Wichita State University - Parnassus Yearbook (Wichita, KS)

Page 22 text:

Living in the Seventies Reflections in a Chrome Eye Having undergone the process of crea- tion for a number of years, omitting of course the countless years that my sub- stance had existed prior to this conver- gence, you may well imagine my sigh of relief when John Kearney exclaimed Fini! I was then led toward my final destination, not in a horse trailer as one may imagine, but in a moving van, covered in Chamois and ermine-lined horse blankets to protect my delicate exoskeleton. Once in place on your campus, having been granted a more-or-less southern ex- posure and mounted Cneither for the first, nor the last timel between the CAC and McKinley Hall, I was able to begin my task. The task at hand is that of observation. My vigil is an endless one. I neither sleep, rest nor ignore what takes place. The power of my observation is aided by my substance, the used car bumpers that lost nothing in their convergence with my soul. They lost neither their memories of the past nor their compassion for that which they retained. Unfortunately this juxtaposition of chrome also failed to delete some not- so-enviable traits. For example, a section of my tail, comprised of the rear bump- er of a 1965 Mustang, is still somewhat 18!Seventies idealistic. Portions of my left flank re- tain traces of ethnocentricity and my right foreleg Ca '38 Model TJ is, appar- ently, incapable of change. My left eye, which focuses independently of my right, came from a 1958 Edsel and attempts effect on my political views. My right, although independent, remains partial to Harry Truman. The saving factor of this conglomera- tion of chrome is what humans would call my brain. It contains extracted parts from the wreckage Ca head-on catastro- phej of a 1970 Mack truck and a vin- tage '33 silver gray Rolls Royce. It contains, therefore, the best of the cog- nitive and the speculative parts of the cranium. Or, in other words, a smatter- ing of C.W. McCall and Dr. Carl Jung. It wasn't through mere chance alone that I happen to pasture at a university. It was through mutual concern and a request of my creator and myself as we share many thoughts and views. We also have had many similar experi- ences. For example, each of my hooves come from cars and trucks that were on the highways of the 60's. My left rear was in New York when Bobby Mont- gomery was slain and followed by the aftermath through Harlem and into Watts. My right rear was in California in May, 1968, to witness the second Ken- nedy atrocity. My front hooves were in Dallas and Memphis and as the heroes of the day fell so did my hooves, sodden by the bloodshed and saddened by the direction. Once I was a jeep, once an APC, once a tank and once a deuce-and-a-half. The green paint has faded, or been erased, but neither the memory nor the essence of what occurred in Asia fade or be- come erased. Once I was a steel limousine, and once a staff car and once a Secret Service car. The decals have faded, the press passes worn away, yet Watergate still reflects in my chrome. Once I was a van at Woodstock, once part of a carrion carriage in Washington and once a Harley-Davidson headlight at a Dylan-Baez-Ian-Chapin-McLean-Beatles- -Stones-Stevens-Blues-Wagner-Brahms- -Bach-Schubert concert. I tried to listen. And, Dostoevsky, Conrad, Tolstoy, Melville, Faulkner, Wolf, Woolf. Haw- thorne, Twain, Donne, Beckett, Camus, Whitman, Steinbeck, Poe, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, Heller, Hemingway-My God! I've left out hun- dreds--Plato, Socrates, Sophocoles, Aristo- phanes, Homer! I tried to understand. Take Homer. He's of special interest.

Page 21 text:

THIS LIFE Wisdom is knowledge of false and true And life is the teacher as the years pass on by The right and wrong that we thought we knew We-come to see with a clearer eye. I write no lamentations, On the years that lie behind. I have treasured up no heartaches, In the background of the mind. I have left the ghosts of yesterday, For the life that lies ahead. I have cremated all back memories So they can vex me no more. I waste no time repining Over the tombstones of the past, For I see the silver lining Of a home up on high, Where there is no more weeping. So I close the dark yesterday, For the sunshine of today. Life is just a moving picture, We see it passing by. The sorrowful and the tragic, As the figures rise and pass. So why should I be weeping, Those clouds have passed. They have gone on byg There comes the sunshine now. It is not all of life to live. Nor all of death to dieg Man does not cease to be. A Hight

Page 23 text:

Is he the epic poet who betrayed his occupation by the simple act of writ- ing the Illiad? Was it a betrayal? Before Homer, before man became preoccupied with the transfer of thought--over dis- tance and time--to a sheet of paper, a scroll or a tablet, man died, along with his thoughts. Individually, The poet or rninstrel--the teller of tales--was no longer needed. Magic had conquered. The transfer of words was magic in itself and the power of the words was magical indeed. Betrayal or not, time and dis- tance remain the determining factors as to whether or not the Hmagicall' quality of words endure. Reflecting, this chrome horse is well aware of that long-ago, irreparable act of betrayal and of the possible futuristic consequences of attempting to mold this, or any original betrayal, into some- thing that endures--something that re- tains its essence unmindful of time and distance. However, as I've mentioned, my right eye sees independently of my left, my physical body and spiritual body are one. continued on page 20