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Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The Music And The Masses
And so it was pronounced: there would be a gathering of the multitude, and musicians would play and fireworks would light the sky. The people were joyous, for they had just beheld the resignation of a powerful leader who had sought to rule through discrediting these free people. A note of justice was to be heard through the festival.
September 1974Dear Charlotte, It’s Hard To Know What To Say . . .
I think I’d rather talk about Charlotte. North Carolina, that is. I really can’t be objective about Chapel Hill, and my subjectivity is too complex to put into words. But Charlotte! There’s a town I can write about cause I really don’t like that city. I can’t quite put my finger on it, you know, because it would take half my hand to really cover it all.
September 1974
A Child Tonight
I wanted to touch him, hold him and laugh with him, show him something — just one thing — good about the world, but I couldn’t think of anything just then. I wanted to fold his mother into me, whoever she was, and love her, build for myself and these two people I didn’t even know a world where laughter and gentleness is possible, not distorted.
September 1974
Learning To Love
Living with and loving kids who never got an even break. I put aside the idea of climbing the mountain together. I read case histories and wonder if I could make even a small impression. Could they learn to love me as I love them? Could they begin to love our brothers and sisters as well? Is it even possible that they could learn to love parents; foster-parents; judges; probation officers; and policemen, who, in their own weakness, do the children so much wrong?
September 1974On The Other Hand
So many people have so many good things to say about Chapel Hill, we thought we’d ask some folks what they don’t like about it. A sample of public opinion:
“The casual village atmosphere has become a casual rip-off atmosphere.”
“I don’t like the cars on Franklin Street. Close it off and plant flower gardens on the asphalt.”
September 1974All The Smiling Faces
It’s not just that this is a small town where everybody knows you. Even on my first day in Chapel Hill I was greeted by many smiling faces and hellos as I walked down Franklin Street. Believe me, after Buffalo, NY, and Washington, D.C., it was an overwhelming feeling that made me say, “Yes, I think I’ll stay here,” as I know many other travelers have done.
September 1974
On Arriving (But Where?)
Coming down here: tunnel of freeways, of semis, left lane, embankment, passing at 80, 85, 90, an occasional unconscious suicidal 95, 100, thinking of the Missouri regiment marching up Canyon de Chelley (deep narrow canyon in northern Arizona) with the Navajos covering them from the crevices of the canyon all the way up but they didn’t know it: the Navajos had to admire folks with that kind of nerve, or at least wanted to figure out their number.
September 1974
Sy’s New York Diary
Everyone in high, high heels, reaching for heaven, an eyebrow raised above the clouds, trying to see.
July 1974An Awakening
I was sitting in a restaurant in Bombay enjoying a dosa masala for lunch when David popped in and asked if I would be interested in going to Ahmednagar with him.
July 1974Untitled
I don’t fight with flowers
“I don’t fight with flowers.”
July 1974
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