Fabric of Our Lives
By RWBC Member Heather Pielke
When I was growing up, I loved Jesus Christ, my mom and dad, children’s toys and story books, Christian radio, especially children's hour, the classical radio station, and Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
My school age years, I still loved all those things, and woke up each morning excited to learn in school, homework, extracurricular activities, such as ballet, piano lessons, ice skating and swimming. As a high school student at St. Paul’s School for Girls, I also became interested in extracurricular activities provided at school, such as student council, art, and sports. I became more interested in Evangelical contemporary culture and theology, as encouraged by my parents and the Bible based evangelical church my parents and I attended at the time. My main interests, Jesus, family, art, music, and sports continued through college, as I earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and the history of art from Johns Hopkins’s University, Class of 2000.
From the period of young adulthood in the early 2000’s to the present time of 2023, I have worked as a consultant and a small business owner of resurrectables.com. Now at 45, my love of culture, economics, history, and classical music have been the basis of my post collegiate social life as a classical music church choir singer, a long-term member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and a member of the Republican Women of Baltimore County (RWBC). Recently, I formed a Bible study group of which I am the leader.
I loved growing up in the suburbs and briefly experienced urban life in Baltimore City as a Johns Hopkins University undergraduate student, in Manhattan during my Sotheby’s auction house internship and for one year after college while I worked for the Colonial Dames. Urban living brought a lack of convenient parking and the inconvenience of public transportation. However, the metropolitan lifestyle provided gourmet coffee shops, restaurants, art museums, auction houses, and art galleries.
In today’s world the metropolitan lifestyle is available in the nice suburban area in which I grew up and currently live and work. In fact, a lot of Americans seem to share the same sentiments, as employers now have trouble convincing employees to leave their comfortable at home computer-based work to return to the office post pandemic. The burning question is, where are the fun activities for the young fun, tame, college educated professional from the age of 20s-50s?
Activities to meet new people are prevalently advertised as taking place in city locations. The reality is that a few in person meet new people gatherings are not necessarily likely to lead to great continued friendships, compared to continued activity groups or activity lessons. I realized this and moved back to my hometown where I love it. However, I do realize from my own parents, as well as historical research, that there used to be a lot more fun activities to go to in suburbs, as well as urban areas. The concept that most Americans have discovered “is that the city is allegedly better” is a myth. America’s big move to the suburbs and suburban happiness indicates a lot of people value the countryside, especially in the south and a few northern areas where there are activities, especially outdoor ones.
You cannot even find better fashion in Manhattan than you can in a suburban department store or designer direct dot com! After you finish your education and formative years, choose a career and possibly a mate, whether you are married or not it is clear where you can find good, clean fun, activities? As Republicans we should be discussing good clean culture, the contemporary, traditional, and classic kind.
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