Report from the Interior (29 page)

BOOK: Report from the Interior
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Politics was a nasty sport, you now realized, a free-for-all of bitter, unending conflict …

 

… the Great Spirit they believed in struck you as a warm and welcoming deity, unlike the vengeful God of your imagination …

 

Lone Ranger: Well, Tonto, it looks like we’re surrounded.

 

Tonto: What do you mean
we
?

 

The Cold War was in full bloom then …

 

… the Red Scare had entered its most poisonous phase …

 

… the only noise from the zeitgeist loud enough for you to hear was the bass drum sounding the alarm that the Communists were out to destroy America.

 

… the supersonic jets roaring across the blue skies of summer …

 

… a flash of silver glinting briefly in the light …

 

… the great detonation of blasting air that signified the sound barrier had been broken yet again.

 

You never worried that bombs or rockets would fall on you …

 

That was fear. Not bombs or a nuclear attack, but polio.

 

… your father’s mother, an alien presence who still spoke and read mostly in Yiddish …

 

… no Sabbath meals on Friday night, no lighting of candles …

BOOK: Report from the Interior
13.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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