Dear Vandals
Guest commentary by J. Christopher Windsor

This is an open letter to the Ojai Meadows vandals:
Someone must have hurt you. Maybe you were abandoned when all you wanted was love. I suspect you're bored, frustrated. You're certainly angry at something - or everything. Perhaps the terrible, discouraging curse of feeling anonymous has you so wound up, so spiteful, that you'll do anything, anywhere, to declare your existence.

We're getting the message. We hear you. We're sorry about all that. Really, we are. You may not believe this now, but in time you'll know that it's true: Everyone gets hurt. All of us experience abandonment of one kind or another, utter boredom, screaming frustration, and a general anger that demands expression.
Join the club. You're not alone.

Look, there are paths we take, eh? Sometimes, especially when we're feeling hurt and ignored and so frustrated we just want to scream, we make decisions that are wrong. Been there. It's understandable to feel that way. If you're still reading, I want to suggest some other ways to feel about what you're feeling.
Are you with me so far? Good. (To you, I want to suggest just a couple things for your consideration.) Please continue. I'm almost done.

First, when you cut down trees in a preserve or break fences or put broken glass where it might injure others, you're doing negative, nasty stuff. And the thing about that is: It doesn't work. It won't help. In fact, it will only hurt you further. (Have you noticed how the damage you cause brings very brief satisfaction? Think about that. Think about why that is. Please.) Consider, instead of causing anonymous damage, investing in your self.

Second, don't be stupid. We all make dumb mistakes, but to continue vandalizing the Ojai Meadows is really, truly lame. For one thing, you could trash it, damage it, or even burn it all down - but those meadows will be preserved long after your vandalism has stopped. Think about that.
Third, don't underestimate the police. Thousands of people have, before you, and almost all of them are in jail, in prison, in a cage. (How does that sound?)

Last, please know that there are certain guys, in Ojai, who are rather angry in their own way about what you're doing. (This has always been true, forever; don't mess with the local cowboys!) And then there are the vets, from Vietnam, that I've talked to about you recently. They are entertaining quite savage "missions" in the preserve, these guys. Do you know what "Special Forces" guys like these particular guys know about covert, late-night "operations"? (I have, so far, discouraged them from having "fun" with you on a given night. What they envision is very illegal - and you won't enjoy their presence when they catch you.)

Stop. Just stop. Do otherwise. Instead of inflicting further damage and feeding your anger, take a slow, sustained breath and think. You belong to us all. You can be loved! Just stop. Go elsewhere. Imagine another place. Go there. You can do it. Love and beauty and peace and personal sustenance are waiting. Invest in you. (Damage is only damaging, and you're dangerously close to confirming, through your actions, that you deserve a damaged life!)

Believe in the other. Get a girlfriend. Look, with wonder, at the sky. Rent a book from the library and read it. Swim in the ocean. Stretch who you are! You should mean more than simple, stupid vandalism! Aren't you better - so much better! - than that?

Meanwhile, please know that we're all watching you in one way or another. And that you can go down one path, or the other. It's up to you. Do the right thing. Stop the madness. Choose life. Be brave in the face of despair. You can do it! (If you don't, you're about to see how dark things can be. Yip!) Cutting down trees? Broken glass? Kicked in fences?
Sheesh.
J. Christopher Windsor is a resident of Ojai.

Chautauqua West
Bret Bradigan, OVN publisher

Rather than, as I was requested to do, write about my favorite books, I will open it to our readers to do so. A few letters to the editor about books read and lessons learned from them would be an appropriate way to end the summer reading season. So, should you be so kind, and inclined, please send us brief notes about your favorite books, and what makes them so. It would make for an interesting exchange, and perhaps we could learn a few things about each other.

I myself just read an interesting online exchange between two book reviewers, Margo Hammond and Ellen Hetzel. They discussed the 125th anniversary of what is believed to be the nation's oldest continuing book club, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, founded by a Methodist bishop in 1878. The idea was simple. Members paid 50 cents a year in dues, and were sent four books each year for four years. At the end of that period, they were tested to make sure they had read all 16 books, then invited to Chautauqua for a graduation ceremony. The first class of 1,718 members graduated in 1882 with a "recognition ceremony," passing through a golden gate to the Hall of Philosophy while children tossed flowers at their feet.

Since I grew up close to the Chautauqua Institution, it was derelict of me to have taken so long to become aware of its impact on this country. To me, then, Chautauqua Lake was better known for its smallmouth bass, muskellunge, its summer camps and rich girls playing croquet on the rolling lawns of their summer estates. My first insight into what the Chautauqua Movement has meant to this country, its enduring legacy of body, mind and spirit, came through Robert M. Pirsig's bittersweet "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." He called for a renewal of that spirit of bringing intellectual challenge and opportunity into the darkest frontiers of the American experiment.

"What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua - that's the only name I can think of for it - like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America ... in an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks ... I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question 'What is best?,'" a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly..." so wrote Pirsig.

At one time, 12,000 communities had Chautauqua events. The Great Depression sealed its tomb, however, as the culture-thirsty rural farmers - its intended audience - were among the hardest hit.
Still, in pockets, the spirit, if not the substance, of the Chautauqua Movement endures. In fact, some 142,000 people will attend this year's Chautauqua Festival, a nine-week program that neatly bookends, so to speak, the literary high season. Festival-goers this year, as every year, were challenged in their broadmindedness by an interesting roster of speakers - from Ken Starr talking about the Supreme Court to Hillary Clinton talking about public policy.

Ojai - where flourishes the world-renowned Ojai Music Festival, the Ojai Film Festival, the Ojai Shakespeare Festival - is a perfect example, a Chautauqua West, if you will. Few small towns dream so big as Ojai. Even fewer are able to make those dreams come true.

Chautauqua-style study circles and book clubs are more than coffee klatsches for bored bourgeoisie, they are an essential construct of democratic debate. "I think the Chautauqua's bipartisan discussions - and interfaith exchanges - provide an excellent blueprint for what should be going on in our democratic society at large ... How do we bring all members of society to the table to try to solve our mutual problems?"

One way is through those expanding ripples of recommendations, discussions and debate that go forward from book clubs or study circles. In that way, I challenge you all to post your lists of the books you found most challenging and provocative.
© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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