Pax Brightonia

Pax Brightonia

from Iconic America at the Little League Parade

As our readership has happily increased and the archives are filing up, we occasionally revisit one our longstanding series. Today, it is the Town of Brighton.

Over the years, my fellow Brighton High School graduate and our political commentator Bruce Kay has on one or two occasions waggishly referred to our town as Pax Brightonia.  Apparently, Pax Brightonia is a play on the terms Pax Brittania and perhaps Pax Romana, the extended periods when the British and Roman empires held sway.

I believe Bruce was implying that Brighton has a certain imperious undertone.  At one time in Brighton’s history, Bruce might have been right that it was an upper crust, homogeneous locale. But today Brighton is Monroe County’s most diverse town: ethnically, racially, religiously and economically.  Brighton is home to many progressives who — not choosing to live in an outer ring suburb — are actively engaged in city life.

Anyway, who says Pax Romana was so bad?  In Scene 10 from Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Before the Romans Things Were Smelly, the Judean rebels are plotting to overthrow the “Roman Imperialist State.”  The rebels have a discussion on what the Romans have ever actually done for them.  Quickly, the rebels realize the Romans have done a lot for Judea:

REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

XERXES: Brought peace.

REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

So maybe Pax Brightonia isn’t so bad.

Below are most, but not all, of our Brighton stories by category.

ACTIVISM

On a “Black Lives Matter” sign in Brighton

An anti-racism vigil and Black Lives Matter signs in Brighton

Many voices against hate at the Twelve Corners

Helping to find Trevyan Rowe at the Twelve Corners Memorial Park

ARCHITECTURE

Temple Beth El: A Community of Living Memory

Seeker of Light: Re-Viewing Louis Kahn’s First Unitarian Church

ART

At the Brighton Town Hall 1957 mural with Sandra Frankel

BEST TOWN IN NEW YORK

Site says Brighton is best place to live in New York

EDUCATION

An MLK Day of symphonies, service and Sneetches at Hillel Community Day School

Young citizens show their mettle at the Brighton High School Walk Out

FARMS

Abandoned farms in Brighton

FILM

AMVETS saves the day at film shooting in Brighton; Talker pitches in.

FOURTH OF JULY

Celebrating diversity on the Fourth of July at Meridian Centre Park in Brighton

Celebrating the Fourth of July at the Game at the Corners. And much more.

GARDENS

Brighton-Pittsford Post prints “Garden blooms at local 7 Eleven”

HISTORY/LITERATURE

Brighton High School remembers its New Wave/retro punk/Art punk past: The De Grads

A poem from former Degrad Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, BHS ’80. And advice to young writers.

After Parkland, discovering fallen Brightonians from World War Two

HUMAN INTEREST

Good Luck continues. And what the Torah says I should do. And the Mystic’s stick

Mayor of the Twelve Corners Dunkin’ Donuts celebrates his 93nd birthday on D-Day. Three days later, Victor Angelo flew a bombing mission over Vienna

LIBRARIES

Do the troubled spirits of John and Irene walk the Brickyard Trail? Probably not. At the Brighton Library, Matt Bashore unveils the twists and turns of the crime and punishment

A ribbon cutting and the Pages of the Brighton Memorial Library

Read about Sutton Griggs at the Brighton Memorial Library

In search of Shirley Jackson and finding the Brighton High School Alumni author display case

MARKETS

From Zimbabwe to Tokyo at the Brighton Farmers Market

MEADOWBROOK

A fond farewell to the Get Some Balls! sale in Brighton

What is a Meadowbrook Parade without the First U.S. Girl On The Moon?

MUSIC

Forget EastplaceMarketview when you can Get Hip at Black Vinyl Friday at Bop Shop Records

In line and inside the Bop Shop for National Record Store Day

NATURE

New plaques in Town: Read all about it

PARKS

The ground breaking of the Brickyard Trail in Brighton and “Memories of the Crab Apple battles”

On a stainless steel American Bald Eagle in Buckland Park and endorsing Sandra Frankel

More on how the Sandra L. Frankel Nature Park came to be

Ghosts MIGHT walk the beautiful Brickyard Trail in Brighton.

Visiting a Talker haunt: the Brickyard Trail with Leslie Frances and Audrey

The difference between guys and girls in coed softball at Brighton Town Park

How do you make it to Carnegie Hall? Go to the Rochester Academy of Music & Arts!

Kids Fishing Derby at Brighton Town Park. And a fish story.

PEOPLE

Brighton girl taking feminist humor big time

From Brighton to LA: Andria Langston, a bright actress sharing her light with the world

Getting To Know Svet Radoslavof, Brighton High School ’05; A Groundbreaking Hip Hop Violinist and Influential Figure In Music

I Was Racially Profiled In My Own Neighborhood Today. Again.

In Memoriam: Morris Shapiro 1913 – 2016

Nazareth College’s President Daan Braveman on defining moments and his own March on Washington, August 1963

Byrna Weir remembers and honors Don Franklin’s life and art

PHILANTHROPY

Why did the Faith Temple in Brighton give away free stuff?

POLITICAL HISTORY

Memories of presidential visits on Election Day in Brighton

Which Presidential election mattered the most to you?

SPORTS: baseball, chess, football, softball volleyball

Brighton fans celebrate hometown hero Ernie Clement in victory

Back from Nebraska and Virginia and on his way to Wisconsin, Brighton’s Ernie Clement pitches in at his old baseball camp

Iconic America at the Brighton Little League Parade

Talker gets some Little League love from the Brighton-Pittsford Post

Wildcats strike out our undermanned Barons

Congratulations Barons on a magical season.

Barons prevail in first televised football game at Reifsteck Field

Working on the Chain Gang at Reifsteck Field

Pygmies of ’69 remain Brighton’s last undefeated football team

New Team in Town: Roc City Steelers debut at Buckland Park

Encore for the Roc City Steelers at Buckland Park

Farewell Boys and Girls of Summer! Under-40 MVP smashes 5 home runs off Over-40 MVP in Sunday finale

In grand fashion, Brighton celebrates its volleyball champions and the first Boys state team sports title in school history

THEATER

King ‘Drew and his new Crew at JCC CenterStage: “Bloody, Bloody, Andrew Jackson”

Once again, charmed and challenged at the JCC CenterStage: Church and State

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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