Remember this: You never know when you will come
across a thing at a distance, then that thing appears on your doorstep.
I was three years out of high school and attending
the local university when one day I saw something on my drive home. There was a
fireworks store the owner wanted to develop into a roadside zoo. I never
stopped to view or inquire because the owner of the store had a bad reputation
and in constant trouble with the law.
I looked over and saw a cougar with a logging chain
attached to its neck, wrapped in a water hose spewing water. I thought to
myself that scene looked very out-of-place and wrong. I wondered why the store
owner was even allowed to have a roadside attraction less than fifty feet from
a major highway with nothing more than a dog kennel fence and a chain holding
it in. I cringed and moved along.
I don’t remember if I called someone because it was
so long ago. Later, I would learn through the ever-active community grapevine
that one of the tigers had escaped. It was hunted down and shot. I highlight
community grapevine here but several people seemed to be aware of this right
before the store owner and his son were charged with drug sales and
trafficking.
Several weeks later a blonde man with curly hair
came to our house. I thought he looked like some kind of Greek demi-god. I
don’t remember his name. In tow, he brought baby cougars in the house. I was
called into the kitchen and across the floor walked these three baby cougars. I
asked how he came to have possession of these baby cougars.
The store owners were on the cusp of being busted
and gave them away to whoever would take them. I can’t remember if this was one
of those moments where the cubs were passed on to someone who was administering
temporary care until a more suitable arrangement could be found. I don’t think
this was the case. The man wanted to pass them on to my family but my parents
were against this. The cubs were orphaned, removed from the wild at the onset
of life, and as they grew bigger the financial care and maintenance would
increase. The anxiety of potential escape and the responsibility of someone
getting hurt loomed on the horizon.
These babies deserved to be put into a
rehabilitation and release center. The only wild they knew was the concrete back
lot of a fireworks store.
Years later, I asked my parents did they know what
became of the cubs. Two of the cubs died from distemper. The third the man kept
and named it Baby. I was told when the cub was big enough to be a threat to his
toddlers he drove to North Carolina and released it in the late 90s. I do not
know if someone shot the animal, it moved on to another state, or if it died
through disease or misadventure. I was a teenager, what did I know?
I look back on this as one of those moments when the
universe opens up and things land in your lap. I find it interesting one of the
cubs crawled in my lap, put its paw on my chest then tapped me on my cheek. I
knew these were wild animals and not pets. No matter what, all babies are
beautiful unless you have no heart at all. This is the case with some people. There
are hunters who chose to hunt these animals and kill them as part of their tick
list. I am not one of those people and hope never to be one. I don’t fault
hunters who do but this is not part of my ethos.
This is one of those times where I will write
something and show you a picture to the truth of it. There are probably people
with better stories but I tried to see what this could be applied to.
The tragedy of this story was the mother coming into
the possession of drug dealers and the subsequent birth of her babies, whom
were given away like hand-me-down clothes.
Here you had intentionally orphaned cubs taken from
their mother, cheated of a natural life in the wild, shuttled back and forth
unvaccinated to different people’s homes, and no guarantee to the outcome of
their lives. Only one made it to adulthood, unceremoniously released, and then
found itself back at the same moment of having a life in question to the
outcome. All the decisions made by people determined the outcome of this cub that
was at the mercy of the decision-makers.
I thought of how this applied in my life. I will say
now the reason for my relating this tale of woe is in the hopes that if a
parent is reading this and your child becomes compromised do not be afraid to
rectify a wrong done against your child or relative. They may have to live with
a physical wound and scar the rest of their life. People deserve their dignity,
self-respect, and the positive outlook that people will do right by them and
not wrong them at every turn. Your children look to you for support when they
don’t know what to do.
I will also say that if you think I am a loser you
are entitled to your opinion but that doesn’t make it true.
As for companies, institutions, or just individuals,
if you lead someone into a ditch and they get hurt, man up and do right by
the person. Doing wrong by them will only make your issue seem more the blight
if you think you are not going to have to come to terms with what you have
done.
I was attending the local University paying my way
through school when jobs and money would allow. For a long time I didn’t use
student loans. To get the aid I had to disclose parts of my life to the
financial aid office that was embarrassing to me along with being semi-homeless
and having to drop all my classes due to pregnancy. Someone asked me about
aborting my baby. I decided that wasn’t prudent for me and became the
responsible one. Years later after my child was born I decided I could go back
and work toward finishing my hours for my Biology degree.
This is the story people like to hear; single mother
overcomes odds and gets a degree while single-handedly supporting the child or
children because somehow she is superhuman and has special powers that other
people can’t tap. The whole time she is drinking from the Kryptonite Sippy cup.
I was taking an ecology class and the requirement by
the university was you had to sign a release or you couldn’t take the class.
The class was a requirement for your degree so you were coerced into signing to
get what you needed.
We went to this place called Forty Acre Rock because
there was something special that bloomed near the pools and nowhere else. It
could have been Table Rock because we went to different places.
Everything was fine until the professor decided she
wanted us to go down this steep incline to see a water fall. Everyone started
down the hill dubiously because it recently rained. We headed down the hill and
I stepped on this one place that was covered with leaves and moss. I slipped
and fell back on my leg. I slide down the incline and slammed into a boulder.
The boulder stopped me but I broke my left leg and didn’t know it. I was
sitting on my leg in shock and the professor came over and scowled at me. After
much discussion over me, the decision was made to take the students on to see
this small waterfall. I guess it didn’t occur to her after this that maybe the
conditions were conducive to accidents.
I sat there and watched them walk off and leave me.
The professor’s husband, the university librarian, a couple of students and
another person were standing over me trying to figure out what to do with me. I
tried to stand up at their encouragement but almost passed out again to tumble
down the mountain. I relayed I couldn’t stand or walk. There was a male
African-American student who tried to break a ruler and splint my leg but I had
on my mud boots. This didn’t work. The only option I had was to crawl on my
hands and knees up this hill. The others walked up ahead as I slowly made my
way. When I got to the top of the hill they wanted me to walk to the school van
but once again I almost passed out from the pain. Someone went to get the
vehicle after I insisted I couldn’t do it. I told them the only way I was going
to get to where the van was parked was if I crawled. They were going to make me
crawl.
The same guy that tried to splint my leg started to
look angry. He stood over me and then looked at the others and said, “You are
not going to make her crawl one more inch.” He squatted on the ground like he
was in a football line up but lower. He looked at me and said, “I want you to
crawl up on my back.”
I told him I would try and once I got my leg still,
crawled up on his back. This reminded me of the painting of the Good Samaritan.
He carried me to the van and put me inside. I waited forty-five minutes to an
hour for the professor and class to return. Once we were on the way, I wasn’t
paying attention because I knew my leg was broken. The Professor spoke up after
we were ten minutes past a hospital and asked me did I want them to turn around
to go to the emergency room. I rolled my eyes because they weren’t going to
stop and wait for me to sit in an emergency room for a cast application. I was
eventually given a phone to call my parents who picked me up four hours or so
later at the university.
What came next was not to be believed. I was stuck
with the emergency room bill. The professor filed an accident form. I was
almost fired from my job because I broke my leg outside of work during classes.
I was ejected by the university and immediately barred from classes. This was
after I was assured by the main office the institution would delay my last
tuition installment because the accident impeded my ability to work my job.
I remember walking out of the Biology building on
crutches, crying and completely devastated and betrayed. Here strangers were
making the decisions affecting my life and I was at their dismissive mercy like
a small wayward child.
The professor had a moment of conscience because she
went and paid the money out her pocket to have me reinstated. I felt compelled
to pay her back because everyone made me feel like it was my fault. My father
was furious and after that did not pay another dime on my university fees. He
saw this as a sign of weakness. I didn’t know what to do.
The students in the class were telling me to quit
and go home. One student went so far as to tell the professor I was a burden
and getting a grade without doing any work because of my broken leg. It was
humiliating. I said screw it and kept going. I even walked my crutches down
into a swamp. The professor even encouraged that. I began to think the woman
didn’t have common sense and developed this rank distrust of teachers and their
lack of common sense regardless of degrees. I felt like if I didn’t go I would
fail and the money to pay for the class would be wasted. I would be further
behind on my hours and no closer to my degree. The rest of the ecology class I
wished I were elsewhere.
I wanted to do the right thing but the right thing
wasn’t done by me. I guess I should have sued them. I now walk with a limp on
my left leg that will always remind me of the crawling, the begging, and the
mistreatment. It will always remind me of the bad in a group of people but the
redemption in one student of African-American descent. I saw him years later
and thank him again.
I went back to school several times but I was
resentful of the memory. I tried to overcome it. Several months ago, I called Francis
Marion University and asked the head of the Biology department if she could
waive the one class that I took and failed that was required. I failed that one
class and I can own it too. I explained my situation. She said she would get
back to me. A month or so later I called again. She said I could take it
elsewhere. I told her I had no more money. She wasn’t very helpful.
I called the main office and told them the
situation. The worker there told me I could not take the class elsewhere. I had
to take it at FMU and she was misinforming me. I was irate to say the least.
Once again, here I was at the mercy of strangers that could care less if they
helped me and the only thing standing between me and my degree was one class. I
couldn’t think of a worse punishment.
I thought back on the attitude of the professors.
The attitude coming down the pipe was this: We are here to take your money and
fail you. We are not in the business of giving students value for their money
and education or above taking financial aid funds while giving you the worse
learning experience in your life.
Here I realized the student is paying the university
and enabling professors and administration to have a regular paycheck, yet the
student is held in contempt and being mistreated. In varying degrees the
students going to universities are being victimized by the institutions through
false promises. First class educations are traded for inadequate teaching
practices of professors and maltreatment by administration.
After students pour money into these institutions,
you are treated like garbage that is set down by the curb for someone else to
pick up. I call to mind the Chair on the Graham Norton Show.
When you read this you have to start coming to the
realization this might be the reason we still refer to some countries as Third
World toilets or developing countries. This might be why we have people cracked
out on student loans with no degrees, working menial jobs or digging through
the trash for a meal. Maybe this is why the smartest or the most savvy at
cheating or cutting corners end up as soulless doctors doling out prescription
meds to support pharmacies and getting kickbacks on those prescriptions; all
while doing baseless diagnosis and sue-worthy malpractice cases. Maybe the
attitude and practices of administration and professors in Higher Learning is
hindering those people that could be on the cusp of discovering things that can
make life on Earth more livable and sustainable. We as a planet are being screw
out of the genius potential.
My bigger question is when
did it become a real thing that a second rate professor, that can’t get
employed at a major laboratory, get stuck at a university then decide one of
his students isn’t worthy of a bright idea or discovery based on outdated tests
from more than ten years ago? My second
question to that is what university puts its professors up to telling students,
after they have foot more than $6000 in tuition while living off campus that
they will be failed intentionally without providing a learning environment
towards degree? If a professor doesn’t like teaching the students and finding
achievement in watching students succeed through professor mentorship, maybe
that professor needs to find another job.
The more I look at things the more I see this ever
throbbing vein of people keeping silent at maltreatment for the greater good of
their dreams, and the hope no one will punish or blackball then for raging
against the wrongs put upon them. You are just being taken advantage of at your
expense and on the government dime.
This is what I learned from
the wisdom of baby cougars. You are one among many that is born into this world with no
promises; not all make it. Some are harder to kill than others such as myself.
The one that does survive and thrive has a limited time on this Earth. Tragedy
can strike at the beginning, middle, or end of your life. If this occurs don’t
cry about it. It is bound to happen. No one is spared this trauma. Along the
way you might come across a person(s) who makes decisions that affect your life
negatively or positively. Your dreams will be dismissed, blocked, or mangled
yet you will and can go on without such a thing. Then again all your dreams and
goals can be realized while others around you fall like burning angels from the
sky. You might not like it but you will move forward hopefully with the
positive energy inside of you. You will cry, hate, resent, and finally come to
terms with things much like one does after a death. Grief will come and go but
finally fade away. A path is a path, be it mineral, animal, or human. I am a
firm believer in people getting their come-uppance when they mistreat people.
You will be around to see this, if not, hopefully somewhere nice. No matter
what, you believe there is something else around the corner even if there is
not. You have to believe life will change even if you are still stuck in the
same rut you were pushed or jumped into. Believe in the idea that someone will
look down at you and say, “You will not crawl one more minute”, because there
are people out there capable of this. It does happen. Not everyone wants to
intentionally make you fail. Eventually you will have nothing to lose and they
can take nothing from you because everything is already gone. This is when you
reach the Devil’s Crossroads and fear no Death.
Written by: W Harley Bloodworth
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
