It was the best of times, it was the worst … no, wait, that’s taken. That’s two cities anyway. How about: it was the best of intentions, it was the worst of intentions. The one city is here, the time was Saturday.

Saturday afternoon might have been one of the better times for this fair city as a small group peacefully assembled with speakers in support of the “Stop Asian Hate” movement, supporting the local and national Asian communities. The diverse group was mostly college aged people with some families and one celebrity who was in town filming a movie. The rally started at a corner a little bit out of the downtown district and after the speakers spoke they move to a nearby park and held a moment of silence for the those slain in Atlanta. It was a good, positive time, Definitely one of the better times. But then again . . .

Earlier Saturday a group of a few hundred gathered at the baseball stadium and accompanied by motorcycle mounted police, they march across a bridge, through town, then to the large state  park that dominates the focal point of downtown. There celebrities, local and state politicians, and candidates for upcoming races assembled to make speeches opposing the ongoing state mask mandate and protesting the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Still. One of the participants spoke about the danger of the right to bear arms “being taken away.” One of the speakers referred to Donald Trump as “the real President of the United States” from the podium. One of the marchers said “freedom is tenuous” when asked about his opposition to the mask mandate.

There is a local TV reporter who each morning posts an inspirational message to her social media accounts. Sunday’s was “Don’t wait for things to get simpler, easier, better. Life will always be complicated. Learn to be happy right now. Otherwise you’ll run out of time.” it’s a great message. The people at the small “Stop Asian Hate” rally would get that. The people at the whatever it was supposed to be rally never could understand that and probably wouldn’t bother to try. Yet those are the people who if they did try and then stopped trying to make everything “better” by their own definition and just be happy that they have the opportunities so many other people around the world do not, there wouldn’t be a danger of not having enough time for happiness. There might be an overabundance of happiness because the rest of the world, the majority of the world I am certain, wouldn’t have to spend so much time protecting themselves from the ones who are never happy.

It’s sad that a small but so loud group of people so desperately clinging to a fantasy still garner so much attention and cause such an extreme amount of hate that a peaceful group of people, ones of all ages, colors and ethnicities, are held hostage by the fear that that desperate ones might any moment mutate into desperados.

I was right the first time I thought about it. Saturday afternoon indeed represented a better of times in my one fair city. Let’s just leave it at that.