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I have come across a few references to today being Mother's Day, and this year the point is sticking with me. A particular memory comes to mind. It was that evening when Dr. G. called me about my Old Journal, which I had turned in to him - after that horrible fight with a drunken Jack. He said he would read it and talk to me about it.
True, it is difficult, probably impossible, to conceive of a reasonable course by which the professor might have helped me. With the best of will, bounding with generosity, the best he might have done was offer me a clerical position in an office, which might have barely topped twenty-thousand dollars a year. That is something that I could not accept, even if, realistically speaking, I should have been grateful for any such opportunity - at least I wouldn't be flipping burgers or stocking shelves for minimum wage, so the argument runs.
Notwithstanding all of that, what really sticks with me is the memory of that moment. I am standing there in my room, after that phone call, half-watching TV, a news show, perhaps CNN's "Crossfire", thinking that this is it: my moment has come, to rise in the world and become my own man, a real man, making white-man money. And mother, making small talk with me, looking up at me in some wonderment, obviously thought so too, playing up to me, kissing up to a rising power. But the only thing that followed was silence. Nothing happened.
True, it is difficult, probably impossible, to conceive of a reasonable course by which the professor might have helped me. With the best of will, bounding with generosity, the best he might have done was offer me a clerical position in an office, which might have barely topped twenty-thousand dollars a year. That is something that I could not accept, even if, realistically speaking, I should have been grateful for any such opportunity - at least I wouldn't be flipping burgers or stocking shelves for minimum wage, so the argument runs.
Notwithstanding all of that, what really sticks with me is the memory of that moment. I am standing there in my room, after that phone call, half-watching TV, a news show, perhaps CNN's "Crossfire", thinking that this is it: my moment has come, to rise in the world and become my own man, a real man, making white-man money. And mother, making small talk with me, looking up at me in some wonderment, obviously thought so too, playing up to me, kissing up to a rising power. But the only thing that followed was silence. Nothing happened.
