On dailyness in a time lacking precedent

 

Boston Fire Department post-fire

I was working in the office in Boston the last week of May when a noticeable number of fire engines came screaming by. A look at social media revealed that a building two blocks over was actively on fire. It was the kind of fire that has people from all directions taking photos--lots of smoke in a heavily built-up area--and so it got plenty of attention. 
It wasn't, though, until I went to get lunch, and being just as nosy as you are, walked up the blocks to see what was now extinguished, taking the above photo, that I realized that I had at no point worried about where I was or my own safety. Despite being in an old port city, now build out of bricks for a reason, we have people for this: people who show up every day, having been extensively trained and equipped, exactly so I don't have to think about what I'm to do when a building two blocks over is on fire. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about this sort of showing up we take for granted, even as so much nationally is falling apart. So much of what have been so often sneeringly dismissed as federal bureaucrats are people--surprise!--on whose work we rely. This point was so effectively made by those suing to keep the federal Department of Education that they got an injunction, but of course it is just as true in every federal department, from the IRS (yes, indeed) to National Parks to USAID and on and on.

But as above, so below: the functioning of so many things at the state level and at the local level depends on the daily work of people whose names and titles never make articles, whose functions never get discussed unless and until some clueless git eliminates them. 

Do you think about what's in your water when you turn on the tap? 

Or what happens after you take out the trash to the curb? 

Or if the bridge you drive over on your way to work is going to fall down?

Aren't you glad that somebody does?