Well, I didn’t promise you a pleasant column, I told you I’d share what scares me; maybe Michael Moore and President Obama would be on your porch. The thing is, we’re watching America shrink and hunker down, cutting services even as need grows. And we’ve got the money, trillions of dollars, being hoarded when it could be working and creating jobs. That’s uglier than any latex mask ever made.

Lola Lucas writes essays and poetry, reviews books, and is the author of At Home in the Park: Loving a Neighborhood Back to Life, about Springfield in general and Enos Park in particular.