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Sitting Fifteen
Karin made the quality decision to stop off at her apartment in the city to shower, change clothes and gather her wits before cruising back to the newspaper. She didn’t realize how frazzled she was until she was sitting, riding back into town, and saw her right hand twitching without her permission. She needed to calm down. The last thing she wanted to do in front of her editor was appear rattled—or by his definition, female.
She had once read that feeding the belly calms the soul, so she nibbled on a bit of cheese and took a sip of wine to ease her nerves, attempting to feed a much deeper hunger, which would have to wait its turn for the time being. There were important matters to be taken care of—at this point, much more urgent than a tasty meal.
She ended up arriving at the newspaper office very late, but as far as Karin knew, the editor was always there. Matter of fact, she was convinced that he had been sitting in a chair, and people came and built his office around him. When she walked into the office, the man didn’t even look up from the daily reports he was perusing.
“Do you have a story?” he asked. He was never much for formalities. He had once explained it to her. He found cordiality to be useless, prohibiting anyone from finding out what they really wanted to know in the first place.
Even though Karin knew he was in a hurry to receive an update, she was savvy and well aware that she needed to pace herself and remove all breathiness and frantic from her telling. She sat down, nice and slow, in a chair in front of his desk.
“I have a story, but I don’t,” she began. “And before you ask me what that means, let me tell you. Sometimes I think even though journalists are not supposed to become emotionally involved, our stories can transform us into missionaries.”
The editor looked up with a threatening frown. “Koulyea, you aren’t some damn nun. If you want a ministry, go hunt down the Pope. I need stories, and I need people who can get them, write them clearly and go out and find more, instead of discussing how good the last one was or musing over whether their hearts were moved.”
Karin was offended. “I know that,” she spat. “Don’t talk to me like some cub who’s coming into the first day of work. It’s just that I’ve uncovered something that may be worth more than eight column inches and a byline.”
The editor eyed her for sincerity. “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”
Karin leaned forward, her elbows on the desk. “I came across two boys in the desert. Two twelve-year-olds who defied their parents and their friends so they could be together. You see, one is Jewish and one, Palestinian.”
“Jubal and Amir? So I heard. Right?” The editor sprouted a grin.
Karin could not hide her shock. The editor laughed out loud, greatly satisfied that he had bettered his subordinate. “Listen, I’ve heard all about it. You should know that raging parents are louder than stampeding elephants.”
He picked up a stack of papers on his desk. “I’ve had ten messages just today about these two rascals,” he explained. “But you know, I don’t see a story here, unless we’re in a mood to do live coverage of a spanking.”
Karin was tired of being thwarted. “They have a hand grenade,” she pronounced, trying not to be too emphatic.
She couldn’t believe herself. But it was like the words came out on their own. She would never have given them permission to leave her mouth if she had known what their intention was. But she was tired of being treated like a nobody.
Still, in the scheme of things, she had just lied to her editor. There was no longer a hand grenade. But it caused the aging newsman to lean back in his chair. “Hand grenade, huh?” he said. He took a sip of his drink and swallowed slowly, and then continued. “I guess it’s useless for me to ask where they got such a thing. Would you tell me?” He gazed at Karin and shook his head. “Of course not,” he decided. “Okay. I guess it would be better to ask what they intend to do with it.”
Karin decided she needed to take some heat off of herself. She rose from her chair, stomped across the room and punched the door with her fist. “My God, man! They’re twelve years old! Do twelve-year-olds ever intend to do anything? A hand grenade, on the other hand, knows exactly what it is primed to do. We’ve got to do something for these kids.”
As she finished, she inched back toward him, reached out and rapped her knuckles on the desk. She was breathing heavily, full of anger.
Karin wanted to know how serious he would be about this serious situation. Or for that matter, if he, a man trapped in the Middle East, had the foresight to take a young woman seriously.
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G-Poppers … June 29th, 2018
When G-Pop was growing up, the mayor of his small town had a young daughter named Jeannie.
Jeannie was smart.
Nobody liked Jeannie. The reason the students did not like Jeannie was that their parents did not like the mayor. So over supper conversation, it was made clear to the children that Jeannie was a problem.
Not much could be done by us young’uns during school session, but at recess, everyone got together and ridiculed, attacked, criticized and ostracized Jeannie. Matter of fact, one day it got so bad that our whole class had her cornered, trying to push her off the playground.
We didn’t plan on hurting her. We just wanted to make it clear that because of her father and the politics that made our parents angry, we were going to get her out of there. Three teachers came running up, and when they understood what was being attempted, the whole class was punished and we were not allowed to have recess for two weeks.
Jeannie was permitted to go home and be comforted by her parents. They were so shocked they put her in a private school and we never saw her again.
This came to G-Pop’s mind when the Little Red Hen–just as in the old tale–became fussy again. People took a thirty-five-year-old woman who was on “recess,” simply trying to enjoy dinner, and asked her to leave a restaurant simply because they did not agree with her politics, and did not appreciate her being the press secretary for President Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, the end result of this tale, unlike the story of Jeannie, is that Sarah Sanders was punished, and the “students” were made to believe they were merely exercising their First Amendment rights by getting rid of something unpleasant.
G-Pop has a question: If it’s wrong on the playground, why isn’t it wrong in the restaurant?
If we expect our children to be tolerant enough to share a space of land and get into their games, why is it ridiculous to think that grown people can’t sit at the table and enjoy a meal with someone in the room who doesn’t meet their favor?
Kicking Sarah out was not a symbol of the resistance.
It’s not a stand against tyranny.
It is an attack on a young woman who’s trying to do her job. What G-Pop thinks about her job can be penned in an editorial to the newspaper–not with a snarling contempt, demanding she be removed because her presence is intolerable.
She left.
She did not stand and fight. And when she left, all the liberals got together and decided it was a good thing to remove her from the restaurant. Matter of fact, one black Congresswoman suggested it should be done more.
Because G-Pop loves his country, he is choosing to believe this was a temporary lapse of judgment.
Just as the kids in his small town had no right to push Jeannie off the playground, no one has the authority to ask Sarah to leave the restaurant.
G-Pop will not return to an America where signs are posted everywhere that say: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”
We all knew what that meant. We all knew who was not going to get served.
Let us not return to such insanity.
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on June 29, 2018 at 3:16 pm Comments (1)Tags: Congresswoman Waters, First Amendment, G-Poppers, insanity, liberals, Little Red Hen, mayor, Mike Huckabee, ostracized, parents, playground, politics, President Donald Trump, punishment, refuse service, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, tolerance