The inclination to veer away from angry circumstances and volatile topics is strong this week and therefore lands us in Berlin, where, if all is far from perfect, its officials and residents at least continue to strive for a rare level of community harmony and attractiveness.
And what could be more harmonious than an excellent bike path or two connecting various parts of town. The establishment of plans for one to run from the Berlin Falls park to downtown and the consideration of another for the east side of town are not what anyone would call culturally or industrially pivotal projects.
Yet, they represent the town’s continuing commitment to do the little things where and when it can to make life more enjoyable for everyone.
Even though these are small steps, they join any number of other improvements that also wouldn’t register on Richter scale of wondrous developments to form an increasingly attractive package that has been built layer by layer.
More significantly, however, the town’s sustained pursuit of community enrichment illustrates what can be accomplished when officials and residents work together, when civil servants actually are civil, and when individual opinions count but aren’t more important than the goal.