September 19, 2005
When I first came to Bethlehem,Pennsylvania--more than 30 years ago now--I was bedazzled. It seemed to have everything I had ever wanted in a place to live: history, music, a veneer of culture--all of which had been conspicuously lacking in my former place of residence.
And that was just half of it. There was also the great Wagnerian mill of Bethlehem Steel, which had played so vital a part in winning the World Wars of the twentieth century; and there was the fabulous South Side, where lived the members of the 50-plus ethnic groups who had come to America to work in that mill.This was a neighborhood where you could hear half a dozen languages during a short walk. At least, that was true when I came to town; nowadays it's pretty much down to Spanish and English.
I enjoyed it all. As far as possible, I still do. But I have been here long enough to have seen through to the town's imperfections. (Every place has them, after all. Where is the town that has no graft or mismanagement in its government, no drugs in its schools, no racial or social tensions? It wouldn't be Bethlehem. I am almost tempted to say it wouldn't be interesting. Problems are meant to be solved, and to stand as challenges until they are. And Bethlehem most certainly has problems.)
The difference between the problems of the past and those of today, at least as far as I am concerned, is my shuddery feeling that today's may be insoluble. After 9/11, the Tsunami, and now Katrina, not to mention the Iraq war, people seem frozen in denial and a sense of helplessness. And that is true as well, not only in world and national affairs, but in local ones.