Hope among the ruins

I used to work in a lovely modest little office building on Eye Street in Washington, close to the White House. The building was likely more than 40 years old, and had a few quirks: a slow-moving elevator, and carpet that could have used replacing in spots. But the street views were lovely. And it had, miraculously, a mail slot - something hard to find in post-911 DC in many new buildings.

But a group of speculators bought the building, evicted the tenants and tore it down. It was reckless wanton destruction - as reckless and wanton as all the speculation that pulled us into an economic tailspin. Their plan was to building a glitzy new office building. But they got caught by the credit freeze, I assume. Because nearly a year after the demolition, only a crater stands where our little building stood.

I am not happy that we're in a deep recession. But perhaps this downturn will shake up the people who feel that we have no need to hang on to what is modest and good in an endless search for what is bigger and presumably better.

I grow hopeful when I think about what happened last weekend.
It was a bitterly cold Sunday evening in Alexandria, Virginia. But the upper room of Trattoria de Franco http://www.trattoria-dafranco.com/ was warm and welcoming. Each table, covered with a white tablecloth, contained an open bottle of chianti, wine and water glasses, and a pitcher of water. At the front of the room was a small stage and a piano. It was opera night at the cozy Italian restaurant, and the crowd was awaiting a good performance. Many of those in the room were retirees. As we all waited in the buffet line, they exhibited gallows humor, cracking jokes about diminished IRAs and reduced prospects. "It's all my fault," one older women said, "I retired last November." There was humor in that room, but there was fear, and uncertainty. These were people whose lives were not what they expected, and they weren't sure how everything was going to turn out. And yet, they were there, paying $55 per person to dine with their friends and here three professional singers perform a medley of well-known arias by Puccini and Rossini and Mozart, and a little Gershwin, and Irving Berlin, and Harold Arlen as well. The pianist was late, but the singers adapted.
How to describe the mood of the place? Cheerful with an undercurrent of anxiety. Good-natured with a soupcon of stoicism. Something I'd never experienced before.
At the end of the evening, the singers borrowed from theRogers and Hammerstein muscial "Carousel," and closed with "You'll Never Walk Alone."
I never much liked that song. Thought the lyrics a little over the top and verging into bathos. But last Sunday night, as the crowd sang along, that song suddenly took on new meaning.

Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone