WilliamPitt (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-04-11 08:30 AM
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I Pledge Allegiance to the Pole (some thoughts on the Fourth of July)
I Pledge Allegiance to the Pole
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Monday 04 July 2011
There is a telephone pole outside my house - seven steps down the front porch, one step across the sidewalk, and there it is - that leans only slightly enough to the right to raise concern. It does it's job tolerably well, as least as well as its sagging brethren that hover along and above my tired old Brighton sidestreet. It offers no complains. It does its duty.
Take a close look, however, and all of a sudden this simple, slightly splintered nondescript thing makes you think. There are at least three hundred nails sticking out of its old hide, and some of those nails look old enough to have held the Son and Savior Himself, in His well-documented agony, had this particular piece of pine been available on Golgotha.
Once upon a time a utility worker planted that pole in that spot, another utility worker strung the wild carnival of electrical wires that are still festooned above my house, and now I get to enjoy electricity and cable television and all the nonsense that goes along with both.
The nails in that pole will get you thinking if you look at them long enough. Hundreds of them, in spirals and straight lines and T-shapes, all over and up and down the thing. Buried deep, rusted to the quick, part of the essential wood now...and each one of them once carried a message. Lost Dog. Lost Cat. Ride Needed. Have You Seen This Girl. Concert Tonight. Strike Tomorrow.
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Originally Posted by Articulate_Ape
