"Hello," greeted Peter with a smile.
The older gentleman stopped in his tracks, stared at Peter, and said, "Do I know you?"
Or so I neighbor Peter tells the tale . . .
But that was back in the 1960's. Have things changed since?
Or so I neighbor Peter tells the tale . . .
But that was back in the 1960's. Have things changed since?
I remember seeing Johnny Fiske for the last time as I drove by the steps leading up yo the main administrative building of MIT on Massachusetts avenue in July of 1977. He stood there atop the mountain of steps made small by the massive building that stood behind him. The building did not rise up from the earth to challenge the heavens, a fist thrown up to god, like the first high tower built on the plains of shinar had. This building was rooted. It sat ther like a lion at the gates of the mind of man. Johnny stood there, gazing out upon all that passed him by. His connection to the earth was made not by wood or brick, but by metal, braces which straightened his legs whose strength had been stolen just a couple of decades before in the terror of 1954, polio. I remember that fear that swept through the classrooms in elementary school, the necessity to avoid certain things like brackish water an the brooks, the slow leaking of water downward along ravines meandering to the stillness of bulloughs pond. I met Johnny in 1957, September, where we had just arrived at the boot camp of seventh grade at f.a.day junior high school. We had graduated from the soft fur of elementary school, and thrown into the winter, in September, of classrooms twice the size of our recent ones. The desks at which we sat were equal to the stone gazes and nineteenth century birthdate of mrs, Stratton, yes, that was her real name. She was petite and she was power. Her name, it's sound, it's onomatoperfection was our introduction to a school built before the Great War, the first one. Then we met the Italians, remnants of roman legions from Caesar. Or was it Mussolini?, never knew for sure. So, there we sat, and in walked Johnny. I had never seen a walk whose rhythm was a gait borne of metal and wood, and not of muscle and sinew. But, there he was, all alone. He was assigned a desk next to mine, the only one not taken.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Peter looks like Jimmy Stewart. The Everyman we feel, or hope we know, who takes us back to someplace else we want to be.
ReplyDelete