NOTE: I published the first version of this essay back in 2006.
When I was about 13, before my first real job, I was a paperboy. I rode my bike around our neighborhood, enduring the hazards of vicious dogs (one bit me in the butt); workers driving their pickups home drunk a couple hours after the afternoon shift (one ended up in the ditch); not to mention the frequent distractions of some cute girl walking by in shorts, lonely housewives who wanted to talk, or my main objective -- getting back out to the massive corn field behind our subdivision.
That was because I had created an entire world out in the corn, with documentation to prove it. It was a world based on running. After I had smashed down a narrow swath of corn stalks for 50 yards or so, it would intersect with other paths I had previously created. At each of these intersections, I added a circle, much like those that confound visitors to Washington, D.C., or Paris.
This was my private world, and only I (and the farmer, eventually) knew about it. I can only guess what he thought when he directed his harvester through my world, but being as I was young and irresponsible at the time, I didn't really care. I ran through my world, rebuilding a skinny young body from the ravages of rheumatic fever. I pushed myself relentlessly, as I raced around this field, repeating my mantra, "I am not lazy, I am not lazy, I am not lazy."
My detailed maps and stories about that era are lost to posterity, however, due to my decision some years ago to vaporize the evidence that I had ever been so immature in the first place. Tonight is the first time I've ever written about it.
Also, I suppose that farmer is long since dead, and if any crimes were inadvertently committed by ruining a small portion of his crop, certainly the statute of limitations has expired by now, so I can safely confess.
One day, when collecting cash payments from my customers for the Bay City Times, an older lady asked me to come inside her house. Reluctantly, I did so. She offered me tea and started talking about how she had recently lost her mother. Her sadness horrified me, especially when she started crying out "I'm so lonely!"
At that point, I quickly climbed back on my bicycle and rode away from there, and tried my best to never talk to her again.
As for the cash I collected, I substituted newer coins for the older ones when I paid off the newspaper. That’s how I got most of what we call in my family my “Old Money Collection,” which resides in a small wooden box created by my great great grandfather in Scotland back in the 1880s.
But back to another day as the neighborhood newspaper boy, as I was riding my route, a lady called to me to help with what she explained was a very serious problem. It seems that her dog had hung itself. As I went into her backyard I saw that the dog, a black spaniel that barked a lot, had choked on its leash while trying to jump over the fence around its cage.
I carefully lifted its body, which was already stiff, away from the scene, undid its collar, dug a hole, and buried it.
Afterward, I gave the lady her dog collar and headed back to the cornfield and my own secret world.
LINKS:
The War on Poverty Is Over. Rich People Won. (Atlantic)
Crossing jungle and desert, migrants navigate a sea of misinformation (WP)
Backlogged Courts and Years of Delays Await Many Migrants (NYT)
Deadly Cyclone Mocha slams into Bangladesh, Myanmar (Al Jazeera)
Plunging Tax Revenue Accelerates Debt-Ceiling Deadline (WSJ)
Democrats press Biden to use 14th Amendment on debt ceiling (The Hill)
7 doomsday scenarios if the U.S. crashes through the debt ceiling (WP)
China’s recovery lifts U.S. companies’ sales as domestic consumers pull back spending (CNBC)
North Carolina's governor vetoed a 12-week abortion ban, setting up an override fight (NPR)
The Curious Case of the Missing Google Assistant — Google’s generative AI chatbot Bard took center stage at the company’s I/O conference. The company’s answer to Siri was left backstage. (Wired)
After red state shootings, gun control advocates see glimmers of change (WP)
Zelenskyy praises Germany’s €2.7bn military aid pledge to Ukraine (Financial Times)
Russia says two of its commanders killed as Kyiv wages Bakhmut offensive (Reuters)
Israel and Islamic Jihad agree ceasefire after days of violence (CNN)
Turkey will hold a runoff election on May 28, with Erdogan in the lead (CNBC)
An Erdogan Loss in Turkey Would Stir Relief in the West and Anxiety in Moscow (NYT)
Laptop Gets To Age When It Can Be Lightly Tossed Sometimes (The Onion)
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