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The highlight of almost every weekday for me comes when I get off work. It’s not because I’m finished working
for the day, but because every day when I drive through the gate of the
parking lot at work to leave, I see a little boy who tickles me to death (yeah, getting
soft in my old age). His mother is there with him and his sister to pick up her other child from school. She is usually
the first one parked there on the street and the little boy is usually
playing on the sidewalk. And he always watches for me. And I always
watch for him. When he sees me, his eyes open so wide and his smile
gets so huge it looks like it could hurt his face. He looks like a very
young Barack Obama (let’s hope he looks as devastatingly cute as Obama
in those college freshman photos wearing the Panama hat, when he gets
to be that age). During this past Christmastime, he got some sticks and
held them to his head and acted like he was a reindeer. He always makes
my day, and I hope in some little way I brighten his a little bit.
Yes, there’s a point to this. I have grown so tired of hearing about
Hamas, Iranian nuclear threats, North Korean missile tests, Israeli
tanks, bombs in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden, the United States’ invasion
and occupation of Iraq, torture, secret prisons, crummy veterans’
hospitals, African rape squads, racism here in the United States and
elsewhere, homophobia, guns in bars, and every other kind of low-life,
idiotic, usually male-generated, fear-based, power-hungry, egomaniacal
CRAP that keeps people from realizing the fact that we are all on one
little planet together in a great big universe that sometimes I’m not
sure if it’s not one big joke. How much land, oil, money, and control
does it take to make some people happy? I guess you’d have to throw in
that some people are just downright mean and evil and it’s been that
way since the beginning of time, but the majority of the people in the
world are not. Why is it that the good, generous, open-minded, tolerant
majority can’t prevail and stop all this nonsense? I know that’s about
as sophomoric a question as it can be, but when you think about it, it
really shouldn’t be that difficult.
That’s where my little buddy comes in. I would love to take him all
over the world and show him off. Yep, I’d like to have him in a meeting
with all of the war-mongers and racists and other haters and just ask
them one thing: Do you want to see this little boy hurt or killed? Do
you think this little boy deserves to live a safe, peaceful, happy life
or not? Would you like to do something to this little boy so that he
doesn’t flash his huge smile all the time? Would you like to blow him
up? Would you like to deny him any right that you would afford your own
children?
To the banks who take taxpayer money for ridiculously lavish
“retreats” and multimillion-dollar bonuses for the head honchos: Would
you like to foreclose on this little boy’s family’s house so that he
has no home? To the credit card companies that hike up interest rates
in order to keep people in debt for the rest of their lives and make
more money off of them: Would you like to put this little boy on your
list of people to target with unrealistic credit card offers when he
gets a little older and milk him of every single penny you can get out
of him even if he pays his bill on time every month? To the idiots who
painted racist slurs on the all-black Memphis church the other day and
signed it “KKK”: Would you like to beat this sweet little boy to a pulp
and knock out his beautiful smile because he happens to have skin that
is a color different from yours? Would you really like to harm this
child? If he is old enough to read or understand the news, the sad fact
is you already have.
Like I said, I’m getting soft in my old age. But think about it.
That little boy is going to be a man before we know it, and if people
in this world don’t come to grips with the fact that everyone can’t be
rich and have control over other people all of the time for whatever
weird, greedy, stupid reason, he’s not going to have as much to smile
about as he does now as an innocent kid. And that would be a shame.