Barb Caffrey's Blog

Folks, I haven’t written a blog in a bit because, where I live in Wisconsin, we had some of the worst air quality in the nation over the past few weeks.

Bad air — in this case, polluted air from Canadian wildfires — was the culprit. I am asthmatic, so poor air quality is the bane of my existence. I can’t do much when the air quality is terrible except pray that it goes away and go about whatever business I can contract (usually it’s whatever is needed to stay alive and no more).

Now, is this living well? Hell, no, it’s not. It’s merely the best I can do, that’s all.

The Fourth of July was yesterday, which of course is a huge holiday in the United States due to it being Independence Day. Usually, the fireworks would not hurt me; the air quality to start with is usually good enough to handle it. But this year, I’m afraid it wasn’t…not for me, anyway.

See, when the air is bad, there’s almost no way to get away from it. Yes, there are air cleaners. Yes, there are air conditioners to lower the temperature a bit so (as an asthmatic) you’re not fighting on two fronts (the heat and the poor quality of the air). Yes, there are ways to make things better, but they don’t seem to be helping overmuch this summer.

That said, I am continuing to do the best I can even though I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. I’m waiting for better days, or at least days containing better air, so I can resume living the best life I can.

I can recommend one very good book to keep you busy, though…it’s called A SPLENDID EXCHANGE: How Trade Shaped the World by William J. Bernstein. I’ve found the insights into this book, which include why slavery flourished for a time but later declined (thank goodness) and the differences between slavery in the West Indies (where people died due to overwork, high heat, and brutal living conditions) and the United States’ Southern states (where while the life wasn’t a cakewalk, families were encouraged to form among the slaves if only to save the owners money in not needing to buy more; it was this reason why the Southern U.S. slaves mostly lived while the West Indies’ slaves died en masse). I don’t agree with everything Bernstein says, as I don’t agree with anything any historian says. (The impolite among you can say it: Maybe I don’t agree fully with anyone?) But I found that an interesting insight, along with others about the rise of the East India Company in the UK, and before them the Dutch’s industrial trade complex, and before that, the Portugese trading empire…everything built off everything else, and while most things were learned over time and transmitted, some lessons seemingly needed to be learned over and over again.

Bernstein’s book is only $2.99 right now as an e-book, and it’s an invaluable resource for writers IMHO. (Especially if you don’t agree with it, mind you. It spurs you on to finding other answers, or at least it has in my case.)

So, I hope that book will keep you amused, as we all continue to fight the poor air quality in the Midwest that probably is going to hang around as long as the Canadian wildfires do.