- 21 Oct 2011 08:29
#13815964
I was just getting back into the teaching profession in the first week of September 1969 when the name Gaddafi was in the news. I had been married for 2 years, was busy moving into my flat in Picton Ontario, preparing to teach in Cherry Valley, a small rural community, and opening another Baha’i locality in the then Nine Year Plan.(1) I was still recovering from writing-off my car the week before to really take in the bloodless coup d’etat against King Idris.(2) Gaddafi was 27 in 1969 and I was 25.
I was also still recovering from my own bloodless coup, a mental health disorder in four psychiatric hospitals the year before, a spell of security work driving an armoured truck and several months of unsuccessful employment as a systems analyst with the Bad Boy Company in Toronto Ontario. I was eager to get back into the teaching profession which I had left in June of 1968. This small town in southern Ontario seemed just right. It was about six weeks after the first men had landed on the moon.-Ron Price: references--(1)Baha’i Teaching Plan from 1964 to 1973; and (2)Wikipedia, 22 February 2011.
Gaddafi was just a name in the news
back then, news which blows at you
from some lighted chirping box or an
unlighted one known as a radio….So
much comes at us all as we go about
our jobs, our marriages, so many acts
in the day-to-day world as we all try
to survive the tempest blowing in our
world with the speed of light before
life ends in that twinkling of an eye.
You’ve been a busy man, Muammar,
since 1969, & have I these 40+ years.
They called you the new Che Guevara
of the age, and even the King of Kings
of Africa. I wonder if you & I will make
it into old age, a period in the lifespan
which human development psychologists
call the years after 80. I have a far better
chance than you....They tell me there are
37 spellings of your name Muammar!!*?1
1 An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings of his name, and 32 spellings are known at the Library of Congress.
Ron Price
22 February 2011
Note: The above prose-poem was written 8 months before the death of Gaddafi today., 21/10/’11
I was also still recovering from my own bloodless coup, a mental health disorder in four psychiatric hospitals the year before, a spell of security work driving an armoured truck and several months of unsuccessful employment as a systems analyst with the Bad Boy Company in Toronto Ontario. I was eager to get back into the teaching profession which I had left in June of 1968. This small town in southern Ontario seemed just right. It was about six weeks after the first men had landed on the moon.-Ron Price: references--(1)Baha’i Teaching Plan from 1964 to 1973; and (2)Wikipedia, 22 February 2011.
Gaddafi was just a name in the news
back then, news which blows at you
from some lighted chirping box or an
unlighted one known as a radio….So
much comes at us all as we go about
our jobs, our marriages, so many acts
in the day-to-day world as we all try
to survive the tempest blowing in our
world with the speed of light before
life ends in that twinkling of an eye.
You’ve been a busy man, Muammar,
since 1969, & have I these 40+ years.
They called you the new Che Guevara
of the age, and even the King of Kings
of Africa. I wonder if you & I will make
it into old age, a period in the lifespan
which human development psychologists
call the years after 80. I have a far better
chance than you....They tell me there are
37 spellings of your name Muammar!!*?1
1 An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings of his name, and 32 spellings are known at the Library of Congress.
Ron Price
22 February 2011
Note: The above prose-poem was written 8 months before the death of Gaddafi today., 21/10/’11
married for 48 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, a writer and editor for 16, and a Baha'i for 56(in 2015). I have written several books and they are available on the internet.
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