ࡱ> <>;7 bjbjUU .7|7|l ,! .0005e o y!$" $! ! ! . .""" _d :"" !0!"Z%Z%" 610000202A-Z Subfile A7: Ira scribbled, it seemed to the Alpha Centaurii, prolifically. If only they had been able to visit his Rosebud trailer, they would see dozens of these pieces scratched on cardboard boxes, walls, stray pieces of paper stuck in a hole to keep out a draught, anyplace, in fact, he could write what was bothering him and he had no paint available, at least in those colors he was feeling, to paint on cowhide or canvas. Having bummed around extensively in North America, he naturally ran into a number of scams set up to catch the affluent. So when he got around to it he wrote them a letter of warning. Would they listen? Hardly. But he had to get it out of his heart and guts anyway, or he wouldnt have relief. This fantasy happened to complement a Christmas card that pictured a row of American Dreams all decked out in Christmas finery--the very kind of neighborhood he knew he would never be allowed to live in if he lived a dozen lifetimes. It was someones dream, but a nightmare for everyone else who for one reason or another--being Indian, he had a problem--couldnt share the dream. Ballad of the Street of Dreams A Guided Tour for the Affluent by I. Sulkowsky Come and stroll a lane of dreams, where nothing quite is what it seems! The scene you see is apt to float Like mirages of a misty moat. Refrain: The hours late, the sky is red, The Lord is coming, yes, He who bled! No mercy will He bring with Him for those who dont invest in Wisdom... for those who dont listen to Wisdom. The titles to all the castles you see belong to owners absentee; The flowers in the flower box? They dont need water, just like rocks. The fountains spout right from the ground. Artesian wells? Or pipes unsound? The street is silent, without birds, its eerie, strange beyond words. See those people? Phantoms all, the same stuff used in every wall; And those lawns--you need not mow; Theyre made from strips of green Astro. Dreamless people tour the lot, they think that happiness is bought, someone elses grief and pain turned into their private gain. Someone elses anguished night somehow transmutes to their right; Never mind the blood and tears each flower and each sidewalk bears! Each window, broken, stares on back, haggard, worn with care and lack; Each door is hanging loose, ajar, no bitter wind is given bar. Each tumbled chimney, sagging roof, is met by eyes that gaze aloof; Each rutted lane and weedy yard is greeted by a heart grown hard. The widow, orphan, aged pair go unseen, they seem not there; The lonely cripple, sick shut-in-- designer furniture within! Hear that dying rattle in the room?-- Chopin to an ear entombed; Mansions raised to others dreams nightmares turn and horror streams. Mocking all who stroll and pass, the residents greet rich and crass; They know theyre really there. These visitors? Mere vapor, air! The roses? They spring from hearts trampled, torn, and pierced with darts; The very soil is the same that once soaked up a brothers blame. Cain, we read, lived on this road; His brothers worth turned to a goad; He struck and Abel lost his life, and Adams home collapsed in strife. Who is my brother? is still asked now by those who pass with lifted brow; They use no club, no knife, no gun, Yet the murder still is done. Indifference and selfishness Can slay with the same deadliness; They pass by others crying need to indulge all these dreams that bleed. They do not mark that someday soon these dreams will turn red like the moon; Illusions most think beautiful will shift to judgment cups brim full. And, so, be careful where you step! That primrose path on which you crept is razor thin, a sword that will return via the Lord. Definitely, when Ira wrote this, he was drunk. Religion, Native or Christian, did not darken his door very often, especially in such massive dosages as here. But the Alpha Centaurii had no such hang-ups as late 20th Century Lakota. One half religious, the other half defiantly not, the AC colony had adjusted to the split, and each side knew its rights and saw to it they were respected. The wall of the separation of church and state was alive and well in the colony, though the religious side had achieved this admirable parity of co-existence by gradually sacrificing everything essential to the Christian faith, keeping only a doctrine of the existence of a Supreme Being. Without a Gospel, without a kerygma of core Christian beliefs, they certainly could not celebrate an annual Birth of the God-Man Yeshua, or Christmas. They had completely forgotten it, and had only a wall to thank for their rather cheerless Geo-Domed reproductions of the Winter Solstice. The Street of Dreams affected untold millions, just as the other subfiles had already done. These people saw they had lived all their lives on such streets, at least mentally. What had they cared about all those who couldnt, for one reason or another, were excluded or could not share that Dream? Really not a fig! For, in their dreaming, they couldnt see the others. They had been blinded by the Dream. If A Victorian Christmas hadnt already done the job, Iras guided tour, produced, wrenched their eyes open to the realities of their lives, lives in which they lived walled off from others less fortunate. The colony, even with its high standards, was riddled, they now saw, with inequalities that could not be excused with the notion healthy competition was, thereby, fostered. Dead-end jobs, glass ceilings, prejudices, biases, simple dislike and suspicion--they all did their part to separate and then push the unfortunate, the Dream-challenged, into ghettos of the mind and spirit. Ira had lived in ghettos all his life, imposed by others as well by himself. With the truth of what they had done to others now in their faces, the Alpha Centaurii were first shocked, then genuinely ashamed, and then the ones who really wanted to change, they changed. They began reaching out to the Dream-challenged, not just taking their cause for political advantage but actually stepping out from places and echelons of high privilege and going to where the Dream-less lived, sharing their conditions and doing all they could to improve them. This subfile, too, launched a revolution. Now, with subfile after subfile producing radical changes in their lives, the ACs viewed a production of an event that struck just as deep as the Street of Dreams, wrapping upIra Sulkowskys guided tour, via his paintings and doggerel, of the human predicament shared by everyone, from Adam and Eve to AC, the Lost Tribe. %h + 5CJ5CJ(5CJ 56CJ(6CJ5CJ 6CJHE ' I g h i t  * + Q l $da$d  ( J K m # A a b  1 S p q $da$ 7Zuv!Ff>d$da$;<Y| 5\]Rd$da$R0$a$$da$d/ =!"#$% i0@0 Normal_HmH sH tH <A@< Default Paragraph Font.E'Ighit*+Ql(JKm#Aab 1 S p q  7 Z u v ! F f   > d  ; < Y | 5\]R0 RLU,2"*CJu|#$/UdEFIfQWl(,mp#*AG   S U q ~   Z b ! $ ' / b c z { 59'0RV  <C&.[cCImt33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 Ron GintherC:\WW6\DOC23.DOC Ron GinthesC:\My Documents\DOC23.DOCOwnerDC:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\streetofdreams.html.DOC@hp psc 1200 seriesNe01:winspoolhp psc 1200 serieshp psc 1200 series!@m߀lydrtBeRLdArial8cBeںں\\GINTHER-LAP\hp psc 1200 series,LocalOnly,DrvConverthp psc 1200 series!@m߀lydrtBeRLdArial8cBeںں\\GINTHER-LAP\hp psc 1200 series,LocalOnly,DrvConvert4`@UnknownGz Times New Roman5Symbol3& z Arial"@hff2 /$202!Come and walk the road of dreams, Ron GintherOwnerOh+'0  8 D P \hpx"Come and walk the road of dreams,osome Ron Gintheron NormaltOwnert2neMicrosoft Word 9.0o@F#@}'@fG@fG՜.+,0 hp|   a/  "Come and walk the road of dreams, Title  !"#$%&'()*,-./012456789:=Root Entry Fd?1TableZ%WordDocument.SummaryInformation(+DocumentSummaryInformation83CompObjjObjectPooldd  FMicrosoft Word Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q