Campaign Stop!
Woo hoo! So Senator Biden is doing a campaign stop here at the venue where I work tomorrow morning. It wasn't assigned to me as I just came off of a long weekend event (see my last post!) but I am going to listen to him speak all the same! Senator Obama was here before he received the nomination which was exciting but I couldn't go to the rally then. It is just exciting to be a part of the campaign trail, even if it is a small stop... there are advantages to living and working in a smaller city!
Anyway, I didn't quite have the time off I had hoped for so I didn't get any knitting done... but hopefully I'll get some done this week. Not a lot of writing either though I've been good about writing in my journal...
Anyway, I hope to get some pictures tomorrow and I'll write more after the rally/discussion!
Jane
Some Writing
Sad Scene of Children Playing (originally written 10/25/93)
The filthy, trash-laden streets are the children’s playground. From the alley, an overpowering smell of rotting garbage permeates the entire block, trash and food scraps overflowing onto the ground to be picked over by mangy stray animals and desperate homeless people. Laundry is strung between the tenements, looking not a whole lot cleaner than it was to begin with.
Whipping around the corner, a group of youths – four or five of them, ages six through twelve – search for excitement. It is extremely difficult to determine the boys from the girls. Winter is upon them and they dress in layers of tattered, ragged, soiled hand-me-downs, grubby, threadbare hats on each head. Their faces, covered with the grime of the city, give a haunting look – a look of innocence betrayed, of shattered dreams, of incredible hardness. Malnourished, one of the gang clutches a prize – a piece of rock candy. He holds it high in the air while the others push and shove, pummel him, leap in the air trying desperately to claim the prize for themselves. In an instant, the candy is shaken loose and tumbles onto the pavement – splintering into a hundred pieces. Scrambling furiously, the urchins wrestle for a sliver of the heavenly confection.
The children are only partially satisfied with this, restlessness reigns supreme. A slightly built boy, the one always picked on, pounces upon a crushed tin can, kicking it down the street. Another scrawny child, perhaps a girl of seven or eight, sprints down the block after the can. The children spread out in a pattern of some sort (like a ballet), a few on the sidewalk, one covering the entrance of the alley, and two others in the street itself. From one of the grimy windows above, an exhausted woman yells out at the kids in the street below – she fears they will come to some harm but cannot express this concern adequately. A particularly bratty, sullen girl shrieks back, “Mind your own business, old hag!” Just then, from around the corner, the neighborhood policeman approaches, spying the truant children playing. The scrawny boy shouts out, and the children speed down the alleyway, scrambling up waiting fire escapes, shaking off the cop’s pursuit.
0 comments:
Post a Comment