The rediscovered manuscript
I’m not the sort of person who moblogs1, I’m the sort who writes things down on a scrap of paper, intending to type them in later. So there I was reviewing some dormant financial accounts2 when I discovered the following gem, scribbled last December and, what with all the holiday distractions3, forgotten. Until now:
In the spirit of the season I selected a group of troubled teens from a local youth center and had them write what gift they wished for Christmas on a 3x5 card. Of course the requests were ludicrous - designer clothes, gold jewelry, etc. Many asked for expensive video game consoles, or, as one of the delinquents wrote, “get me X buks.” One 12 year old boy just wrote “X”. I think he wanted an Xbox too, but who knows? A 14 year old girl asked for a pony. “You can’t even feed your own children, how would you feed a Pony?” I asked her. She admitted I had a point. Not a single one wished for peace on Earth.
So I threw away the cards and gave each of them a copy of When I Was A Kid, This Was A Free Country, by the famous American super-patriot G. Gordon Liddy. If it inspires just one of the youths to learn how to read, well, I’d be surprised.
Merry Christmas!
1I’m not the sort of person who approves of the word moblogs.
2I was going through the pockets of my winter coats, in search of cash.
3If you guessed booze you guessed right.
In the spirit of the season I selected a group of troubled teens from a local youth center and had them write what gift they wished for Christmas on a 3x5 card. Of course the requests were ludicrous - designer clothes, gold jewelry, etc. Many asked for expensive video game consoles, or, as one of the delinquents wrote, “get me X buks.” One 12 year old boy just wrote “X”. I think he wanted an Xbox too, but who knows? A 14 year old girl asked for a pony. “You can’t even feed your own children, how would you feed a Pony?” I asked her. She admitted I had a point. Not a single one wished for peace on Earth.
So I threw away the cards and gave each of them a copy of When I Was A Kid, This Was A Free Country, by the famous American super-patriot G. Gordon Liddy. If it inspires just one of the youths to learn how to read, well, I’d be surprised.
Merry Christmas!
1I’m not the sort of person who approves of the word moblogs.
2I was going through the pockets of my winter coats, in search of cash.
3If you guessed booze you guessed right.
That is so good you should just "rediscover" it every Christmas season. I bet the kids aren't going to get any less shallow.
ReplyDeleteYes, it could be the "Miracle on 34th Street" of Across Difficult Country.
ReplyDeleteI'd slip off from the family dinner and read it every 12/24.
ReplyDeleteSteve: It's a miracle I could decipher my own handwriting.
ReplyDeleteAlex: I should probably post something about the 4th of July on 12/24, don't you think?
When one kid said "X buks" I thought he meant "X number of dollars(bucks)" Like,fill in the X with whatever ya got! :D
ReplyDelete