Education is lost on the young.
Here is sit trying to fill out paperwork to get an unemployment deferment for the student loans I still owe listening to Studs Terkel's Hard Times radio program on the Great Depression and thinking about how much I didn't learn back then. There are so many emotions contained in that very long run-on sentence.
I am thinking about these idiots from the Tea Party and wondering if they have ever met someone like me. I am sure they would think that a stay-at-home mother of two kids who has had her kids on Medicaid and has received WIC benefits must just be a loser. I am thinking that if we didn't have insurance and one of our kids got really sick, we would never be able to get out of debt. As it is, our deductible for our current insurance policy is $3000 so we would be hit pretty hard by anything other than a regular trip to the doctor's office. We pay $400/month out of pocket for our current plan--- apparently, we make too much to get Medicaid now that I receive unemployment benefits and my insurance coverage was cut off. We work so hard. We have everything we need. We really do. We are happy and I am not complaining. I do wonder who the hell these people are and what bubble they live in. In the past year 3 of my parents' 4 children have been unemployed and the 4th went to Colombia for a job! I want to spit in the faces of those ignorant Tea Party fuckers. That would prove to them that I am, in fact, not a loser at all. Ha!
I am thinking that I wasted so much time in college when I should have been educating myself by actually reading Studs Terkel. He came to MSU and James Madison students had a private audience with him and I might now even have gone. I was high as a kite at Noam Chomsky's talk with 15 other students from JMC. I was too young to know how important these people were and didn't care about history. DIDN'T CARE ABOUT HISTORY! I thought history was boring. Here I sit listening to stories recorded in the 1970's about the Depression. Here I am watching history repeat itself in this fucking country and feeling helpless and ignorant. I wrote about my recent obsession with old M*A*S*H episodes. God dammit if we aren't repeating that history over and over again. Let's send a bunch of young people across the world to get killed and maimed (inside and out) and why again? Why?
So, I married a guy with a passion for history (and a degree in it, too). Every so often I hear these pieces on NPR or read a novel about a time in our history I am completely ignorant to. We have these great talks about the books I was supposed to read in college that covered these topics and I start my education all over again every day. Today, I put The Grapes of Wrath on hold at the library because of what I just heard.
I am just kicking myself because I feel like I had some AMAZING opportunities for knowledge at James Madison, I really did. A short list of people who came to MSU and/or James Madison while I was there: Studs Terkel, Angela Davis, Sistah Souljah, Noam Chomsky, Tim O'Brien, various members of the Black Panther Party. Alas, I was 17 and can't feel too badly. College is wasted on the young. At least, this young one who is not so young anymore but is still paying loans for the education which she didn't receive all because of her lust of Oberon or the beach or road trips or sleeping in or silly boys. Of course, I married one of those silly boys I skipped classes with while drinking Oberon and sleeping in and taking road trips. That makes it all worth it.
History will repeat itself. Our children will most likely do some of the stupid things we did. God help me.
3 comments:
I have a copy of Grapes of Wrath if you want to borrow it.
I've been thinking about this one for a couple of days. I have this weird thing where when I think about my past it seems like I'm thinking about another person's life, not my own. It's all weird and abstract, and it seems like so, so long ago. I hope that doesn't make me psychotic.
I tried to think of what I learned during college. Here's my list of the most important things:
5. To cook for 12 people and sit down and eat with them.
4. That the best friendships ebb and flow, and that's ok.
3. To fall in love.
2. To have my heart broken.
1. That leaving my childhood home was the best thing that ever happened to me, even though at the time I thought it was so hard and frightening.
Um...none of that came from a class. Whoops. I would add that I learned to type, but I actually owe that to Kathy Jacoby at Powers, which is probably one of the best things I took away from high school.
SÃofra asked me the other day if she would have to leave me and Daithà someday and move somewhere without us. I told her that, believe it or not, she would want to do that. That idea blew her mind. It makes me happy that she feels that way, but it'll also make me happy that she'll want to leave and do all the stupid stuff we did when we were 18. (actually, I think 19 may have been my stupidest year...but fun, too).
So weird...was it really me back then?
Love you, Sar-for 22 years now!!
Keep the deep thoughts coming...
PS: I was with you when we saw Tim O'Brien...and we weren't high (that day). Remember that Vietnam class? That was a good class.
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