Subdivisions
#5 of Signals
Outside of every major city, you will find them. Call them what you will bedroom communities, suburbs, subdivisions and I know there's a good chance that many of you readers live there. Startinbg in Levittown, New Jersey shortly after the end of the Second World War, the concept of low-cost, identical housing took off across America and shows no signs of stopping to this day. This is an excerpt from the diary of Martin, a 17-year-old nerdy fox who lives in one of these places, named Plano, outside the city of Dallas.
Diary of Martin Johansson, September 15, 2007
I hate the high school I attend, Stephen F. Austin High and cannot wait for graduation even though it is so far in the distance. I also cannot wait to leave these suburbs behind me as well. Now some people (especially those from the crime-ridden inner cities) might look at these suburbs and think 'What a wonderful place to live!' but I can tell you based on firsthand experience, these are the worst places to live in the world if you question social norms. If you would try to be different in a place like this, others will come down on you hard for being well, different.
These norms- be politically conservative, be rich, own a nice car and a trophy husband/wife of your species have essentially made these suburbs closed off from the rest of the world. I feel alone in this place because I don't want to be another suburb-dweller and I want to leave this behind me. What we have here is a "people factory" where everyone looks as identical as their homes- same $50,000-$100,000 job, same mortgage they're gonna pay off "someday", same party they vote for in every election, same 2.5 kids, you'd think they were cloned from each other.
Most foxes, like myself lack the physical strength to be on football teams. High-school football is a religion in its own right in the state of Texas. If you don't play it, people just assume you're a weakling here. So since I never had the body type to be good at football, I was placed on a second-tier and taken on a road of acdemia. I guess this is nice to get good grades as I'm really applying myself but one of my fellow students, a wolf by the name of Gerald who plays on the football team doesn't even show up to class half the time (and the times he shows up, he's come in several times visibly hung-over).
This wolf even pays me to correct his algebra homework and English papers. It's understandable that between his practice, he simply doesn't have the time to do this homework but if he doesn't pass his career is shot. What I've found out is that this wolf's math skills are on par with an elementary schooler's and his inability to string coherent words together to form even a short paragraph, makes me highly question his literacy. Because he's a jock who might win our school a state championship, subpar academic performance is just swept under the rug. And even if his pro career doesn't pan out, since his dad is a rich CEO who will probably hire his son for a mangerial post at his North Dallas company, Gerald probably won't even need a college degree to get rich, unlike me.
It's easy to hate someone like Gerald, the wolf for his success as he drives around with his new license in an expensive Corvette scoring with every female in this high school, it's easy to hate that this semi-literate has an assured future as one of Dallas' elite but this wolf is merely a product of the system. And if I have to just put my muzzle to the grindstone to finish this school, which I have grown to hate so much, I will. I'm just so gald that today was a Friday so I won't have to go back tomorrow
September 17-18, 2007
Today, I went out to the mall, which on a Saturday is flooded with all the working stiffs and kids who had to while away their time. The former group punched a clock either for their blue-collar jobs and the latter spent their time warming seats in high school. I saw Gerald there, chasing skirts. he's the kind of guy who thinks he's better with the ladies than he actually is yet somehow his impressive muscles and canned one-liners go over well with these shallow women. The vixen he was chasing, wore if I remember correctly,a miniskirt the size of a beer cozy and they were at the food court, where a napkin placed on her lap would have provided more coverage than the skirt she was wearing. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying but I can assume Gerald has yet another girlfriend. He thinks he can coast through life on strength alone, intellect be damned. He doesn't think with his mind but with his sheath, which truly is a shame.
The reason I came here to the mall with my family in a dinged-up rustbucket of a car which we got in a discount was to check the new bookstore that just opened there where a jewelry store used to be. The mall in the big city has always fascinated me with its bright lights- I often think of the bug-zappers at our home which use lights that are irresistibly bright lights that lure the bugs ot their doom. That's what we are, no better than these bugs in going for all that is shiny, bright, and beautiful.
Perhaps maybe those books I am so fond of reading can help me escape the banality of this existence, just waiting to graduate from high school and go to college. God knows there is nothing in these suburbs to soothe my wandering heart. As soon as I am able to leave with a diploma, I will and find some other place where the people are more genuine.
The next day, I met Mrs. Hamilton, the kindly old tigress at the church's ice cream social. Her history classes are so engrossing that I actually can envision myself as a cattle driver, a cowboy living under the stars as I led unwilling calves from the south up to St. Louis. At one point, Plano was just like that and the people who once ruled this whistle-stop didn't have flashy degrees or rich parents- they had guts, determination, and initative to build this city over a slow and painful evolution.
Of course, if they saw what the Texans of today had to go through, they would probably laugh. Mrs. Hamilton told me they were "pragmatists" a word which means they may not have been the most well-educated but when the opportunity of making money or founding a city presented itself, they took it. Those same travelers who caught "Texas fever" and left their homes in the East would be spinning in their graves today as their progeny now has to pass a battery of tests just to have a future.
September 19, 2007
School came back for the Monday and frankly I'm getting rather tired of it. I know it started only a few weeks ago but TAKS, which doesn't even start until next May is on everyone's mind. Our legislators in Austin, in their infinite wisdom have decided that passage to the next grade is based upon passing a test of reading and math. If a child wants to learn about arts, music, theater, foreign cultures, or science, they'll first have to go through these hoops. The tests themselves are so unnecessary and anyone can do them, especially when the teachers have been coaching you the whole time on how to win at these tests. And the coaching crowds out more meaningful and important things like science, arts, and the humanities so for all this math and reading, we never learn to think independently.
Gerald, even with his learning difficulties, passes them easily as the teachers just teach that wolf, like they do every Texan student, the test itself. The teachers will often grade with such a curve that everybody passes. Your grade on this test is according to the legislators, how smart you are, never mind the fact that many in the class of 2007 came out only able to read middle school literature or solve a basic long division problem. High school itself, with its stereotypes and cliques and popularity contests is dysfunctional in two respects. It only teaches students to be critical of others and they never learn how to hink for themselves. And yet, high school is unavoidable.
I know that I'm a smart fox, ready and mature enough to go to college yet I've still got this year and another year before I can spread my wings and fly.The enthusiasm I experienced coming out of middle school has disappeared as I realize now in the final years of my high school that this is nothing more than a corral that I must stay in for the next two years. It's truly a shame because I may be able to express myself coherently, talk to adults about pressing issues, and have interests in the world beyond high school, they'll treat me as some immature snot-muzzled kid. Senioritis has strick early and now I find my academic career in a holding pattern waiting for graduation. When will the torment end?