Life is a funny thing - it almost never turns out the way we planned. That’s a good thing, though, because it makes for great humor and lessons learned. What is truly ironic is the way people you completely forgot about or don’t even really know turn out to be an influence on you. I’ll stop with the “sweet mystery of life” stuff now and share a truly ironic happenstance and how it has affected my life and politics.
The year was 1986, and I was in 5th Grade at Mirror Lake Elementary School in Plantation, FL. My father, Robert, had died of cancer early that school year and I brought his briefcase to school as a way of bringing him with me. I got picked on a lot for it - that’s what happens when a ten year-old sticks out like a sore thumb. To my credit, I had a big mouth and was lightning fast with comebacks – which meant I got my butt kicked occasionally. I had vision problems (I was born with a lazy eye that was later corrected through surgery, and wasn’t a fast runner, either.) This made me an easy and obvious target (deservedly so.) So that was not a great year for me. In retrospect, I could’ve helped myself, but didn’t.
Since I couldn’t see too well, I sat near the front of the class. My teacher that year, Mrs. Benson, didn’t like me very much. As such, in the latter part of the year, she moved me off to the side where I could see the blackboard and, at the same time, not bother her with my ADHD. I moved there and sat next to a little blonde girl named Connie. She just sat there, minding her own business and little smart-ass me decided to strike up a friendship the only way I knew how: by being a jackass.
One day, I walked up to Connie and said simply: “Good morning, Constance!” She ignored me at first, and quickly found that I was tough to ignore. She was a sweet kid, and didn’t know that this was my way of trying to be buddies with her, so she told me (repeatedly) to shut my trap. Needless to say, my little entreaty didn’t work. Connie and I attended school together for another seven years, but never really talked or became friends. We wouldn’t become friends until many years later.
Fast forward to 2008: I was working in the Investment Banking game back home in South Florida after attending college and graduate school. The financial panic of the recession had just kicked in and nobody wanted to sell their company in such an environment. That gave me precious little to do (my firm eventually went ‘belly-up’ and almost took me with it,) so I turned to the brand new diversion I’d recently discovered to while away my (now useless) time: Facebook!
As most of its denizens will tell you, Facebook is a wonderful place to find all the people you thought (or hoped, depending on your perspective,) you’d lost forever. After opening the account, I needed some “friends” or people I knew with whom to connect. I looked up my old high school, added some people I remembered, and decided I’d done a good thing. Now I could see what all those people were up to. For a guy with a career in an evaporating field, it was great. That meant I had something to do besides listen to CEOs complain about how their companies were dying and how could I even ask if they wanted to sell.
One of the first people I found was good old Connie from 5th Grade. By then, she’d forgotten all about my stupidity but had become quite vocal in her own little (conservative) way. I had degrees in political science that were going to waste with a career in finance, so I quickly decided to use Facebook as my personal bully pulpit to express my ideas and spread my personal (liberal) gospel. This was good, in that it gave me an outlet and a captive audience, and bad (I quickly found myself arguing with several of my vitriolic conservative former classmates.)
I logged on to Facebook one day to find a comment from Connie on one of my pictures. It was an opening salvo in the coming battle between two old acquaintances turned liberal and conservative – it started an argument that still has not ended as of this writing three long years later. The comment read: "You know, you didn’t grow up to be a bad looking guy and I just think that maybe if you weren’t such a Democrat that you wouldn’t be single still.” I was a little surprised, we hadn’t said a word to each other after 5th Grade (that I can remember, anyway,) but I was glad she seemed to be into politics – it gave me someone with whom to banter and debate.
The debates started then and there and have never really stopped. We’ve gotten to know each other a bit personally, so now I tone down the rhetoric and even defend her at times. At first, I was determined to “win” or at least to gain some ground. To her credit, I never did. For a little woman, she’s got a certain spunk that I’ve come to greatly respect and even admire. We debated endlessly on every political topic known to man: foreign affairs, welfare, unemployment, the Tea Party, Sarah Palin … you name it, we argued about it ... publicly!
Both Connie and I used to update our statuses regularly. Each one, in turn, turned into a debate on politics. We ran each comment stream up past the hundred mark, going back and forth. She once posted something about being frustrated with a long line at her local Wal Mart … it turned into an endless debate on welfare. I posted that I was at the dentist – that turned into a debate on health care reform.
My other Facebook friends all got sick of my little political rants and eventually either turned off my notifications or deleted me altogether. When that started, I decided to create a second account to air my politics – the new one would only have my political friends and be a place for my fellow liberals to rant. When it came time to give the new account a name, I quickly decided on using a nickname Connie had given me “Paulytics” (pronounced “politics,” and a play on my name.) Good ol’ Connie was my very first friend (which I’m sure she now regrets.)
It was only about six months ago that I created my little avatar, now known as Americus Paulytics (http://www.facebook.com/americus.paulytics). It’s grown exponentially into something of a Facebook news service for liberals – offering commentary, punditry, humor, and all the liberally-slanted political news anyone could want. I’ve branched out into blogging (obviously) and am currently creating a website independent of Facebook where my friends and I will collaborate. I even incorporated it (yes, really) and created several political groups that offer people a forum in which to rant about different subjects (the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, and several others.) Through recommendations, requests, and word of mouth, “Americus” now has twice the friends that I (personally) do.
Today, Americus Paulytics is a small but growing little group of Facebook liberals who provide original content and share news stories with about 1600 people (the vast majority of which are liberals.) I even have a couple of partners who help and make suggestions. Not that I’m bragging, but it’s neat (even my mother likes it,) and is my very own creation. I’ve gotten a lot of compliments and some actually rely on us as a legitimate news organization. In that sense, I’m fulfilling my dream - for that, I have to thank Miss Connie for encouraging me. I’m sure she’s not going to be pleased when (and if) she reads that, but it’s my way of saying “thank you.”
Life is a huge mystery … you never know until you live it. After years of falling by the way side, it was the little blonde from 5th Grade that (successfully) encouraged me to do something with my education, trying where others had failed. She probably dislikes the result (she actually stays off the page now since there are 1590 other liberals that will comment if she posts anything,) but I certainly have to appreciate her tacit contributions. If this little idea of mine ever goes anywhere, I will have Connie to thank!
Showing posts with label liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberalism. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
In undergraduate school, I majored in Political Science and Sociology. I’d always felt the two were related as one is the study of politics and government and the other is the study of society. Well, you can’t have politics without a society, now can you? I can remember reading those little diatribes on sociology and thinking to myself, “Why does inequality exist?” After years of study, I came up with a simple conclusion: because some people don’t know any better. Not the most intellectual premise in the world, but it got the job done and I still agree with it today. The height of sophistication, it ain’t … but it’s pithy, and we liberals love pithiness.
What an education in such topics will give you, if you endeavor to acquire it, is the ability to turn off the ugliness of your own humanity. Education gives you the ability to stop your innate hatred in its tracks. When you have an education and you’ve put some thought into your thoughts, it’s much easier to ignore the voice that tells you that the homeless man begging for change in the street is a “bum.” It will remind you that you cannot just assume that the couple in front of you with twelve children do not have so many because they are Hispanic.
For much of my college and graduate school years, I worked at Domino’s Pizza in various positions: CSR, Pizza Maker, Delivery, Secretary, and Assistant Manager - you name it and I did it. We got some interesting customers, not all were college students and many were, like a lot of people, seeking something for nothing. What my education in sociology taught me was to ignore that annoying impulse to label them as some slur or stereotype simply because I could.
I’ll touch on a subject here that I typically like to avoid: racism. Many of the delivery drivers at the stores where I worked would sometimes grouse (to me, of all people,) that they disliked delivering to African-American customers because they felt they were certain to get “stiffed” (not be tipped.) If they were “stiffed,” that meant they only received the company’s small allotment for gas (then about $0.50/delivery.) They made their living off tips, so this was akin to taking money out of their pockets. They would often become upset and, if they didn’t know my ethnicity, would seek out what was certain to be a sympathetic ear (me.)
That’s usually about where “Mr. Sociology Major” came in and explained the inequality inherent in American society with regard to African-Americans. Once my lecture on the basic unfairness of property taxes funding education was complete, they’d usually curse at me and leave in a huff. My point was that if all people were given the same access to education (and the funding necessary to ensure its’ success,) then all people (regardless of color) would be doing better financially and would be a little freer with that last buck or two.
My favorite (true) story of those days: One such driver came to me, then a veritable stranger, and said “I don’t know about you, but I hate delivering to black people.” At that point I looked at him, patted my right arm, and said simply: “Do I look white to you, genius?” We both laughed at the awkwardness of the moment and moved on. He learned not to judge a book by its cover and I learned that my new friend wasn’t all that observant. (We remain close to this very day.)
My little lectures did not make me a popular guy; in fact, they made me a laughingstock. My (Republican) boss would often berate me (in public) by saying things like, “You’re the typical Democrat: you’re fat, you’re stupid, and you work for minimum wage while you go to school to learn crap that you’ll never use.” (That was a great lesson in Republican hypocrisy as he weighed about four hundred pounds and had studied engineering only to become the Pizza King of Gainesville, Florida!)
The point of this little diatribe, my dear readers, is to point out the value of education. Even if you don’t use it for the aim in which you intended, you can still use it throughout your daily life in an attempt to better yourself and those around you. So get one, encourage or help someone else to get one, and never say it’s useless.
What an education in such topics will give you, if you endeavor to acquire it, is the ability to turn off the ugliness of your own humanity. Education gives you the ability to stop your innate hatred in its tracks. When you have an education and you’ve put some thought into your thoughts, it’s much easier to ignore the voice that tells you that the homeless man begging for change in the street is a “bum.” It will remind you that you cannot just assume that the couple in front of you with twelve children do not have so many because they are Hispanic.
For much of my college and graduate school years, I worked at Domino’s Pizza in various positions: CSR, Pizza Maker, Delivery, Secretary, and Assistant Manager - you name it and I did it. We got some interesting customers, not all were college students and many were, like a lot of people, seeking something for nothing. What my education in sociology taught me was to ignore that annoying impulse to label them as some slur or stereotype simply because I could.
I’ll touch on a subject here that I typically like to avoid: racism. Many of the delivery drivers at the stores where I worked would sometimes grouse (to me, of all people,) that they disliked delivering to African-American customers because they felt they were certain to get “stiffed” (not be tipped.) If they were “stiffed,” that meant they only received the company’s small allotment for gas (then about $0.50/delivery.) They made their living off tips, so this was akin to taking money out of their pockets. They would often become upset and, if they didn’t know my ethnicity, would seek out what was certain to be a sympathetic ear (me.)
That’s usually about where “Mr. Sociology Major” came in and explained the inequality inherent in American society with regard to African-Americans. Once my lecture on the basic unfairness of property taxes funding education was complete, they’d usually curse at me and leave in a huff. My point was that if all people were given the same access to education (and the funding necessary to ensure its’ success,) then all people (regardless of color) would be doing better financially and would be a little freer with that last buck or two.
My favorite (true) story of those days: One such driver came to me, then a veritable stranger, and said “I don’t know about you, but I hate delivering to black people.” At that point I looked at him, patted my right arm, and said simply: “Do I look white to you, genius?” We both laughed at the awkwardness of the moment and moved on. He learned not to judge a book by its cover and I learned that my new friend wasn’t all that observant. (We remain close to this very day.)
My little lectures did not make me a popular guy; in fact, they made me a laughingstock. My (Republican) boss would often berate me (in public) by saying things like, “You’re the typical Democrat: you’re fat, you’re stupid, and you work for minimum wage while you go to school to learn crap that you’ll never use.” (That was a great lesson in Republican hypocrisy as he weighed about four hundred pounds and had studied engineering only to become the Pizza King of Gainesville, Florida!)
The point of this little diatribe, my dear readers, is to point out the value of education. Even if you don’t use it for the aim in which you intended, you can still use it throughout your daily life in an attempt to better yourself and those around you. So get one, encourage or help someone else to get one, and never say it’s useless.
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