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Show Anting Alone pa g e 172 It was after a day spent in a Texan or Illinoisan attic with a batch of his Kansas farmboy students' chilling "defense posture" themes. Sam had among his freshmen several literal farmboys, all tall and shiny and sinewy as leopards - a beautiful, new breed of young Republican. They all brimmed with terrifying bits of knowledge about the USA's defense posture, and they filled their 500-word comp themes with these bits: certain of "our" mach III bomber/fighter B-something-something planes move so fast that they span three or four large midwestern states in the process of making a forty-five degree turn; the third most powerful man in the world is not Tung H'siau Pteng, but rather the commander of one of "our" Trident subs - who has at his fingertips fire-power superior to that of all the military forces of Europe and Red China combined, and stuff like that. These handsome farmboys were such fine humans and (to Sam's horror) they wrote very well. Vigorous spartan prose with not one fleck of bullshit. They were mature and calm, always busy going out on calm dates with young women. So they never had time to participate in the 3.2 bar field trips with Sam and the rest of the comp class. In order to have at least a few other males besides the teacher on these field trips (he didn't want to look as though he was trying to be Cock of the Roost or anything), Sam had to resort to inviting the ritually-tattooed middle-aged Nigerian agronomy majors who all smelled almost too bad to socialize with because of their personal hygiene customs which differ from our own. The beautiful farmboys obviously thought the Nigerians fit company for their fat comp teacher. The farmboys looked on bearded woolen Sam with gruff, mildly affectionate condescension, the way one looks at any member |
