seats to keep customers satisfied, and that includes our extraordinarily valuable citrus industry.

So I am asking all y'all to join me on the long march to recovery and prosperity for all our citizens and businesses. Citizens make up businesses. Indeed, let us pray, but along with prayer, let us take action. Does your child really need an $85 Halloween suit? Does your spouse or partner really need a new Beemer? Do your employees really need that Birthday Bash for someone who was born in a humble manger? Would He agree? Do you agree?

This county is structured on innovation, and cultural, ethnic and religious diversity. It is a county of contrasts. It is also a county of hard working, decent human beings.

There are dozens of great organizations in our county who want to get people back to work, back on track, and back to fruitful and productive lives. Send them what you would normally spend celebrating the Big Guy's Birthday and they will put it to good use. That, I think, would be His mentoring prayer too! And, a mouthful of the fatted calf is harmless enough. A platter of it is gluttony.

Speaking of help, FEMA and insurance claims are a long shot at recovery. We need short shots for our long march.

Happy Holidays.