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Date:         Mon, 12 Oct 1992 16:40:52 -0500
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      Comments on Columbus, "12 October"

"12 October"

Columbus Day, 1992. I cannot get too worked up about it, I face a
Russian test I do not feel I'm ready for, lungs full of crap that
won't clear out, money hassles too numerous to recount, and a car
that wants to die any minute. So, a holiday celebrating a dead
Genoese guy who "discovered" the New World, and wrought great havoc
in doing so, is hard to get very excited about.

Five hundred years ago, the New World got crashed into by this white
guy in the pay of Spain, and every Indian in the Americas that's ever
heard of him spits on what he brought for them in terms of fate.
Personally, I'm glad he, or Lief Ericsson, or whomever, discovered
"America," I think this is a wonderful place, and I feel like we
robbed the Indians terribly when we came here. But, it is IS wierd
when the day gets shifted around to meet some three-day weekend
criteria - this is the first time in several years that Columbus Day
has been on the "traditional" day. Some places cancelled the
festivities usually carried on this day, mostly over native American
objections. What ol' Cristobal Columbo would think of the hoopla in
his name is hard to imagine, I'm sure the race we call "Indian" has
little good to say about the white man's coming this way.

So, a holiday. Not for me particularly, as I still face classes,
tests, things to write and do. Not for my wife, her company doesn't
give but about 6 holidays a year, and this isn't one of them. Not for
my kids - they got Thursday and Friday off for "staff development" of
teachers (and the superintendent's office don't give a damn about
your expense for two days of child care for three kids you now have
at home unexpectedly!), and they don't dare let the kids off Monday
too.

It isn't a holiday for those debating fools, nor all those damnable
ads for the Presidential race, nor from an equally tedious race for
governor in this state. We get no holiday for even more poorly made
ads for opposing Congressional candidates (I'm sure glad I do not
live in Missouri's 6th district, but I must say - at least that race
is lively! My cnngressman, allegedly in a "safe seat," is invisible
this year!) nor equally poorly made anti-Rothman-Serot ads by Kit
Bond and Co.

It also isn't a holiday from cooler weather, rainier and colder than
we've had in awhile. My lungs sure know it. My feelings of mortality
have been very high this week as I have coughed and hacked my way
through classes and trying to keep up with my assundry self-appointed
tasks. At 45, no person should be in such crappy health! And the
damned medicines are almost as bad as the bloody ailment! I have not
fought with fluid on the lungs like this in a year, and I am
over-extended on the hours I stay awake, the number of projects I'm
trying to juggle, the plans I'm trying to accomplish.

I am a little sad this holiday too, because my health is playing such
hell with me, because my wife has started smoking again and I cannot
get her to stop, because the steroids I have to take are playing hell
with my emotions, because some projects (like the M & I on WRITERS,
and my work for various people on smaller projects) get such short
shrift from their beholders. Lots of folks besides me should have
been praised for the last two M & I's who weren't, and lots of folk
offer silence or drivel on POLITICS when solidity has been offered of
late. Plus, some irksome mailer problems on SovHist/RusHist has
generated 50 error messages in 4 days, AmWest-H refuses to
participate with thirty subscribers, and I'm at wit's end at how does
one get others who subscribe to participate! I feel a failure as a
writer, commentator, listowner, husband, political commentator and
student this week, this month, this year, and it grates. But, as they
say, the show must go on, eh? VMS
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