The Race to the Bus That Comes Down the Hill - A Revisionist Tale

A misty morning – now sufficient to inhibit me from walking the dog and the wanting to go out – on the way to catch the school bus, he stopped and was bouncing his back pack full of book off of the payment. It’s only a baby, but they grow up, he said. What are you doing, I asked? Killing a copperhead, he replied. I was afraid of stepping on it. He and his older brother and the other neighbor kid caught the bus at the corner just after the dog and I made our turn to head back. The timing of the bus and the timing of the kids always seems to be impeccable – the efficiency of modern technological gadgets – unlike clocks that one used to forget to wind up. Tomorrow is the last day to vote – help our school win $500,000. Most people hesitate, too leery of a scam. Oliver tells them its ok and is contributing a $25 gift certificate in a raffle of those who have a facebook page and vote for this school. Kohl’s is giving away money to the schools that get the most votes – this is the only one in the area that has a chance – but has slipped from 14th last night to 16th and now 17th this morning – the top 20 will get the funding. Sort of sounds like Obama’s Race to the Top. The Commission of Education for New Jersey got fired for entering the wrong years on the states application. I voted five times – you get 20 votes of which no more than five can be used to nominate a single school. A lot of people promise to vote – they are in a hurry the claim. Some, a few, do not have facebook pages. Some ignore the plea and walk out the door. Would you like to help our school win $500,000? Sounds like there might be a catch and they ignore her and walk on out the door. I feel sympathy for her having to make the spiel every time someone passes by and I shut-down my notice of her, but am unable to completing shut her out.

For the qualities adults think of as virtues in a child are generally considered by other children to be shear sycophancy – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p446

I’m good to go. I paid my sales tax on my truck (to the state and the county), now all I have to do is file my taxes and pay my auto insurance – all I need other than living expenses is to buy gasoline. No. it’s impossible – no way can it be as easy as that. Time to hit the open road again. Throw the camping gear and the little dog (I bet he’ll be glad to escape the cat) into the truck and go – holiday travel (Memorial Day) is expected to be high (average trip 650 miles, average cost for the three day weekend, $700).

And then the bus came downhill from the plateau through the forest into the valleys and stopped at the station with connecting trains to Paris and Versailles. We got out in the rain, and each disappeared, after thinking the driver – as they do in the country – into the various suburbs, barely lit, in contrast to the city of light behind the chain of hills. Other than that I have nothing to tell about this event – Peter Handke – My Year in the No-Man’s Bay 1998 p21

But of course he could not let it lie – afterall he was a storyteller by profession – This story had to continue. And in fact didn’t it continue? At the open-air stand in front of the railway stations an adolescent was buying… - And before I went into the nearby Café de Vegageus as always, I looked up… Peter Handke – My Year in the No-Man’s Bay 1998 p22

The Postmodernist knows only the individual – himself, but he years for another. He lives in a theatre of chance – the stage setting constantly changing. He knows he is a ham actor. Postmodernism is the abandonment of what had seemed secure and safe. It is an emotional distancing of oneself from a presence that is suicidal. This lemming fears the cliffs. He wakes up wishing it were only a nightmare. He wants desperately to go back to sleep.

Evolutionists have hesitation acknowledging that whatever trait they are studying might be nonadaptive or even downright maladaptive, but in fact they don’t usually take those options very seriously – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p124

Highly religious doctors are more reluctant to discuss end of life treatment decision with their patients than are less religious doctors

He turned away from every person who stood up for a war, on the principle of one’s land, or pride of ownership, or even personal rights. All of those motives ended up somehow in the arms of careless power. One was no worse and no better than the enemy – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p119

How do you know
      When you are dying
You will know once
       You are fully  grown
When you are all that you
       Can be

You never liked it easy for too long. / I once found that this bed on which you lie / Is just a blanket-covered length of board. / For you, hardness authenticates, and when / Things get too easy, well you make them hard – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p377

Revisionism


The historians of individualism
        Are now being trumped
These theologians of the self
        Are yelling to high heaven
But this is merely historicism
Whereby everyone on top
       Wants history to stop
Perhaps even not totally cease
       But go backwards a little
       And then stop for all time
But history is the telling of a story
And this is my story

I wanted to fine one law to cover all of living. I found fear – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p135