One of the most luminous stories of victory from the Martinez Beaver drama came at the end of a 6 months battle. beaver subcommittee meetings were over, the flow device was working, and reporters were still coming to film what they hoped would be the catastrophe. And Mitch Avalon from Flood Control asked me to come speak at the watershed meeting and present the beaver issue to folks. I was a .little lost. The meeting was held at the county watershed facility where I had never been and was packed with serious folks I didn’t know that weren’t exactly beaver fans. I took a deep breath, showed my little powerint and films, and said the usual arguments.
There were plenty of questions when I was done. I definitely wasn’t preaching to the choir. But I steadied my quavering voice and answered them the best I could. And then it was over and I folded up my laptop and went out to the dark parking lot and sat in my Subaru under the streetlight all alone. No one was there, No Worth A Dam or Jon or beaver believer. And a realization came over me. All at once. Not like a victory. Not with trumpets and a sense of accomplishment but with the strange unfamiliar absence of dread.
We were going to win.
It was the weirdest thought I had ever had and I’ve had some odd ones I can tell you. But it was as cold and clear as a ship sailing out of the fog. We were going to win. After all the scars and damages and battles were were going to get what we wanted. What I wanted. It was really going to happen.
I thought of a line from the Buffy Musical. And I’m thinking of it still today.
“The battle’s done and we kinda won so we sound our victory cheer
Where do we go from here?”
Which I kind of think applies this morning to surviving Covid this long. The mask mandate is being lifted and my home tests are being delivered by the post office tomorrow. No one in my family died and Jon and I are well. There is enough toilet paper to go around. So I timidly poked out of my cage and asked about the merest possibility of a beaver festival this year. Folks were all over the map with the idea, but Cheryl was ready, and Amy agreed, and Amelia offered to help and last night the irreplaceable sound man John Koss agreed and our exhibitors are mostly ready, and Fro is mostly ready and so….
So. So So…
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It’s been a bizarre clanging bell-ringing week for beavers.
