Let me start by saying a few words about the Society for Industrial Archaeology (SIA). I was a paid member of the Northern New England chapter back in the days when there was a quarterly newsletter on paper. I had to be the youngest member then, and perhaps the only woman attending their events who wasn’t accompanied by a man, but I digress; I suspect those things haven’t changed in the past 15 or more years. I am on their email list because I have not lost interest in the things that attracted me as a whitewater paddler, like broken dams, bridge abutments, and factory ruins.
In a list of upcoming events in one of their recent emails was a symposium at the planetarium today, with a full-day lineup of presentations. At this point, I will mention that in addition to the convenient nearby location, what attracted me was the subject matter of many of the presentations rather than the roster of panelists and their credentials. With that said, I did notice the last speaker listed as Chuck MORSE speaking about brickmaking. “Ok,” I thought, Freshwater Farms, which is Chuck’s business, appears to be a landscape design superstore of sorts, though I’ve never been there. Bricks are arguably in Chuck’s business purview. I marked today’s date on the calendar several weeks ago and didn’t give it much thought until today.
I haven’t spent much bandwidth on thinking about Chuck Morse since he lost his primary, except when Kelly Ayotte does something I dislike, which unfortunately happens too often. It appears that Chuck leads a quiet, respectable retirement as a private citizen. I don’t see him throwing endorsements around, appearing in Adam Sexton’s studio, publishing editorials (like Jeb), or showing up at events to get a free breakfast or lunch (like D’Allesandro). Good for Chuck. Aside from his 11/19/21 bad vote on that money, I consider him a decent person of sound mind. Chuck Morse is the ideological opposite of Comrade Chuck MOWER. I wrote about the latter not too long ago.
I haven’t given Chuck Mower much thought other than when ICE and Merrimack local issues have popped up a few times, though I’ll admit what I thought about the SIA event program at first sight. The theme of the presentation lineup seemed more like a “Chuck Mower thing” than a “Chuck Morse thing.”
Christa McAuliffe has been dead for 40 years, and I have never been to the planetarium. In fact, the nearest event and farthest down Fort Eddy Road that I’ve been to was the police academy on the day of the executive council arrests 4 years ago. Today, I allowed extra time to get lost on campus looking for the correct building, entrance, and parking, so I arrived early. I played with my phone in the car, awaiting the arrival of others, just to confirm the correct building and entrance, and that it was unlocked. Seeing groups of elderly men arriving with dollies of materials and equipment for presentations confirmed my intuition that I was in the right place.
Then one of them caught my attention! Chuck Mower, I recognized him, but would he recognize me? Probably not. Was the event venue and attendance going to be small enough or big enough to avoid him without drawing attention to myself? I wasn’t sure. This was not a paid RSVP event, so I was certainly free to change my mind and leave, an option still on the table at that point. I waited until almost check-in time and headed for the front door, but a political eyesore caught my attention before I got that far, and it was a bench engraved with the names of Martha Fuller Clark (MFC) and her husband. Gross! Too bad I didn’t have Dr. Sherman on speed dial because it was a good time and place to vomit.
I went inside, and the receptionist directed me to the activity room, where a door was propped open, and a cluster of people were setting up a makeshift coffee-and-donuts table. I spotted Chuck Mower and retreated to the hall before he could see me. I texted Ms. Ginger with a “guess who I just saw,” as she’s the one best equipped to be a “personal political shrink,” even if she doesn’t agree to that responsibility, because she’s the former GOP chair.
A few minutes later, she texted back. I stuck my head in the door and made about 59 seconds of small talk with a friendly volunteer who was setting up the coffee condiments. When I asked her who to pay the cover charge to, she said they weren’t set up for it yet. “Good,” I thought, because I still had time to decide, “should I stay or should I go,” as that song says.
There were 4 rows of 4 chairs on each side of the aisle, and I took a seat furthest from the nearest one that appeared to be taken because I didn’t want anyone talking to me. I wasn’t taking any chances because anyone I wind up in social small talk with might have close ties to Chuck Mower and “bring him into the fold,” to use some frequent words of Nurse Terese. I busied myself with my phone while someone set up a PowerPoint computer at a table in the front. Then that guy waved to a muzzled guy in the front row who looked like death, warmed over. Think of a male version of Rep. Elberger because that’s the image I can’t get out of my head. In fact, this guy twisted his mask strings a few times in front of each ear.
Upon noticing the muzzled guy as clearly the emcee, I certainly didn’t want to spend $15 of my money and hours of my day seeing him multiple times, so THAT was what pushed me off the fence. Think of Captain Kirk interrogating Scotty and his peers in the Trouble with Tribbles. He repeatedly asks, “Was it then when you threw the first punch?” Ultimately, Scotty answers in the affirmative when Kirk asks if it was after the insult against the Enterprise. It was having to repeatedly look at a practitioner of Mask Madness that made me scrap my plans to attend today’s SIA symposium, not Chuck Mower, but I still call it a “bait and switch of the Chucks.”
If you are still reading at this point, you might be asking what the point is. If you’re in Merrimack, there is a point because today (Saturday, 3/28) is (yet another) “No Kings” day. The questions about Chuck Mower are as follows:
Did he already commit to this SIA event before the ubiquitous No Kings clown show was scheduled for today?
If the answer to the previous question is NO, then what made him choose the SIA event over the nearest clown show?
