Driving down 146, I saw a truck pulled to the shoulder, hood up, driver staring at smoke. It reminded me of the state itself: a machine long ignored, running hot, warning lights blinking, but still forced forward. Eventually it seizes.
America feels like that this April. Every system flashes warnings — inflation, supply chains, education, trust. But leaders tell us to keep moving, to ignore the smoke. That’s how engines die.
People in Shoreacres know better. A fisherman maintains his outboard religiously because one failure can cost a catch. A neighbor checks oil every Saturday before towing a camper. Regular maintenance doesn’t make headlines, but it prevents collapse.
Our national politics treat maintenance as weakness. Leaders chase spectacle. They score points while roads crack, grids falter, and families pay more for less. The refusal to address the basics — infrastructure, wages, honest governance — leaves the country running hotter than it should.
The check engine light is on. Pretending otherwise won’t reset it. Honest work will: boring, repetitive, steady. April’s lesson is that survival depends less on speeches than on maintenance. The bay doesn’t care about excuses. Neither do engines.