At the church up the street, the peace pole ended up on the ground before vanishing entirely. For those who don't know what a peace pole is, it is a pole that has the message "May Peace Prevail On Earth" in different languages. One side might have English, another Russian, another Japanese, and so on. The poles started in Japan, which is quite appropriate, since poor Japan is the only country to ever be nuked during wartime. The idea caught on and even spread to the nuker country, which is us, the USA (yep, we're the only country to ever have attacked someone with a nuke--let's hope it remains that way and by remains that way, I mean 1945 should be the last and only time that someone gets nuked). By the 1980s, peace poles were spreading across America, primarily in response to Reagan's saber-rattling as The Cold War wound down (there are those who will argue that Reagan's antics caused The Cold War to end, but it's more likely he prolonged it a bit since even by the 1970s the Soviet totalitarian system was breaking down, but we ignored those signs since that didn't fit the whole wartime planned obsolescence idea our economy was based on--and still is). I remember the poles being controversial which tells you what a weird society we live in. Some factory in Mentor, Ohio (and probably in every other Congressional district area) can be cranking out bombs and crap to blow people up with, and that's hunky-dory, but some church folks or other peaceniks stick up a piece of wood with a peace slogan on it and people get upset. Despite the controversy, the poles spread across the country. After The Cold War ended, the poles stuck around but seemed to not attract as much attention, which brings us to our photo above. The pole had been on the ground for a few weeks at the time of the picture. I'm not sure if it just fell over or it was taken down in solidarity with or protest to Trump doing insane shit such as kidnapping a world leader and launching missiles randomly or whatever the fuck he thinks he's doing in Iran (what he is doing is wasting a lot of our money and probably blowing up some nice folks along with the nasty folks he says he's attacking). Some liberal churches exist in America but the majority of Christianity probably skews politically conservative to the extent that you could swap out Jesus for Zeus and most of them wouldn't notice. This one's a Methodist church, and apparently a lot of right wing Methodists have left the mainstream church in recent years to form their own holy roller conservative versions (mainly, they seem to be mad that the mother church was accepting gay clergy). So my guess is that this church didn't take down the peace pole to support Trump. More likely, it just fell down. I suppose I could ask them but I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings when I rebuff their invitations to stop by for a worship service. They do seem like a nice church in that they have food pantries and whatnot, but still I tend to avoid adults with imaginary friends and that's ultimately what the superstitiousness of religion boils down to. Actually, strike that, as a novelist, I probably have imaginary friends, but I avoid large groups of people who are organized around their imaginary friends. Hmm . . . might have to strike that as well. I do attend the occasional comic book convention, and that is a large group of people organized around imaginary friends.
Anyhow, back to the peace pole . . . it's still on the ground or was before it disappeared entirely. Even before it was on the ground, it was basically obscured by the bushes you can see above it in the photo. If one has a peace pole, one should really have it displayed, and this one was pretty covered up. I don't know why it was just on the ground for weeks instead of being disposed of quickly. It would take me about a half-hour to dig a hole, throw it in the hole, fill in the hole, and have it be back in business. I was tempted to just go do it one night, but they have a nice garden, and I suspect I'd have probably put it somewhere that would irritate the gardener, plus it may be nice but it's probably not legal to go around fixing people's peace poles. Maybe they ordered a new one (they cost about $275 or so, though I suppose you could make your own more cheaply), and they're waiting for it to arrive, but it's been months now and, as far as I can tell, no new peace pole has emerged to replace the old one.
Regardless, it's kind of a bummer to see that peace pole just on the ground or, at the time of this writing, vanished entirely, but it is fitting for the time of this writing, with Trump bombing Iran. Of course, it's times like these when people do need to be reminded that peace is better than war. It's cheaper as well (Trump's asking for another zillion dollars or whatever for his war currently). I suppose if I get some free time, I ought to call the church and ask them if they still have the peace pole. If they don't want it, then maybe I'll just stick it in my front yard.
For more reading on war and things people stick in their lawns, please read The Front Yard War.
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