I drove past Ms. Pigette the other day on my way off the peninsula. I was going to stop and chat, but she just waved at me. I think she was waving with her whole hand, but I can’t be sure of that.

After all, there is a lot going on in our beloved nation, and I am sure she was busy chatting with her sources and listening to news reports on her smartphone. Don’t ask me how a wooden statue holding up a mailbox has a smartphone, or who pays the bill. There are just some details I don’t want to know.

That said, today’s news is a lot for her (and us) to take in, especially for those of us who preferred to goof off, instead of doing our schoolwork. Most of us have a lot on our plates and don’t have time to keep up with every news story. We have lives to live, chores to do, johns to swab out.

The garden has to be put to bed, the grass has to be mowed, and there is the painting that we have been putting off for most of the summer. And, gulp, does the old snowblower still work?

You know the rest. We all have lots going on and who has time to sit on the computer and read the nation’s newspapers? Who has time to listen to the sincere announcers on NPR, or the frantic doomsday blowhards on other radio stations? Then there are Fox News and MSNBC. Enough said.

Still, even if you keep up with them all, it is hard to cut through the partisan baloney to understand the details.

For example, what are the facts of climate change and how it will affect us, especially those of us on the coast? What will it mean for our electric bills? Who will pay for it all? The president says the noise from wind turbines causes cancer. Others dispute that. Who do you believe?

Same goes for the debate about guns and the Second Amendment. Yes, the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment, and it enshrined our right to bear arms. Our friends who love to hunt and own weapons are good, decent folks. No one wants the law to invade their homes and confiscate their gun collection. But what should we do about the plague of school shootings? Is it enough for our leaders to lead us in “thoughts and prayers” every time a madman kills a bunch of kids, shoots up a church or into the crowd at a country music show?

Then you find yourself caught up in debates about reproductive rights, school choice, racial justice, legal marijuana, taxes, and whether our neighbors, the lobster fishermen, are killing off the whales. And, I am not even going to try to figure out what is going on with the road construction in downtown Wiscasset.

For the last several years, our nation’s leaders can’t even agree on what to have for lunch, although many can agree that someone else, probably a lobbyist, ought to pick up the check.

If all that stuff was not enough, last week, Congress flipped its collective noggin over reports accusing the president of abusing his office when he tried to get a foreign government to get some dirt on one of his political rivals. The Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, are seeking to impeach the president over this matter. The Republicans who control the Senate are trying to figure what to do about it.

My old colleagues in the press are trying to figure out what happened, who did what to whom, and what it all means for Washington and the rest of us.

I don’t know the answer, but I know what history tells us. Our nation has always debated the big issues. The Civil War put an end to the institution of slavery, but it did not come close to putting an end to the debate over racial justice.

We survived fires, floods and hurricanes. We lived through the turmoil caused by the robber barons, the industrial revolution, the union movement, energy scandals, prohibition, the Great Depression, world wars, both hot and cold, and the long nightmare called Vietnam. I’ll bet we will even survive the fallout from Maine's first U-Pick hemp farm.

The latest Washington scandal will be messy and unpleasant. We all should try to pay attention to the details.

One thing is for sure. Those who accept simple solutions to highly complex problems are bound to be disappointed.

In the meantime, Ms. Pigette suggests we say our prayers, love our families and keep our seat belts fastened.

Can I get an amen?