The Strawberry Statement by James Simon Kunen

Author:James Simon Kunen [Kunen, James Simon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

Wednesday, July 17: I was reading the Manhattan phone book this morning. Sometimes I read the phone book when I get tired of listening to the correct time tape going through its ticks and tones routine. Reading the directory is more interesting, but listening to the recording is easier. They’re both pretty good diversions.

Anyway, on page 1200 there is an ad for the New York Karate Academy. “Kung-fu, Karate, Ju-jitsu, Judo, Boxing, a must for city living.”

I’m living in the city. I don’t know karate. It remains to be seen if it’s really “a must.”

A girl I knew used to assure her mother that I’d be all right walking through the city at night because I was a crew jock. I don’t know what good that was supposed to do me. Maybe I was supposed to hit muggers over the head with an oar or row away from them.

This afternoon I fled the city for home to try to get some work done on the Book. Very much a déjà vu scene, as I was in the same car and again had insufficient cash reserves. Fifty miles from home I calculated that I had to buy fifty cents worth of gas in order to make it. Counting my change, I had precisely fifty cents, not counting the gray penny. Counting my change, I dropped a quarter on the car floor and never saw it again. If they want to get you, you’re going to get got. No use fighting it.

I told the gas man my story and he gave me fifty cents worth. Not everyone from Samaria is bad.

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