Deerfield High School - O YAD Yearbook (Deerfield, IL)

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Q PRELUDE 7

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1 You Can't Nutshell America and Other Ramblings I took two exams today. Physics and American history. Afterwards, I walked around the school once, look- ing closely at the faces, thinking of the impending three month's exile from those faces, wondering if that was good or bad, just keeping my mind off the tests. When I finally got home I sure didn't feel like studying for the next exam, so I left for the library. I was driving through the center of town, noticing a sign an- nouncing a new .health food store opening on the corner, contemplating for a handful of seconds fads and ex- ploitation and gullibility, when I got a' red light at one of the stoplights the Village installed a year or two ago when they spent jillions of dollars for stoplights and stopsigns on every corner in town that doesn't need them and even on a few that do need them. This corner' needed it. But whether it needed it in this setup is one hell of a question for people who earn doctorates in traffic engineering instead of growing sideburns. It's a weird intersection. The main road has a sidestreet branching ing, each direction, but about twenty yards apart. If the light turns red and you're in the twenty yard section between the white painted line on the road and the red light, you don't know what the hell to do. Some people go through the light, some just sit there, some even back up behind the line. I've seen a cop go through the lightg only thing redder than the light was his face, staring straight ahead as if he didn't realize his guilt. And he sure couldn't have consulted the damn traffic engineer. Anyway, I got the red light, so I stopped behind the white line, no cars in front of me except those that got through before the light, a couple cars behind me. The AM radio on, can't remember the song-half of them sound alike anyway. I looked out, around, mostly straight ahead. An elderly man, somewhat overweight in baggy pants and plaid shirt partly concealed in an orange plastic con- traption for crossing guards, led two littleAgirls across the road. By the time he got to the other side they were ten yards ahead of him. He meant well. And I watched, wearing faded blue bellbottoms covered with dirt. That smear of dirt remained 6 PRELUDE from the last day of gym the day be- fore. We wore street clothes, because we'd turned in our issues. I'd gotten a single and was on first base with another guy on second. They were slow in getting the ball to the pitcher, and the other guy struck out for third. By the time they saw him it was too late, but they threw anyway. So I took off for second. They threw again, I slid, safe. Meanwhile, the other guy went home. When they tried, again unsuccessfully, to throw him out, I took third. By this time it was pretty funny.. They ended up calling him back to third and me to first, I still don't know why, but who cares? It was fun. Anyway, I was wearing these same pants, and a red wrinkled faded tee shirt. Plus I've got long KI guess by now itis longer than just plain longj sort of unkempt hair and all in all I suspected the old guy would react-you know, give me a look. People do that sometimes, you get used to it. - He didn't react. It was a long light. Ahead curled thickly leaved green trees, probably oaks or elms, can't remember, that hung over the road on both sides until the pavement curved out of view to the left six hundred yards away. Along the right, six hundred yards of unlit street lights blended into one image. A grimy overcast sky forecast thunder- storms in accordance with the weatherman. It occurred to me I saw America. I looked hard, afraid I would never see it again. America! Right before my eyes, I thought. I tried to note all that characterized it, roads and street lights and green trees and cars and the business district I'd just passed through and the country club up ahead and the radio and the old man and the little kids and me and the lady in the car behind and the weatherman and the ghetto and disgruntled and em- barrassed I recognized my stupidity. All my life I'd tried to charac- terize America. I'd read writings about and heard of people searching for the average middle American, the Great American Novel, the American way, the All-American. At last I recognized the search's inevitable ignorance. At last I knew you can't nutshell America. My last exam is tomorrow. I'm not studying much for it, because it .would take an impossible 96 per cent for a semester grade of B and only 40 per cent for a C. I'm only taking the exam, of course, for the learning experience. If I wasn't going to learn from it, my counselor would give me permission not to take it. The course is introductory analysis, Math 8. Con- sidering my math score on the Amer- ican College Test was in the 98th percentile, something is wrong with either the school or me. Probably both. I should have taken art instead. Looking back over the school year, the rat race of it all stands out most-certainly a lot more than anything an administrator might brag about. And especially this year, my junior year, with people taking college board tests and receiving their Scores and Class Rank. People fight to get into college, into courses, out of courses, to earn positions in extra- curricular activitiesg and they fight each other, or over each other. I fight along with the rest, as if we didn't mind that whenever someone wins, someone else loses. Just like the damn draft lottery. But with test scores, we can't blame our friends for -our failures. Watch two people fight for something only one can have, whether it's a person, position, or anything. Watch the watery eyes of the red-faced loser, and then watch the watered down humility of the red- eyed winner. The irony of it all is that we fight because we believe that if we manage. to leave school suc- cessfully, we won't have to fight when we get older. We see high school as transitional, it's either to give us a degree to get a job, or to prep us for college, a higher degree and a better job. But high school isn't transitional. In ten years we'll fight the same social rat races we're fight- ing now. A degree does not remove the rat race from our future, and it Won't remove the harm the rat race has already inflicted. If we want to stop hurting each other and discover what we want in life, we should start now, right here in Deerfield High School. I want to stand up and scream it to all my friends. But I know better. -Anonymous

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