Love

"I don't know," said the old man,
"I thought I knew what love looked like once,
But I was only led astray.
I do not think I can tell one man's love as love
No more than I can tell mine,
And I do that very poorly.
But what I do know is that there is love.
And this I know for sure."

posted by Pacer 1/31/2003

Note on a Pillow

Dear sir,
I am one of the voices in your head.
I have fled.
I have gone to greener pastures
So that you might become
The master of your own mind once again,
Something which you have not been for quite a many ages.
Do not worry, I do not think it contagious.
No other voices shall pop up in my leave of absence,
Of that you can be quite sure
Since the one you have left is quite a bore.
But do not worry, for I leave you my memories
And my writings and my sayings
Over in that little book, written in the cursive hand,
So if you do not mind, I am off to conquer other lands.

posted by Pacer 1/31/2003

The Grey Man

I am the nowhere man
I am the gray man
I am the one your eye slips over when it scans the crowd
I am the one in the background of the movies of your lives
I drive the cars, buses, taxis, and trains as they slide by
I remember nothing, see nothing, think nothing, and feel nothing
I am nothing, and nothing is me
I am the gray man
And the gray man is me

posted by Pacer 1/31/2003

Thursday, January 23, 2003

The Room

A room, one day carpeted in red and beige designs and with nothing the next. We didn't mind. Except, perhaps, when barefoot feet froze in the winter on the lightly linoleum covered stone. "It's easier to clean," our mother explained when we asked why the ex-con workmen who were recommended by our pastor played born-again Christian music as they ripped up the old roads and pathways and forests and intersecting streets of our childhood cities and towns made of blocks, or models, or this or that filled with imaginary people - each one holding a life, a story of its own. "Our God is an awesome God ..." played in the background as they tugged away at the carpet, tearing it from its hold on the walls and on the room itself. It was our very own judgment day. Our childhood dreams lived only in our memories from that day on.

Next to the door a container lies. Unlike the rest of the room, it never changes - except in height, weight, color, size and shape. The container changes, but there is always one there. It's where we place all our knick-knacks, paddywacks, and little doggy bones we give to the neighbors' dogs, and our own before she was gone. Our Angel, a dalmatian of gentle persuasion who, in later years, had to be put down because she could not stand to be away from my mother and father. She kept sliding down the stairs, step by step, until she became so used to it she even ceased to yelp, resigned to her fate. The steps were carpeted then, too.

In the far corner was the second TV, the "other TV" as we called it, to which the unpopular shows were banished with their usual, solitary viewer. Sometimes he, or she, might have another companion. A sofa bed used to be over there, but now there is a chair and a desk, on which stands a sometimes computer, keeping the Nintendo and its Super brother company as the replacements for cars and tracks and Little People - or Barbies and My Little Ponies if you are my sisters.

Two poles, reminiscent of those in a garage, sit splitting the room. Perhaps because the room was once a garage, in a former life, and the previous owners were told that removing the poles would bring the roof down these remained. As if to amend for the failure, the previous owners had placed wood around one of these. This, however, went with the carpet. The poles themselves were excellent tools for imaginings. It is not every kid, after all, with firepoles in his house.

Closets circled the room. These were as caves of mystery to us in our childhood -- full of adventure and treasure. In reality they were full of Dad's tools and Mom's ... whatever needed storing. Books, gold clubs, and a big brass bed frame were some of the former occupants of the caves, all liberated at some point or another. No golf balls, though. One closet was the laundry room. Washer and dryer and lint bag and washing powder and light bulbs and cleaning solutions and change! left in the pockets of pants, a truly magical place. The change didn't last long.

Two doors offered ingress and egress. One, yellow and sturdy with a doorknob and bolt lock, faced the driveway and beyond. The other, wooden and hollow, with a lock to which we had no key, led to the inner chambers. Grownup land. This last held a mysterious hole that led to dreams of it being a lair for a beast, a place to meet Alice and the White Rabbit, or simply place where my Dad's foot came crashing into the door during one of his occasional bouts of temper. We were young and romantic. And, through this door, past this hole, you leave the land of children's dreams and pass into the land of the unknown.

posted by Pacer 1/23/2003

A Near Run

The room hung in awkward silence before the door came crashing open, spilling both light and little boys into the darkness. With yells they advanced in flashes of light and sharp, staccato reports of sound. Caps. With answering cries, shadows moved in the background and fired in return. Tatap tatap tatappity tap. Soon voices could be hard yelling "I got you," and "You're dead!" Each phrase was returned with a protest or an answer in kind until hardly anyone was left to argue. In a final, violent moment the doors to the closet where the laundry machine resided screeched open to reveal an ambush of light and sound. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. As the smoke cleared the arguments began to fade. The attackers had one member standing, the defenders none.

"It was a damned near run of a thing," a bright-eyed 8-year old said. He had led the ambush.

posted by Pacer 1/23/2003

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Memories

The light flickered on as I fumbled around my keychain. I was searching for the ever elusive right key. Once upon a time the light would signal that my mother, or sometimes my father, had waited up all night until I came home. The locks on the door would click and the door would open to reveal someone in a nightgown or pajamas ready to greet me with open arms. Now the light had a motion sensor.

My fingers slid across my keys as I searched for the one which would unlock the door. I had three keys on my “residences” key ring: one for my place and two for the door in front of me. One of them was for the previous lock. I don’t know why I kept it.

I reached for the doorknob of my memories past, but it was gone. In its place was a curvy, ornate door handle with a thumb latch for opening the door itself. The handle itself felt strange to me in its modern form. I missed the old, round doorknob.

As I opened the door I stepped into a playground of dreams from my childhood. It was not as it once was, but I remembered from those dusty, cobweb infested areas of my memory. Blocks and toys used to litter the landscape with videogames in one corner and caverns full of adventures in the next. Now there stood a rigid, metal workout machine - hardly used - in one and a dusty old treadmill folded in the other. Things change.

As I walked over the linoleum floor towards the door from the "kids room" to the "adult room" I could not help but smile. Each step I took passed through ghosts of moments past, and each one possessed me with warm thoughts and feelings.

The doorknob turned with ease and the door creaked open. My eyes moistened as I stepped through the doorway, out of my childhood and into my life.

posted by Pacer 1/22/2003

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

The Great White HOPE Myth

I attended a meeting at the Demosthenian Hall last semester where a debate topic was brought up which has been bothering me ever since. The topic concerned the HOPE scholarship, but rather get into details on the debate resolution itself I'd like to focus on what people said about HOPE.

The debate quickly turned into a debate over race and class, with many people saying that HOPE benefits the Georgia Middle Class, who are predominantly white, and that this was a problem. "HOPE is nothing more than a scholarship for being White and Middle Class" a speaker actually said at one point.

Recently, in an article in the Red & Black (Perdue: HOPE will stay alive, Tuesday, Jan 21, 2003), the criticism towards HOPE benefiting Middle Class students once again was mentioned. Echoes of the debate last semester crept into my mind, and once again I began thinking about the issue.

The problem with this line of criticism about the HOPE scholarship is that it ignores both logic and truth. While the debaters at Demosthenian Hall might have made a persuasive argument by skewing the facts and presenting half-truths, this does no one good in the end. The simple truth that people seem to forget when arguing this argument against HOPE is that the scholarship benefits not only the middle class, but the upper class and lower class as well.

It is simple: the HOPE scholarship is a scholarship solely based on school performance. Two factors come into play which cause the greater number, if not the majority, of HOPE recipients to be from the Middle Class: the middle class being one of the larger segments of society as well as receiving better education than the only class greater in numbers, the lower class.

The simple fact is that schools in Upper and Middle Class neighborhoods are better, and that, for various reasons, Upper and Middle Class students are better prepared than their Lower Class counterparts for education. Factor in the sheer numbers of the Middle Class with this greater ability to receive adequate education and you have more Middle Class students receiving HOPE than either the Upper or Lower classes. Simple.

The debaters and other HOPE detractors stop here, however, and refuse to go further. Why? Because they seem to refuse to acknowledge that HOPE, being an across the board scholarship, not only allows a larger number of Middle Class students to afford the college of their choice but also allows a larger number of Lower Class students to attend college at all.

The fact is this: HOPE allows more Lower Class students than ever before to go to College. Even if it benefits mostly Middle Class, this is more indicative of the failures in our education system than the HOPE scholarship, a scholarship which ignores not only race but economic standing.

So, next time you hear arguments against the HOPE scholarship, remember to think through the rhetoric and search for both truth in logic in the matter. Ensuring the future of a person by allowing them to go to College is not something to take lightly, nor is it something to base totally on emotion and rhetoric.

posted by Pacer 1/21/2003