It was very much like Norman Rockwell: small town America. We walked to school or rode our bikes, stopped at the penny candy store on the way home from school, skated on the pond.
A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That's the most important thing.
If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.
Once I retire and slow down, I don't want to be in New York. I want to be somewhere near a lake or a pond, so that on my days when I have nothing to do, I can go fishing.
I had learning problems when I was in elementary school, and didn't really start to read well until high school. I never read any of the middle grade classics that were popular when I was young - 'Harriet the Spy', 'Charlotte's Web', 'The Witch of Blackbird Pond', 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.