< PREVIOUS ] [ 1988 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Back in college, she was sometimes called Trendy
Wendy.
No matter what the worthy goal -- promoting
civil rights, ending the war, boycotting scab lettuce --
you could count on Trendy Wendy to be at the barricades,
marching on the side of the angels. Then in 1971, she
wandered off to an organic-food commune.
The next time I saw her was in 1982, when she toted a
briefcase and drove a BMW. When I greeted her as Trendy
Wendy, she haughtily informed me that she was now L.
Wanda Nouveau-Riche,
an upwardly mobile young urban
professional whose corporate responsibilities would not
allow her to waste billable time talking to any
unproductive hairball that looked like me.
So it was surprising that when we ran into each other last week, she was friendly.
Something in me snapped when they said KIMN radio was
leaving the air,
she explained. It was the only
steadfast thing in my life. I grew up listening to Jay
Mack. I drank my first beer on a Monday afternoon after
school, cruising around while they counted down the week's
top 50. In the big back seat of a '57 DeSoto one summer
night in 1965, while they were playing 'Satisfaction,' I
lost my....
Never mind,
I interrupted. I wasn't there at
the time. But I know what you're talking about. That
announcement was a shock to all of us. We all knew that the
rest of the world might fall apart, but there would always
be a 95 Fabulous KIMN.
She nodded. It gave me an awful nostalgia attack. I
went to the drawer that holds my keepsakes -- my McCarthy
button, my 45 of 'Louie, Louie' by the Kingsmen, old issues
of the Realist. You'll never guess what I found
there.
An old Family Dog poster?
That, too. But back in a corner, all dusty and faded,
I found my old Social Consciousness. Just for the fun of
it, I took it out, re-installed it, and started it. But it
doesn't work nearly as well as it used to. I thought maybe
you'd know why.
I'll need to know more,
I prodded.
I'm still a strong supporter of women's rights. But
then that Social Consciousness kicked in and said I should
support the rights of indigenous peoples to their own ways
of life. But most of those cultures, from New Guinea to
Afghanistan, are totally male-dominant and oppressive to
women. I'd be nothing more than a chattel in one of those
cultures I'm supposed to be trying to save. Does that make
any sense?
No,
I agreed. Any other problems?
My Social Consciousness told me to get involved in a
local issue, fighting a proposed gravel pit behind my
home.
Why was that a problem?
Because I live in a house with a concrete foundation
next to a paved street. To have those things, you need
gravel. Besides that, gravel pits provide jobs that provide
food and shelter. If everybody says
No gravel pit near my
house,
then eventually our economy, and our ability to
provide food and shelter, grinds to a halt. That can't be
for the good.
That is a dilemma,
I granted. Have you figured
any way out of it?
I've tried, but I haven't come up with anything,
she confessed. It was so easy to listen to your Social
Consciousness back in the 60s, or to ignore it totally and
just make money in the 80s. Issues are always simple when
you just look at one side of things. I have this awful fear
that it's time now to start considering more than one side,
and I'm not sure I know how.
My heart sank. You always led the way,
I sighed.
And now you say you don't know what the way is?
No, I don't,
she conceded. For the first time
in my life, I don't know. I hoped you did.
I hated to tell her that I didn't know either. But we promised to keep in touch.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1988 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >