Any proposed new activity in Woodstock will be met with fierce political opposition. Somehow, the Wednesday weekly farm market slipped by the anti-whatever-it-is crowd, and has been doing business for several months.
We have crossing guards to help folks across the street to the farm market. You might think that Woodstock is free and easy. No. We are obsessed with rules in Woodstock. The fight over whether the farm market could take place featured two strangely opposed groups: (1) the keep everybody out of Woodstock crowd versus (2) the buy your food local crowd. Thus, we endured an unusual controversy: two different Save the World groups squaring off against one another.
The keep everybody out faction hates any event or business that brings traffic and tourists to Woodstock. Their latest argument is that nothing should increase the “carbon footprint” of our fair town. This faction has always had a following in Woodstock. The fabled Woodstock Festival was driven out of town and down to Bethel by this group. Back then, the argument was that nothing should be allowed to detract from the peace and quiet of our village.
Facing off against the keep everybody out faction was the “eat local” contingent. Now, I eat as local as you can get. I grow a big garden every year. No doubt about it, the closer your garden is to your kitchen the better. I’m just not very interested in crusades of any kind. In my plus 30 years in Woodstock, I’ve endured thousands of crusades. The eat local crowd believes that the answer to global warming is to buy that which is produced nearby. And, so the farmer’s market was their crusade.
The two groups duked it out over the farmer’s market, and somehow a compromise was reached. I didn’t pay enough attention to know how. So, Woodstockers can now buy incredibly overpriced produce, bread and free range meat, at least during the warm weather months, at our once weekly market. “Homegrown Blueberries - $4.00” a pint! The Karaoke Queen would bust a gut over that. Good thing she’s over in the Philippines for a couple of weeks. So, I guess that the surplus carbon produced by all those cars driving into town for the market is offset by all that carbon that is not created by folks taking a trip to Kingston to buy their groceries at Shop-Rite. It’s a wash.
I had to take a pee while I was in town, so I dropped by the town’s public toilet. I was astonished by this piece of graffiti next to the urinal. How can this be? In Woodstock! I thought that we were all firmly in line with our Dear Leader. “Fascist” is misspelled. We must have a contingent of anarchists in residence. People who insist on correct spelling are probably fascists.
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