Old Country Road - Original Poem

Background:  This poem began in a dream about the recent car accident in which my wife and I were in.  I could here a song playing on the radio, but I couldn't remember all of the words, so I filled in the gaps.  Some of the events have been changed, but this is loosely based on the actual accident.

Old Country Road

Just as faithful as Sunday morning

But he wouldn't appear to be

Only a year out  of high school

So young and so free

Had baby already

And his lady's naive

Trying to build a family

On a hill of instability

The conversation got heated

The words started to cut

Tears started flowing

He started his truck

Put the house in his rearview

The sun in his windshield

Rushing towards freedom

Driving over the hill

Couldn't see a future

Couldn't fight the hurt

Blinded by emotion

Couldn't handle the curve

Woke up Monday morning

To a bigger burden

From picture of the accident

And the children hurting

The parents were lying

Relatives were crying

A pickup was crashing

And he was driving

On a country road

A lonely highway

Down in a valley

Looking for redemption

Speeding towards freedom

With the pedal to the metal

But where the rubber met the road

He lost control

So many lives were shattered

When the airbags deployed

And a hysterical mother

Cries for her baby boy

Rolled away on a gurney

Escorted by cops

His mind goes on a journey

As he lies there in shock

Wish he could turn back the moments

On that old country road

When he forced all his problems

On a family he didn’t know

He paid his debt and liability

And started going to church

He kiss his baby every night

And hides his keys when he’s hurt

A couple years later

Down that old country road

He was back where he started

Be he was driving real slow

As fate might have had it

He pulls to a gas station

Ran again into the family

The kids smiling and waving

They realized that they were neighbors

Just a couple driveways away

Down that old country road

That lonely highway

On a country road

A lonely highway

Down in a valley

Looking for redemption

Speeding towards freedom

With the pedal to the metal

But where the rubber met the road

He lost control

SOUTHSIDE BOOK REVIEW

SOUTHSIDE  BOOK  REVIEWS

Reviews Of Books Recently Written By Southside Authors
Compiled by:  Forrest W. Schultz   770-583-3258   schultz_forrest@yahoo.com
April 26, 2012


 Young Teacher Speaks Out on Education Today

A review of

J. Speeks (pseud.) The Underground Philosophy of Education (Kobalt Books, 2011)
                              $15.00   128 pp   ISBN-10: 0982033079   ISBN-13: 978-0982033074

Reviewer:  Forrest Schultz

     Nigel L.Walker, a young black male public school tacher, using the pseudonym "Speeks", speaks out on today's problems in public schools, problems he has experienced both as a student and now as a teacher.  These problems are not new, but they need to be continually brought up because there are continually new people coming along who need to know them.  It is also good to get fresh restatements of these problems from various viewpoints.  The term "underground" which he uses can be misleading because, frankly, almost all the analyses and suggestions the author makes are simply common sense, but then, there has always been a lot of stuff done in the schools in violation of common sense!

     The term "underground" may possibly also connote radical, but this is clearly not the case here because all the problems dealt with, while important, are surficial ones, which do not deal with the root cause, which is the failure to recognize that genuine education only occurs when a person really wants to learn, and when he sees that all subjects are inherently interesting.  Walker concludes by saying that the teacher should "instill" a desire to learn, which is not true, because everyone has a desire to learn until it is smothered by things such as textbooks which make it look like the subjects, such as physics and history, are boring and that the teacher's job is to MAKE them interesting.  The teacher's job is to SHOW that everything is interesting.  Many other radical changes are needed which are not dealt with here, such as the need to make education voluntary, not compulsory.

     What Walker does deal with, though, is well done and interesting.  His remarks on students supposing teachers are some special kind of beings is reminiscent of a comment I heard saying the same thing about the nuns teaching in parochial schools -- this student thought God dropped them down from Heaven and all they did was teach. And there is some tough stuff which needs to be noted in regard to students coming from neighborhoods which are difficult to live in, something he himself experienced as a child.  

     There are also good comments on how disruptive students misuse their intelligence -- the problem is not lack of intelligence, but using it for the wrong purposes.  And remarks on how misguided parents can disrupt schools. And so on.

     As a discussion of these kinds of things, the book is good and is recommended.

     Information is available on the author's blog http://nigellwalker.blogspot.com.  

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Welcome to Oz - excerpt from The Underground Philosophy of Education: Teaching is NOT for Dummies

The Wizard.
Here we have a magical being in power to solve all of the mysteries that lie within the field of education. I see this as the federal legislation that come from politicians, not educators who are in the classroom everyday and have a first-person view of what is really going on. As we see from the renowned tale, the wizard consists of mainly smoke and mirrors; a man behind a curtain. However, continue to follow me if you think that I am stating it as a bad thing. Through further analysis, you see that the intensions of the man behind the curtain are for the better; his persona just has been lost in midst of astronomical expectations. Just as in the movie, it is time to expose the wizard at his face value so that the practical solutions are realized. That way we all will discover the answers that might be right in front of our eyes, which have been blinded previously by the mysticism of politics and special interest.

-except from The Underground Philosophy of Education: Teaching is NOT for Dummies. Available at Kobaltbooks.com and all major online bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Books-a-million.