The View From Scranton

High Hopes

I fed an ant today. Sat on a concrete slab out by myself where the toxic used to run off and broke bread with an insect. I was having what these days constitutes lunch -- a Soho Rootbeer (23 oz's for $.50!) and an insulting-sized bag of Famous Amos (.99) -- and I suppose the ant was looking for hers. I say her because I can't determine ant gender. Never could. I will say that it's a magnificent creature -- graceful, inquisitive, wily and incredibly adroit.

She was doing that particular ant dance, you know, one part jitter, two part jerk, and all parts crazy-cool. It's done either for rain or from hunger. Probably both. I figured the rain would take care of itself; I'd would help with the hunger.

So I broke off a crispy crumb of cookie and placed it in her path. Of course she was skittish at first -- in fact, if I'm not mistaken she actually turned up her antennae at the offering -- but she quickly came around. And around. Sniff. Feel. Bite. Bounce. Circle. Bite. Sniff. Mount. Bite. In that order. Then, like every other girl I ever thought I knew, she bolted, with every gift I gave her.

Unlike the dead-of-night cab rides or the early-morning-while-I'm-away sneak-outs that I'm used to, this chick carried her burden in full view. She wasn't embarrassed. She wasn't afraid. She wasn't uncomfortable. She was proud. Proud to carry a crumb thrice her weight. And leave this crumb behind.

It was Sisyphus with a happy ending. Some great good myth gone well. nd it brought to mind Camelot, The Rat Pack, and the high hopes we place upon the myths of our creation. If I'm not mistaken, Sammy Cahn wrote High Hopes for JFK. Or maybe he just wrote it for Sinatra who sang it for JFK. Either way, it was written by Sammy, sung by Frank, and used as the theme for Jack's run for the presidency.

We don't have myths like that these days. We don't even have the mythics. There's no one with the guile to believe that a simple song could help alter the course of history. There's no one to believe in simple songs, let alone history. The truly gifted songslingers are marginalized outta the marketplace; the truly gifted history-makers have no voice. Yet. I'd like to believe that there will one day once again be a song in the hearts of all women and men so simple and so beautiful that history itself will bow, to the pressure, to the pleasure of our myths.

posted by John Hood. @ 10:28 PM