Mood:
vegas luckyTopic: "The Boys of '63" (8)
Frodo has been asked to read a manuscript. It is much, much more than Frodo expected. Since much of the text involves real people and real places known to him, it is difficult for Frodo to retain a truly objective opinion. Simply because the odds are great that what has been written will never reach the public marketplace, and because there is so much value in the banter of young men as innocence stands naked in their headlights, Frodo offers a setting, and some dialogue.
It is the spring of 1963. A bus transits small towns in Appalachia with a cargo of young men, who play baseball. What follows herein is copyrighted material whose use is assumed solely for the purpose of non-commercial reference.
"He was staring out the window as if searching for something unseen, or contemplating something far away from baseball and our bus. Half turning in his seat, Bob responded with his own query, 'what do you think is out there?'"
"You know, out there, beyond everything, where we all go when we punch out, when the big game is over?"
"Professor Neal was talking about the Great Depression last week and about how desperate things were. He talked about how a lot of rich people thought the government should just let nature take its course, and let the country recover on its own steam. And these people hated Roosevelt, they didn't just disagree with him or dislike him, they hated him for what he was doing with government programs and the New Deal creating make work jobs and programs to help poor people actually survive with some dignity and try to get back on their feet."
"What Roosevelt said when he ran for re-election in 1936 really hit home and I memorized the words after hearing them just that one time in the Professor's lecture. It goes like this 'The immortal Dante tells us that the sins of the cold blooded are measured in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the persistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indiffrence.'"
"I guess where I come down is believing that whatever the best thing is that's out there will be the place for the warm hearted."
For long minutes neither of us said anything as we both looked out the window at the greening Tennessee landscape, slipping serenely by as the Fuller bus hummed along, amid the murmuring of light banter in the conversations around us.
That night, in the dormitory, we lit farts.
accident prone
happy
don't ask
irritated
on fire
a-ok
amorous
smelly
suave