How'd they get so lit up?

Take a walk on the peep side

Any day officially designated “good” is a day I want to spend outdoors. If it’s a Friday, even better. So it is that I found myself hiking in Quarry Park one morning last week, happy to break in my newish walking shoes.

The park seemed to be expecting me, with a comfortable temperature and blooms abounding and about a dozen hawks lazily riding the drafts above the lake.

After a bit of a hike, I found myself in the secret spot by a hidden creek that I know, set aside for contemplation and appreciation. I sat, closed my eyes, and took a few deep breaths.

When I opened my eyes, I found I was not alone.

Standing there before me was a group of peeps.

I know how this sounds, but what can I tell you? There they were.

A high-pitched, parakeet-like voice said, “Hello.”

Ever polite, I responded, “Hello.”

“How are you today?”

“Fine. And you?”

There was a soft murmur as the seven peeps I counted nodded toward each other, whispered in each other’s … ear locations, then turned their focus back toward me.

“We’re fine,” they all seemed to say in unison.

“We hope we didn’t scare you,” the foremost peep said. “We know you probably haven’t seen little peeps before. We keep to ourselves. But every now and then we sense something happening in the big peep world and we get curious.”

Another one piped up: “We had this feeling that things with you big peeps were kind of bad for a while.”

Another, toward the back, took up the thread: “But this morning we sensed that something was better. Can you tell us why?”

“Well, there were some developments yesterday —” Their little brows seemed to wrinkle. “Some things happened yesterday that have cheered a lot of us. Like, there’s this court — it’s where this very smart man or woman, a judge, decides what should happen — that told our leader that he had to follow the rules even if he didn’t want to. He’s a very strong judge and — you see, our leader doesn’t want to follow the rules. He sent a man to prison —”

They seemed confused. There was a twitter in the back.

“You see, we have these rules, like ‘don’t steal,’ and ‘don’t hit anyone.’ And if someone is accused of breaking the rules, an officer will take him to court and the judge will decide if he did break the rules and then how to punish him. But we believe that anyone who is accused of breaking the rules deserves a chance to defend himself or herself, too, so the judge will hear from the accused before deciding what to do.

“But our leader has been punishing people — peeps — without going to the judge first. One peep in particular. So now some of the judges are telling him to bring the man back and put him before the court the way he’s supposed to. He doesn’t want to, though.”

“Why doesn’t he want to?”

“Well, he’s trying to change the way things work. He’s trying to make it so nobody pays attention to the courts anymore, they just do whatever he says. And his followers have agreed to that.”

“But what if he makes a mistake?”

“His followers don’t seem to care. But some of us do, so we want to be sure the courts decide. The courts are less likely to make a mistake.

“So first the leader’s peeps tried to justify punishing the man — tried to say it was OK because this man was one kind of trouble-maker. But nobody could prove he was that kind of trouble-maker. So then they said the man was another kind of trouble-maker. But that didn’t matter, the judges say. He’s still supposed to go to the judge first. That’s the way the rules are supposed to work for everyone. It’s only fair.”

They murmured to each other again.

“We like fair,” they said in unison.

“Also, this … this school that the leader tried to tell what to do — the school said it wasn’t going to follow his orders. Not only that, but one of our public intellectuals, a very thoughtful man, a writer, said that we should all unite to work against this leader. It was very encouraging to a lot of us who have been trying to keep him from doing bad things. We feel like we might finally be turned a corner toward getting back to … to living well. Living in peace. So when we read about all of that this morning, it felt like a very good day.

“You see — there’s a great division among our peeps right now —” their brows furrowed — “the easy way to put it is that some of us want to live in a nice society where peeps can say what they want and learn what they want and do what they want, as long as they’re not hurting anyone. But there are these other peeps who think that everybody should live the way they say, even if it hurts peeps. And they made a deal with the leader that they’d support him as long as he tried to control peeps the way they want.”

“This big peep sounds mean. How did he become your leader?”

“Well, that’s a good question. A lot of us are having trouble figuring that out.”

“He doesn’t sound like a peep to me,” one said. “He sounds like a poop.”

They all laughed. It sounded like high-pitched hiccups.

“Well, I can’t argue with that.”

“It probably has something to do with greed, too,” I said.

Again, their brows furrowed. “What’s that?” one asked.

“Greed? Well, it’s like when one peep wants to have a lot of things to himself and not share with anyone else.”

The peeps murmured, then: “We don’t understand.”

“Well, like — like what do you peeps eat?”

“We eat acorns and clover!”

“Acorns and clover!” they all chanted. “Acorns and clover!”

“OK, so what if one of you gathered all the acorns and clover in one place and then said, ‘I’m not going to let you have any unless you do what I say.’”

“Why would a peep do that? Is it like a game?”

“It’s because then you have to do what he says.”

“But no one could eat all those acorns and clover. Everyone else would be hungry.”

“You could do it,” one peep said to another, and they all laughed, including the recipient of the joke.

“But why would … how could … that’s … that’s wrong.” On that word, they all seemed to inhale sharply.

“I know. It is. Some peeps do it anyway.”

They murmured again.

“Well, we have to go,” the foremost peep said. “But thank you for talking to us. We’re glad life is better now.”

I suddenly remembered my phone. “Wait a second — could I take your picture?”

“What’s that?”

As I clicked, I asked a few questions:

“Where do you live?”

“We live here.”

“How do you govern yourselves?”

“What’s ‘govern’?”

“Do you have a leader?”

“We had a king once.”

“What happened to him?”

“We ate him.” And they all laughed.

Then they were gone.

There are many things in life that are hard to explain; some material, some more philosophical, societal. That’s why it’s important to think about things, to ponder and debate. We go down one track and we may find it’s difficult to turn back, even when we discover that it’s the wrong track.

Most answers are more complicated than a tweet or a bumper sticker or an internet essay. Simple fairness and justice can seem elusive. But peeps of conscience keep trying to find them.

…..

Overflow:

I’m in good company; Heather Cox Richardson, on Thursday, also posited that “There seems to be a change in the air.” Several court decisions supporting the rule of law and opposing President and convicted felon Donald Trump’s executive orders seem to suggest a shift in the power dynamics back toward rationality and fairness.

Fourth Circuit Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson’s ruling is worth reading in its entirety; it’s a work of art and science and should be the final word. It shouldn’t matter, but Wilkinson is a Reagan appointee, so the Trump administration’s usual tactic of “he’s a left-wing liberal Marxist trying to steal executive authority” should gain no purchase here:
https://time.com/7278774/judge-harvie-wilkinson-opinion-read-full-text-trump-abrego-garcia/

New York Times columnist David Brooks last week called for a “national civic uprising” to combat the destruction of Trumpism. He’s not the only public intellectual who has reached this conclusion, but an obvious man of conscience, he’s very influential:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/trump-harvard-law-firms.html
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/conservative-nyt-columnist-david-brooks-calls-for-national-civic-uprising-to-defeat-trumpism-complete-with-mass-rallies-strikes/

I know lots of folks who are doing their part and are ready to do more. Some will be here at 6:30 pm, Wednesday, April 30:

I’ll have copies of my book in the trunk of the car. They’re also available from Bookmarks, Book Ferret and The Eclectible Shop. “Stardust” is also available from the publisher, Press 53.

Happy Easter! Let’s hear it for all good peeps.

Thanks for being here today. If you know anyone else who should be here, invite them to join us: