The grocery stores are open

The shelves are stocked. Thank you for your service.

I write today in praise of commerce.

Shopper, with hand sanitizer.

In these trying times, people are passing out praise.  Donald Trump gives it to himself, a 10 out of 10. He said this was a Chinese virus and he had kept it out of America, where it would disappear in warm weather, a miracle.  

Fox News hosts assure their viewers the American response to the virus has been great, prescient, aggressive from day one.

News shows picture the front lines of the virus, healthcare workers. Sick people exhale, health workers inhale. The virus spreads. Test kits are unavailable, masks and other protective equipment are unavailable. Stressed, heroic health workers are news, even on Fox. 

The hardest thing to notice is the bell that does not ring. Some things are working well in America. Notice the utilities are up and running: water, sewerage, garbage collection, natural gas, electric power. 

Food. Notice that the food stores are open, too.

There are people at this very moment people picking lettuce in cool fields in Washington, and people loading trucks in the Imperial Valley of California. In warehouses in Yakima, Washington and Medford, Oregon people are operating forklifts bringing pallets of apples and pears out of cold storage. People in the stores are trimming brown spots off lettuce, and bringing out boxes of zucchini that arrived that morning from California and northern Mexico. Clerks are arranging new crop plums and peaches shipped refrigerated from Chile. There are cashiers, ringing things up.

Produce clerk at work

There are long supply chains, trucks and systems to connect the truck with the load, all moving quickly. Fresh food spoils. And yet, amid lockdowns and social distancing, the food is there! 

It isn't magic and it isn't government fiat. It is commerce.  Farm work is hard, much of it done outside in hot sun and cold rain, and much of it is done bent over, stooped. I have never encountered anyone in the produce supply chain who thought he or she was doing it out of political or social idealism. It was a job. People had bills to pay, families to support. And with that motivation, they are feeding America.

I am grateful to them. I used to be the tiniest cog in that process. I grew and picked melons, washed them, and hauled them to local supermarkets. I did it for the money. I had tuition bills to pay.

I met a lot of idealistic young people in Iowa and New Hampshire. The typical staffer was someone in college taking a semester off, or a recent graduate. They were energetic, and eager to hand me material on Warren, Biden, Bernie, Amy, Steyer, all of them. Right now there are idealistic young people working for Bernie Sanders. I saw a text from one of them this week: 

     "It's Melanie with Bernie 2020. Joe Biden does not support Medicare for All, but Bernie Sanders isn't afraid to challenge the status quo -- that's why he's fighting to guarantee health care as a human right!"

I think I understand Melanie. Fifty years ago I looked like them. In 1968 I was "Clean for Gene," which meant that I had short hair and a shaved face, suitable to meet the general public and represent liberal anti-war politics.

Idealism is a motivator, a reason to get up in the morning and carry on in a campaign that is likely shutting down. That was me. I suspect it is Melanie.

One of the tenets of Rotary is the recognition of dignity and value in all useful vocations. The minister, community organizer, poet, officeholder, or TV pundit might consider oneself to be "making the world a better place" and maybe they are. But a big piece of the world's good work is "feeding the hungry." 

So I write in gratitude to the truck farmer, the truck loader, the produce department clerks and managers, and even the financial system that worked to keep working capital going to the stores to buy inventory, truckers to finance their trucks, and farmers to buy seed and equipment. The stores are open.

We counted on you, and you are coming through.