Birthday Thoughts (To Madison)

It is a drop dead gorgeous day as I speed on the causeway through the seven miles of marsh to arrive home on Tybee Island. The sky is a crystal clear blue, the marsh grass a deep green and the ocean is a flat greyish green. An American flag hangs limp and still in front of Fort Pulaski, just as impotent as Congress, and it strikes me as sad to see it this way. The top is down and the pungent smell of the marsh at low tide ... the swirling aromas of sex in the tropics ... fill my senses. It is a great start to a day. I'm returning from taking Madison to school. It's her birthday this weekend as she turns eleven ... a child in what is becoming an adult's body. I'm her personal chauffeur and we either have great conversation or there are just the sounds of really bad techno-pop (97.3) blaring on the radio ... depending on the status of her hormones. Her hair is perfect so the top is up on the way but as soon as she hauls out the School Board approved see through back pack so that Authority figures can she's not packing a gun, I change the station and put the top down. Maddie also has to put on her approved ID badge so aforementioned Authority figures know who she is at all times lest she successfully sneak a gun into school. (It makes me wonder if Board Chairs who choose to remain anonymous ... Jerry Rainy ... came up with such rules.) "Bye Micheal," she says crawling out of the car. "Learn a lot," I reply. "Kiss a lot of boys." She rolls her eyes. "Fine," I say. "Kiss a lot of girls." Properly identified and definitely not packing ... well guns anyway though she drive the boys nuts as they discover their own hormones. (She's probably driving the girls nuts too.) Then there is my luscious drive home. By now I'm whimsical with a touch of melancholy. When I was eleven I got in trouble if my shirt hung out but nobody ever patted me down. They knew who me (because my shirt was never tucked in). I feel sorry for the American education system and what politicians have done to it. It's as limp as an American flag on a beautiful day driving through the marsh. My mind wanders and out of nowhere come thoughts from a thousand years ago. We raped the independent farmer just like the school system is now being ravished. These are sad thoughts on a birthday weekend that is drop dead gorgeous with the aroma of outdoor sex under a limp flag. This land fed a nation ... this land made me proud ... And Madison, on your birthday, I wonder what kind of legacy we're leaving you. Rain on the scarecrow. Blood on the plow.