There are monsters in the closet! There’s a monster under the bed!
How many children have fled their rooms for the safety of their parents’ bed and its distance from those imagined terrors?
A lighted room, an opened closet door, a sweep under the bed, the comforting assurance that it was just the wind or an unfortunate shadow, and fear gives way to brave resolution.
All in the household sleep better.
We’re no longer children, but monsters still plague us. Some, unfortunately, are quite real, and can’t be dismissed by light or scrutiny.
These are the nightmarish realities of a world in which lies, hatred, bigotry, greed, intolerance and disdain for the rights of others have joined in a ghoulish march toward our own end.
Or so it would seem.
Faced with a scenario that would scare even the most stout-hearted, one might reasonably debate the value in shining our light on the shadows.
But I would offer the analogy of a certain category of literature and film, in which it’s regularly the perception — and not necessarily the reality — that sets the citizenry to pitchforks and torches.
It’s often the case that those who are most concerned have misjudged the threat. But with our understanding of the facts, we learn the true nature of that which we found threatening.
Phone home, ET?
Suspicion is replaced by understanding when given opportunity for collaboration and a path to empathy.
As a local example, Oneonta businesses had too often been the target of after-hours vandalism by a population that’s newly experiencing the inhibition-freeing effect of alcoholic consumption. Read that: college students.
Taking advantage of the Halloween season to reverse that dynamic, the city, business owners and the colleges engaged in a unique collaborative (which you may recall).
On a crisp October Saturday morning, shop owners and students worked together to design and build scarecrows for display throughout downtown. Beside the wonderful — if spooky — addition to the ambience of Main Street, Oneonta saw an immediate, additional benefit.
The experience of working with one another forged bonds among shop owners and our college community that had an immediate effect on after-hours behavior and on the embrace of young people in our downtown. It’s grown since and continues with new initiatives and collaborations introduced yearly.
Continuing with our Halloween-themed examples, it was our college population that stepped up in assistance of our merchants during the trick-or-treat events of the pandemic years.
On Halloween afternoons, students still dispense candy outside our shops and restaurants, allowing commerce to continue inside without the logistical challenge of ever larger crowds.
Collaboration and connection equals understanding and respect.
That’s the equation that will help us solve two very different problems — parking and homelessness.
Both benefit from the introduction and acceptance of a baseline of facts, some of which may have a modifying effect on opinions. To that end, we’ve engaged a broad coalition of community members in their address.
Our Parking Strategies Taskforce is composed of a diverse group of local business and community leaders who’ll soon unveil their proposals. In addition, Oneonta Job Corps is donating the efforts of its drone program trainees to document parking availabilities at varying times of the day. The photos will be posted to a new website: ParkOneonta.com.
A darker concern is that of the unsheltered and homeless, but more than five-dozen of our neighbors are working toward solutions as part of our Safe Homes and Neighborhoods effort.
As we lift our lights together, we banish the monsters of misunderstanding and misinformation. It’s what Oneonta does.
Happy Halloween. No tricks. No monsters.