Thurman P. Woodfork

PRIVACY AND SECURITY – ANOTHER RAMBLE

Synchronicity of Male FirefliesWhat’s it all about, anyway? What’s the purpose? Why the tension between you and me? This world is such a cesspool when it really doesn’t have to be. How much effort does it take to smile… to sit down and chat for awhile? Do I really need to cut your throat for a dollar when I’m already warm and clean and well-fed? I don’t need the bread; maybe I just want to hear you holler.

I’d rather dance in the moonlight and loll in the sun than pick a fight or carry a gun. And it doesn’t make sense to put up a fence so I can’t see my neighbor, even if he is an ass. Besides, no fence gives me more incentive to cut my grass because you can see. Then we get that nice, new-cut grass smell – ah, but what the hell? I forgot about the privacy.

I remember when neighbors gathered in Mr. Hurd’s front yard down on 3rd Street Northwest on a summer evening in DC and played checkers. The cackling and lying and slamming of pieces on the board as they plotted, schemed, and maneuvered to jump one another’s checkers was something to behold – and good for the soul. King me, daggone it!

There were fireflies in DC then; I know because I used to catch them in a jar. Did they go away, or have I just gotten too blasé to notice them anymore? Has childhood receded so far? Or am I stuck inside behind closed doors with conditioned air these hot nights? Maybe they’re still there and didn’t go but I can’t see their delicate glow in the harsh glare of the security lights.

Too bad I’ve grown too old and sober to run full tilt with wild abandon until I’m all out of breath, and memories of when I did run like that are all that’s left… and fences… with guns for ‘home protection’ – and no more sociable, gleeful, beer-drinking neighborhood checkers players. What a pity. Why did this happen to my friendly city?