Blog 11: The Widening Divide

Welcome to the arrival of PTSD, Post-Thanksgiving-Surge-Disappointment. No, that isn't the subject of my blog, but it kind of fits.

We love the Rio Grande and the Grand Canyon, but not so fond of divides when they pop up in our lives in other ways.

A few decades ago the divide didn’t seem that wide. From politics, to sports, to education, to science, divides are widening. Common ground along with common sense seems to be eroding at a rate faster than the glaciers are melting. The divide is often the distance between belief, expectation and reality.

In the past seldom would you hear someone say that they didn’t value education. To be the first in one's household to go to college was significant. People knew the multiple values of education. Even now, at least superficially you seldom hear a discrediting voice toward improving oneself and giving back. There is however, a disconnect and lack of awareness how this all ties together. If you denounce the science around the pandemic while swallowing your heart medication pill are you ahypocrite?

So why the downing or drowning of the fruits of education? Why the dismantling of confidence in science? Ignorance is a part of the picture, but so is laziness, and convenience. After all, whatever people's state in life, laziness will keep you there. It's easier and convenient to come to a conclusion without evidence. Thinking and reasoning is much more challenging, and we are back to laziness again.

Opting out of college will likely guarantee that any career has a glass ceiling. Valuing the educational process isn't just about job security, but about growth as a human being. It is a step out of the comfort zone. It is a fear generator and a fear crusher. Having a single purpose for going to college in the first place, to "get a good job" will likely disappoint though. The college enrichment to one's life is hard to measure. Processing what was gained by the experience is an individual sundae. The sundae can look like a lump of white matter with brown sauce or a smooth and heavenly creamy cool snow drift, with a rich and flavorful body of chocolate decadence sliding over the edge. Which would you rather? Case in point.

We live in a "serve me" time where entitlement has reached an all time high. Generally after graduation from college, the proving ground is just beginning. Except in a very few professions, no one will hand out a dream job or lucrative pay check upon presentation of a diploma. There may be many menial jobs in the future of the graduate. We all went through it. It passes with persistence.

Willful ignorance never used to be a desirable commodity. We have become weak, soft, and self-serving. Back to ice cream again! We are in a pandemic crisis, but also in an educational one. The crisis is not the kind that says you got into Harvard or didn't. It's the narrow value applied to reality when graduation is over. What the heck happened? The divide widens.

Some decades ago we were connected by our physical proximity to each other. We watched news in the evening and some television on the weekend. Mostly, we would do this with the family. We were not isolated with headphones away from each other. Family was important and the influence of interactions with them guided our lives. Innocence had separated us from the darker side of life seemed worlds away.

But then the unthinkable happened. JFK was shot. I was in my 10th grade English class at San Dieguito. Frozen, numb, and in disbelief we all attempted to move forward not really understanding the significance of what happened. For people of later generations who witness violence daily on their electronic devices, violence was not a general phenomenon in our lives. JFK? Surely this was not true...we thought.

Just a year before, my best friend and I while at Cathedral High School, were able to walk to an overpass and wave at JFK as his motorcade passed under it. I didn't know how to feel. No one did. That divide would resonate like a devastating earthquake.

The birth of the divide. It started with the rift that divided childhood and adolescence. It was exaggerated by boys interested in you, but not really understanding what that meant. The divide was that friend who took a different path or a boy that stopped liking you. The divide grew with each age falling off the calendar. That out of control widening divide was like a trailer being unhitched and having been left at the last stop. It was a feeling like being spun in a cotton candy machine into a sticky ball. The divide was that inexplicable tongue tied brain assembly in the teen years when trying to communicate with a parent. The divide happened when you put up with a lot, but didn't realize it was a lot. The divide was the distance between stupidity and wisdom. The divide was a looming future decision, and a lagging confidence in the choice to be made. Sometimes in this divide, I felt like a bumper car and I only recognized the edge when I ran into it. Whew.

Although I negotiated with my parents to allow me to go to a public school I didn’t realize I wouldn't know many people there. All the years of parochial school put a distance between my educational background and those I encountered that had traveled in the system of public school together. I recognized a few people from St. James. Still it was an adjustment. 

 

   My best friend was now thousands of miles away, and school had barely started. That plan I had back in Blog #8, could I pull it off? I wanted to visit. I was only 16 at the time, would my parents allow me to go? How would I get there? How would I pay for it? I would have to wait until the following summer. I would turn 17 by then. Might that make a difference?

   I took a job as a phone solicitor for a couple of months. I only needed to make enough to get there and the train seemed to be the best option. Much of the journey was uneventful, a long 2 plus days. The scenery was extraordinary. I liked the freedom of moving about.

 

 

Finding the diner car proved to be a bit of a challenge. Periodically in route, there would be an exchange of diner cars, and itwould be a few more cars away the next time I visited it. On one outing to get food, I traveled through a car filled with "people of color" going to a convention in Missouri. Walking back to my seat, I passed through one of the junction boxes where I encountered a woman traveling with the convention group. She was singing a song from the Motown era and I stopped briefly to listen. In the background was the familiar rhythm of the train rolling across the tracks, mixed with moving images through the window. We laughed, sharing a few details about our lives and the journey. In those few moments of our personal exchange, racial injustice and looming violence of the sixties seemed to be non-existent. 

 
After two long days and nights, we finally arrived at the train station. We passed through the town of Joliet, Illinois, and I remember seeing aging red brick everywhere. It seemed that I was about to disembark and anticipation grew. My friend lived in Homewood, Illinois. I was happy to have arrived. Pat had a job at a drive-in diner where she delivered food on skates. The place was called Dog n' Suds! I never did well with those things myself. I had a pair of "Zippy" skates growing up, the one and only pair I owned.



I went on a double date with her and her boyfriend to the drive-in. The guy seemed okay at first. When he asked if everything he heard about California girls was true, without probing his question I said something that gave him pause. For the time remaining my friend and I agreed, no more dates. Yet another divide! My friend and I found many more fun ways to spend our time, like hitting Rush Street in Chicago for some good food and music.


Pat had to work a lot. Fortunately, her younger sister was around and we had many great chats. Pat and I did manage to take a train trip to Ohio to visit a few of my relatives. The remnants of train cars laying on their side, left by a tornado just before we passed through was a haunting residual. At 17 though, we moved on pretty quickly. We weren’t able to visit too many relatives in the time we were there. But we did get to visit one relative from each side of my family. We had a memorable trip putting around on the lake, and an evening of dancing the polka. Fun.



As with all good times, eventually they end. We returned to Illinois and I went home. I flew home and preparation was underway the remainder of the summer with what came next, my junior year. A few more years passed before my friend and I connected again. I needed to find part time work. And then there was college. That year though I decided there was something special about high school. I found myself. Art. Finally. Everything began to solidify at this point. Now I had a reason to go to college. My parents were grateful. 😉


Could I swim the divide?

Rio Grande 1990