There are now two days left in my career as a teacher. I only have five more classes on two test schedule and early-release days. I will soon have to completely change my life. It is as if a shipwreck will cause me to be raised naked in the jungle by apes. …Okay, not the smoothest analogy segue ever written. But there is some validity in my goofy comedy statement. Tarzan went from a gentrified country life sort of future to a naked in the jungle and raised by apes sort of future overnight. He faced an adoptive father who wanted to kill him, a malign gorilla who tried to kill him when he first discovered the knife, and Kerchak, Lord of the Apes who kills all challengers to his authority. And, of course, there are lions, alligators, and leopards to overcome. …Well, maybe that’s stretching a metaphor to the ridiculously long rubber band length of goofiness. But I go forward needing to find new knives for income creation. I face the jungle of possible substitute teaching (shudder!) There are lions of disease in my future, waiting to prey upon my aging body and mind.
And then, there’s Kerchak, Lord of the Apes. I live in Texas. Low-brow apes who command all the power, are filled with fierceness, and constantly beat their breasts are the only folk we have allowed to win elections here since Governor Ann Richards lost to some ape from the bush. Voting districts are gerrymandered wiggling pythons of arrogant partisanship. Now that I have earned a pension for thirty-one years of teaching, there are those in this state calling for legislators to reduce the amount. Teachers are apparently too much like leeches and parasites to deserve a decent retirement. You don’t do the valuable work of creating jobs by making more billions of dollars and lobbying politicians as a teacher. You do superfluous things like teaching people to read, to think, and be a moral, worthy citizen. Kerchak, as in Emperor Rick Perry, is about to take on a new form. It is anticipated that one of his evil clones, possibly Greg Abbot, will take his place. There is a transfer of power from the presidential hopeful who can’t remember which cabinet post he wants to do away with in addition to Education to an even bigger, stronger ape who wants to deregulate everything and shift more tax money to corporations and the fabled job creators who enrich our air with a fog of emissions based on oil and gas and not responsible for the non-existent global warming that makes Texas so @#$% hot.
Tarzan, raised by apes and naked in the jungle, grew in power. He slew the leopard. He slew the vile gorilla. He slew his father-ape, and eventually slew even Kerchak to become the new Lord of the Jungle. I have to grow in my power as a writer. My ideas need to mature and make a book or two that can educate, and possibly even change the world. Yes, big dreams, I know. And I also know that Tarzan is not real. But soon I must transform in much the way Tarzan did. And I no longer will be surrounded by middle school monkeys and high school gibbons. I will be surrounded by ugly apes. Oh, boy!
The beautiful illustrations for this post were shamelessly scanned from Marvel’s Super Special No. 29. These gorgeous oils were created by Charles Ren and were published in this comic book in 1983.
Catch a Falling Star 