N
ot being able to quietly read ‘The
Cat in the Hat’, or ‘The Cat in the
Hat Comes Back’ or even ‘Green
Eggs and Ham’ to oneself would
plain a lot, frankly.
mmm. I was beginning to develop an
irely new, yet odd, political philosophy.
ybe this was how Lenin or Che or even
sh felt. No time for that line of thought
her, I decided.
all know what
ppened to those
ys.
Well,
in
rospect,
Bush
med to have
de out okay,
ugh the rest of
world didn’t do
well, but what
out the other
ys . . .didn’t they
d up dead?
e point was that within a few days of my
val in the RSA, my head was already
ling. My heart was racing. I needed,
mediately, to find a children’s book for
rd graders and see how many of those
o only went to school through the third
de, later became presidents or prime
nisters of countries. There was no control
up for this type of research I knew – and
ikely that I would get a grant to conduct
but I could feel it nonetheless - my life
d my view of life had changed. Now, I had
follow and develop that new path, and
then inspire others with this interesting,
yet again odd, truth. And, I needed to tell
this truth to the world, preferably in a hard
cover best seller.
The truth I knew was that I, and millions of
other impressionable children had been
duped. I needed to think. Fortunately, I was
In South Africa on an academic sabbatical,
the structure of which was that I got paid
to think. I hoped at least that ‘pay me’ part
was true. I liked the
‘to think’ part too
since it wasn’t ever
actually
defined.
I
thought
and
thought (and sang,
and drank some
Stellas and chatted
with friends, all
of which I include
as part of the
central
definition
of ‘thinking’ since
again it was never
really defined in my contract) and I finally
came up with an idea. Despite the danger
of driving on the absolutely wrong and
ridiculous side of the road – and dangerous
as doing so would be to me and the entire
Western Cape population, and any errant
baboons - I had to expand my horizons and
finally buy (and drive) a motorized vehicle.
Now we were talking. But first, honestly,
I had some major issues I had to resolve
about my new apartment.