The Megaphone (Georgetown, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 14, 1986 Page: 5 of 8
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i
■v
I'll be the
Judge of that
by J. Morris Huddleston
A Death in
the Family
Scene- The rear seat of a large
funerary limousine. Through the
back window may be seen a long cor-
tege of fine cars with their headlights
on in the featureless grey daylight of
an Autumn day. Several limousines
ahead is the bulky hearse with its im-
portant contents; behind that the
widow’s car - a universe of sympathy
and black couture. The on-coming
traffic are pulled over into the
shoulder of the road as much out of
concern for the fierce-looking police
escort, and respect for such an expen-
sive show of automobiles, as out of
respect for the dead. In this limousine
only two persons, brother and sister,
are carried both drinking a great deal
and looking hungover.
Alexandro: What a funereal day for a
funeral!
Catalina: I disagree; I love the
weather. It’s beautiful weather.
Alex: We’re so lucky everyone else
wanted to ride in the other cars and
this one is left over. Grandmother
isn’t even drinking in her car and the
other cars don’t have bars.
Cat: We’re so lucky! Our own car
and our own bar. I wish every day
could be so...
Alex: Funereal? 1 admire your bear-
ing up so in these sad circumstances.
Cat: Fix me another drink will you
please? 1 dread the cemetery, all these
people make my flesh crawl. They’re
so eager to be morbid and sym-
pathetic. You’d think they were hav-
ing the time of their lives.
Alex: It’s all the free food and booze
dad’s giving them. Have you noticed
how they drink like fish and pretend
not to enjoy it? They’re so vile; I
loathe relatives, (taps on window to
get chauffeur’s attention) Diivei
please pull over and let the cars pass,
(to his sister) Let’s watch the proces-
sion and see who’s here. Look!
Ther’s uncle Ned the pediphile.
Catalina: How horrid you are! He’s a
brilliant pediatrician. Even if his wife
is bulemic. But their children are real
degenerates.
Alex: 1 agree, highly unnatural. Their
poor parents. Who’s that pulling the
speedboat - how gauche!
Cat: That must be Uncle-Lazarus.
Alex: The Episcopal priest? Where is
hoheaded?
Cat: There’s a fishing tournament at
the yacht club he couldn’t put off.
Alex: Still he should turn his
headlights off and pretend he’s not
with us don’t you think?
Cat: Perhaps. Look! Is that Dr.
Fetish?
Alexandro: Dad’s podiatrist?
Cat: Is he a podiatrist? I thought he
was a proctologist. That’s good to
know, I haven’t beenable to look
Dad in the face since I found an ap-
pointment card. These drinks sure
are going fast. Look we still have
about three hundred cars to critique.
Alex: We may have to go to the li-
quor store en route to the cemetery
Do you mind the inconvenience?
Catalina: Inconvenience? Nothing is
a greater inconvenience than running
out ol liquoi ai a fuiieial. Especially
such a close relative’s funeral.
Alex: We mustn’t get too drunk
before the Last Rites. Mother was
very put out when we mixed our
drinks at Aunt Ephejunia’s funeral
and made such a mess behind the
mausoleum. She had the sexton put a
shovelful of dirt over it right in front
of everyone.
Cat: And it ruined all the asphodels
and chrysanthemums. What a scene!
Alex: I wasn’t the least bit embarrass-
ed though. That was the worst wake
I’ve ever been to. The cake was so dry
and the roastbeef was overdone. A
big waste of time.
Cat: And the gin was-doqiestic. Hor-
rid. Nv-/
Alex: Inexcusable. Who’s that no-
neck driving past there in the sport-
scar with the skis on top?
Cat: It’s Roger Beefcake.
Alex: I remember him; you used to
go out with him back when he had a
neck didn’t you?
Cat: No. He was always an athlete. I
ditched him because when we went
out he insisted upon buying my
drinks and consequently always ran
out of money and made excuses to
take me home early without saying he
was broke. I would always offer to
buy my own drinks and he said no.
Alex: What a chauvinist!
Catalina: And he’d park and try to
make his move much to my chagrin.
I’d say “look! we aren’t going to
neck because you have no neck ’’
Alex: Good for you. Who do you go
out with now?
Reflections on a World Gone
>‘v *
>y Joey Gimenez
Meditation: A Lost Art
We are unknown, we knowers, to
ourselves...Of necessity we remain
strangers to ourselves, we understand
ourselves not, in our selves we are
bound to be mistaken for each of us
holds good to all eternity the motto,
“Each is the farthest away from
himself” - as far as ourselves are con-
cerned we are not knowers.
Nietzsche
I must confess that, personally, I
have learned many things I never
knew before...just by writing.
St. Augustine
In high school I committed
atrocious sins against society. I at-
tended parties alone. Upon entering a
trivial conversation of “Hi! How are
you doing?” and so forth I then
recieved the first substantial question
of “Who are you here with?” My
claim of solitary attendance stunned
the audience. “Why?” would ask the
confounded antagonist as if such
behavior were the epitome of un-
popularity. My witty reply confused
even more: “Why do I need to have a
companion for a social party” or the
cockier response (undoubtedly stem-
ming from a bit of insecurity) “I am
my own best company.”
Allowing insecurity to scrutinize
my actions afterwards brought
justifiable reasoning. These seeming
sins were permittable to my rational
and thus my self. I had friends if I
desired company: I did not desire
company. My individuality
sacrosanct, l had every option open
to the world and fate without com-
promising to “friendly” social
niceties. My previous experience with
social niceties had too often appeared
delicious and proven sour. Party
friends had commonly exemplified
behavior confirming the meaningless
of the words “party buddy.” Fur-
thermore, I reflected that the com-
pany of my true friends was better
enjoyed out of the context of parties
inebriated with their own superficiali-
ty-
The modern era does have a pro-
blem with b6ing alone. The typical
horror movie kills the unsuspecting
innocent walking alone in the dark. It
seems appropriate no one is around
to help the victim but only near
enough to hear the terror of their
screams. No one is ever available late
at night to hear our screams as we in-
wardly^
Similarly, Ernest kemmingway’s
middle-age male heroes became
greatly disturbed when spending
nights without feminine company.
Sleeping alone forced the hero to
think and ponder before slipping into
the haven of unconsciousness. The
heroes experienced their worst
nightmares before sleeping as truth
and the contradictions of their lives
became apparent in reflection.
Meditation, or thinking directed
into our selves, has become a lost art.
A time ago religious prayer guided in-
trospection 3long moral guidelines.
The current epoch no longer focuses
on religious prayer as the secularized
world does not place as much value in
religious thought. Even people who
claim to “have religion” have ab-
dicated to “being religious.” The loss
of the tool of prayer has created a
dangerous vacuous hole in the in-
dividual. In my high school years, the
hole was displayed by my peers who
were repulsed by the idea of being
alone. Safety from the inner work-
ings of a turbulent self resided, for
them, in company: inner thought was
anesthetized. However, deep in-
trospection makes our self discover
humanity and become fully human.
Buddhist traditions of self explora-
tion exemplify means possible, prac-
ticable, and necessary for us to
become human. Buddhism has been
socially stigmatized all to long by our
Judeo-Christian heritage as
paganistic. This has been unfortunate
because of the amiability between the
two. Japanese Soto Zen Master,
Eikai Dogen stated, “To study the
Buddha way is to study the self. To
study the self is to forget the self. To
forget the self is to be enlightened...”
Jesus said, “Whoever would save his
life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for my sake, he will save it.” I’m
the relationship of the intricacies of
those two statements.
Finally, another similar conjuctive
to meditation is writing. Though a
primitive form of meditation, writing
is the first step to achieve depths of
thought. Every writer must constant-
ly meditate to relatelideas. He/she
struggles to mentally define and cor-
relate thought divulged from the in-
ner self, the core of all humanity. The
second best meditation to the one
you live is the one you write and
strive to live.
P.S. Last week’s article was original-
ly titled “America’s No. 1 Cash
Crop” and not the editorally
modified “America’s Favorite Cash
Crop.” I formally disclaim the sub-
jectivity implied by the Editor’s ad-
justment.
Cat: Pete Pansie, you know him; you
two used to be inseperable.
Alex: You can’t mean Pete! He’s a...
Cat: Well at least he doesn’t try to
make a move on me and if he did
he’d at least have a neck - even if he is
one.
Alex: 1 will never understand you.
You used to be so shy so insecure.
And now you are dating Pete Pansie
who definitely is one; I think you
drink too much.
Cat: 1 used to be shy and insecure but
since I’ve started drinking more I’ve
started feeling much better about
myself. Alcohol brings out my recon-
dite good qualities.
Alex: You’re probably right. When I
don’t drink I hate myself.
Cat: You are quite nasty sober; you
should carry a hip flask. Well there’s
the last car. Look it’s a white
limousine! How irreverent.
Alex: That’s cousin Alice who mar
ried the mortician by coincidence and
they’re stopping off to see how
everything goes at the cemetery on
their way to their reception. It’s real
ly quite sweet actually.
Cat: Let’s skip the cemetery and go
straight to the reception after the li-
quor store. Think of all that cham
pagne!
South-
western
Photo
Student
goes
National
Glenn Kim, a Southwestern Junior
Chemistry Major has been chosen as
a finalist in a U.S.-Canada wide col-
lege level photo contest. According to
Kim there were about 17,000 entries
in the contest, from which about five
percent were chosen as finalists.
Kim is from Houston and is an in
tended pre-med. major. He has been
working with photography for the
last four and a half years, but he says
it is only a hobby and he does not in
goal.
He used to live in Syracuse, New
York and it was there that he first
became interested in photography. It
was there that through the father of a
friend that he felt he could start a
new hobby.
His interest continued when he
came to Southwestern and met Mary
Visser who inspired him to continue,
a ell as enter in the contest with a
chance at cash prizes. Kim submitted
three of what he thought were his
best photographs of some of his
study around the Georgetown area,
an area which he feels he has almost
exhausted.
However, he feels that as long as
he keeps different perspectives, he
will never run out of pictures. Still
life are his favorite subjects, such as
bridges and trees. The contest win-
ners will be announced February 23.
Good Luv%, Glenn!
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The Megaphone (Georgetown, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, February 14, 1986, newspaper, February 14, 1986; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth634240/m1/5/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Southwestern University.