Contents of M:
Since I was a small child I have loved to spend time in the mountains.
Mountains reach above the tedium and disgust of everyday life, providing a space
of clarity, vision and solitude. Some day I will escape to the mountains, and
create a world where we can all breathe.
Mr.
Lavis-Tuttlebee Gets a Parking Ticket:
Mr. Lavis-Tuttlebee was upset sitting in his car. He was worried about
parking tickets. Two weeks ago he had received a parking ticket for parking on
the wrong side of the street - apparently he had misread the sign and left his
vehicle on the Tuesday side instead of the Monday side even though the sign
clearly stated which was which. A traffic cop put a ticket under his wind shield
wiper and affixed a large fluorescent green sticker on the rear passenger side
window that suggested - or rather - accused him of obstructing the street in a
manner that made proper and complete street cleaning impossible. He was the
monkey wrench in the works - he was the street cleanerâs bane. And he owed the
city $35 - which he paid promptly after carefully studying the ticket for any
mistakes the officer may have made while filling it out - which he recently
heard was the easiest way to get around paying such tickets. It took several
more days before he was able to admit to his wife what had happened (wife by
common law - they never bothered to legalize their relationship). When his wife
finally did find out she just laughed and told him to be more careful and maybe
he should get more sleep. Now he was sitting inside his car, parked on one side
of the road and staring at the other. He had just dropped his wife off at the
grocery and had begun to hunt for a parking space and found one on the street
perpendicular to his own, a street he very rarely parked on, which was the
source of some considerable anxiety because he truly did not want to get another
parking ticket. He looked at the sign on the opposite side of the street - it
said, ãNO PARKING MONDAYä - that was tomorrow. He looked at the sign on his
side, ãNO PARKING TUESDAYä - that was the following day. This was exactly as
it should be... but he was still nervous - was he reading the signs properly? He
read them again and then a third time. He had the sneaking suspicion that they
could change on him somehow, that they would switch and he would end up with
another fine and another sticker. ãIâm concentrating... Iâve got my
glasses on.... Iâm on the right side.ä He locked the car, then checked three
times to make sure it was locked, then unlocked his door and got out, closed his
door, locked it and checked that the rest of the car was also locked, the whole
time with his eyes on the parking signs. Finally he began to walk the one-third
of a block back to his apartment; he turned around and read the signs once more
very carefully and slowly redid the math in his head, then he looked around to
see if anyone was around to see what he was doing. Finally he forced himself to
walk away from the car and to his building. Inside, he tried to relax but
couldnât help but think that he may have misread the signs or maybe they did
change somehow - not that he believed that they could uproot themselves, switch
sides and then replant like Fantasiaâs walking brooms - but switch somehow so
that they werenât as he read them. He contemplated asking his wife to go have
a look to make sure he did it right. Instead he said to himself, ãToday is
Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday. The following day is Tuesday......Today is Sunday.
Tomorrow is Monday. The following day is Tuesday....... Today is Sunday.
Tomorrow is Monday. The following day is Tuesday.ä ãWhatâs that Lavis?ä,
asked his wife. ãToday is Sunday. Tomorrow is Monday. The following day is
Tuesday,ä he repeated quietly to himself. ãAre you okay? You didnât get
another parking ticket did you?ä ãNo....no.ä
ãCBO [Congressional Budget Office] figures show that by the end of the 1980s the poorest group of U.S. citizens was paying roughly 20 percent more of their earnings in taxes, and the richest group was paying about 20 percent less, than a decade earlier. This created the widest disparity between the family incomes of the rich and the poor since World War II.ä 13 I spent my teenage years growing up under the oppressive conditions of Reaganomics; many of my friends were born during these years. It is sad because we almost donât know anything else; in the absence of more enlightened social examples, the dominance of the wealthy and the subjugation of the poor have become accepted as inevitable. We would do ourselves and our fellow citizens (especially the poor and disadvantaged) a great service by looking back beyond our lifetime experience of history to the progressive movements of the 1930âs and 1960âs. If the ãevery thirty yearsä trend is to hold true, my generation is overdue for a major socio-economic renaissance.