Call me Yamhill

The School

GLOBAL EDUCATION Henry Ferguson Director, Center for International Programs New York State Education Department Albany, New York Final editing by Christian Spencer.
"I believe in teaching our kids the American way of life. We've got to get back to the basics, and away from these high-falutin'ideas. We want American History , not Social Studies. We don't need these foreigner's languages: English is good enough for all of us. We gotta get these foreign things out and Americanism in. It was self-help that got America where it is today, and we gotta teach our kids self-help too.

That's what's made America great. The most powerful country in the whole wide world, and we don't have to thank anyone but ourselves.”
Our citizen sat down, glowing form the applause that rippled across the auditorium, but he felt a sudden change. When someone form the school board asked him a question, he found that he couldn't speak at all. His language - an import from England - had failed him. Tongue-tied, he looked at his lap to be sure he was still there.

He was there all right, but a strange transformation was taking place: all of the things that weren't American were disappearing.

As he watched, our stalwart protector of things American saw his Japanese-made digital watch disappear, followed immediately by his Hong-Kong-made made watchband. Before he knew it , his Italian-made shoes of leather from India vanished, as did his socks made from synthetic yarns derived from Arab oil. His suit slowly evaporated, too , made as it was of New Zealand wool mixed with Polyesters from Nigerian oil. His Mexican cowhide wallet vanished, letting flutter some dollar-sized, but inkless pieces of paper (the inks were based on Iranian petroleum). The shirt, a synthetic, was already gone, and his under shorts were on their way as he hurried up the aisle in a modest rush. The synthetic carpet under foot was already in tatters, although the floor of Maine wood, held up by Oregon timbers, was still intact. As the synthetic rubber elastic on his skivvies gave way, he left with not a stitch on except his all-American cotton undershirt.

He found the doors to the school had already smashed to bits on the floor (which was tile less) as the aluminum frames had disappeared through the evaporation of the Jamaican bauxite. The tarmac of the parking lot had already gone, too, made as it was from the tars from Canada or Trinidad.

When he reached his chrome-less (Zimbabwe-Rhodesian) car, the tires where gooey globs on the ground, bereft of their Liberian rubber and Mexican oil based synthetic rubber. The steering wheel of petroleum-derived plastic had gone, as had the butyl covering to the seats. Because the steel was 56% made of imported iron, the car's body and frame were already disintegrating. He left the car to collapse.

He ran two blocks to his home, unable to see well because of the imported tungsten in the streetlights had already fled. When he reached his house, he opened the door and the doors fell off it's hinges- the hinges were made of brass derived from Chilean copper. The whole house seemed fragile, as most of the nails had gone (Canadian iron, again), the aluminum siding had turned to dust, the lights wouldn’t turn on because of the copper (Zimbabwe-Rhodesia) wires had gone, and the plumbing would’ve work both the copper tubing ( Katangan copper) and the plastic waste-lines had disappeared. The television set, made by a Japanese company of Taiwanese parts assembled in Mexico, had long gone. He did grope his way upstairs to see if there were some clothes still left in his closet. There were none at all. He did find an American cotton beach towel in the linen closet, from which the synthetic sheets, the old fashioned linen sheets (linen from Belgium) and even some old Muslin sheets (gone because Muslin is an Indian word?) had all disappeared. He wrapped the beach towel around himself to cover his nakedness. Knowing that he couldn't live in such an environment, he decided to pack a few necessities and go to a hotel until he could find what was happening.

Though the black plastic case on the phone he was able to pick up the pieces and try to dial. Because the copper wires had disintegrated, he couldn't get thought. But the hotel was owned by a British Company and it had probably disappeared as well.
He reached into the medicine cabinet for his toilet things. The razor - English - had gone. The aluminum (imported bauxite) container for the shaving foam had gone, leaving a boiling mass of foam running all over the cabinet. His toothbrush no longer existed, and the toothpaste was glooping on the countertop where the plastic ( or had it been aluminum?) tube had been lying. The soap was still there - good old American soap: but the imported fragrances had gone. He groped around in the dimness for his ditty-bag, but it was made from Argentinean cowhide and it had disappeared as well. He stumbled downstairs on bare floors ( the oil in the varnish had come from China).

Hungry, he opened the refrigerator door to find a mess inside. The plastic Coke bottle had gone, but then, too, had most of the Coke except the good old American soda water. Aluminum and steel cans had gone, leaving a mixture of cat food and beer on the door shelves. The egg container of oil-based plastic had disintragrated, and the eggs dropped to the floor when he opened the door. He was able to grab some bread and butter before the rest of the aluminum and plastic shelve gave way.

He ran into the front yard. His neighbor’s Toyota and VW diesel had gone. Even the little Ford Fiesta down the block was no longer there ( it had been made in Germany). The street sign was blank, the street’s name - Versailles - having been imported.
He heard a grinding noise and looked behind him. His house, without the nails to hold it together, swayed and crashed in a pile of dust. Luckily, the old Asbestos insulation installed in the 1930’s had come from Canada, so he didn’t get a lungful of it. The new polyurethane foam he had spent $3000 on last month had gone, for it had been processed from Ecuadorian oil.
He found no life at all in the city. Cars had stopped where they were, their imported elements having vanished. Tires had gone, catalytic converts of Zambian metal had gone, gas tanks were empty, as were the crankcases. Even if there had been gas and oil there was no grease, so the cars would have frozen right up. But traffic would have been of little concern, with all the imported cars - even those American-looking GM cars assembled in Canada - vanished from the roads. Planes had fallen form the sky, without either fuel to keep them aloft or aluminum or titanium to keep them together. No lights shined, no machinery ground in the city, for the imported oil and imported uranium had all gone. Only a few, bewildered, naked people milled around.

He felt his breathe coming hard. What was happing? Could the air that had to be shared with Africans and Germans and Chinese and Latin American, could the air itself be going.

He fell, gasping.

His last words were: “ It must be some kind of foreign plot.”

That, my friends, is what global education is all about - Reality.

posted by Yamhill @ 11:11 PM