Me and Meredith

Robert Ronnow
The Imaginary i

Me and Meredith

Me and Meredith, the high school librarian, are about the same age I’m guessing.
She has an old hippie feel about her, I’m not sure what someone would say about me.
Yesterday a class came to the library, for a research project; out of 30 students, 3-4 worked,
   the rest, esp. the girls, socialized like a flock of starlings.
Not that I blame them, even at its best school is dull, yet one wonders if this is diagnostic,
   how will America compete with China or even Canada.
Well, a) it’s not my problem, why care about the future, the dead don’t live to see it;
b) based on the film No One Left Behind, Chinese kids can be as unruly and rambunctious as
   American, and good for them;
c) even in the era of one-room schoolhouses, farm-boy and -girl dropouts, and the ordinary care
   of Providence, the American economy chugged along unimpeded and on automatic pilot,
piling up bodies and relocating businesses west or south or far east.
These girls (and some boys) are a force of nature—no worries, there is nothing me or Meredith
   can do about it. Get Over Yourself, that's my favorite bumper sticker. Also, Confidence is
   the feeling you have before you understand the situation.

What do I know about Meredith: I like the striped knee socks she wears in winter; she grows
   and sells Christmas trees; she rents mountaintop land for windmills.
Back about 15 years ago we were on opposite sides of the windmill controversy—I opposed
   them on aesthetic grounds, she supported them for personal financial reasons; as it turned
   out me and Meredith are still friendly, she got the money and I got used to them.
Her husband has cancer. Doesn’t almost everybody? It’s an epidemic or just the next hurdle on
   humanity’s journey toward immortality.
If you believe immortality is possible, it’s gotta be disappointing not to live long enough to
   experience it.
The kids in the library aren’t thinking about that. I don’t know what they’re thinking about.
   Assignments. Assignations. Resentments.
Meredith took attendance and said Thank you when each student said Here or Present.