"The Legacy (The Little Red Shoes in The Park)"

On a summer day, in a certain way
(One not unlike the southern side's present-day)...

While businessmen took showers
And soldiers fought with flowers
Troubadours played dancing tunes
Politicians tried field goals through moons.
Buddy Holly songs went in and out of style
Children's dreams were lost in those miles of aisles.
And grown-ups sold their truth for toys
A movie scored by K-tel bargains of greatest hits of noise.

It was just another summer, more hot than most
No time to dance, to race, to fight.
The wings of the eagle flapped from coast to coast
Its left left and its wrong left white droppings as its right.

And the figure at the bus stop
Stung with dreams of insects' pain
Saw the little red shoes in the empty Sunday park
And tasted the thirsts of full fields needing rains.

The grass was strip-mined here and there
From the game the young should play.
And he smelled the rotting shells of peanuts
Gandhi's pigeons fed for one more day.
And he heard the cries of rallies in the park
Asking their young should have good meals.
With strangely more bitter words
He found the garbage of short-term deals.

And the sun broke through the clouds above
Nudging his mind back to the shoes.
It brightly fit his thoughts with a glove
Of unfashionably issues/choices "views."

For he wondered where the shoes would be
If left there in that park.
Bright red, like a burning campfire
Having not tread or footsteps enough to mark.

If shoes left to fend for themselves
Their owner having an Imelda Marcos match of more
They should be in a museum, he thought
Splitting future hopes from heirs before.
Yet if needed still in the concrete jungle
Of a world traveling a rubbled road
He worried about the life's lessons of the child
Yet to face the adult world's "trickle-down" load.

And sitting there with friend revery
His thoughts on worlds known and seen
He recalled a lonely soldier's story
Of remembrance of Veterans Days never been.
One of sitting at a bus stop, especially for him
Of brutal, righteous-minded policemen
And laws dependent on the color of the skin.

His bus had come, though
He remorsed the shoes would stay.
Leaving, he looked back at the park
And re-entered a world of disbelieving decay.

He left wondering why
The legacy never trickled down
Where they'd be the following day.

--by GORDON C. WONG,
from "What Lies Beyond This Door",*
copyright 1988 by GORDON C. WONG

*-hopefully to be published in the new millennium.

-IN THE 1980's, I READ A VANCOUVER NEWSPAPER ARTICLE THAT SAID BRITISH MUSICIAN STING WAS LOOKING FOR A "SYMBOL" SO HE COULD EXPRESS HIS CONDEMNATION OF APARTHEID.
I HAD COME UP WITH "HUNGER" AS MINE, AND SENT HIM A LETTER ABOUT IT (VIA THE LOCAL CONCERT PROMOTER) WITH SOME DOCUMENTATION ABOUT MY "INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC WORK...ON A DIRECT BASIS" FOR THE WORLD'S CHILDREN.

GIVEN WHAT YOU FIND IF YOU TOOK THAT LINK FROM THE WORDS ABOVE OF "MY 'INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC WORK...'," VISITORS TO MY AWARD-WINNING WEBSITE CAN APPRECIATE THAT THEN, AS NOW, I WAS STRIVING TO LIVE WITHIN MY MEANS AS THEY HAVE BEEN DETERMINED WITH RESPECT FOR THAT WORK BY THE RESPONSIBLE AUTHORITIES.
THUS, TO PREPARE THE DOCUMENT COPY SUBMISSION FOR HIM I WENT OUT TO A PHOTOCOPYING SERVICE I THEN FREQUENTED NEAR THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.
THAT IS WHERE THE FIRST CLINTON-YELTSIN SUMMIT WAS HELD.
IT IS ALSO WHERE I MET THE MOST REVEREND PHILIP POTTER, PAST SECRETARY-GENERAL OF "THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES", WHO WAS GIVING A LECTURE ABOUT THE "RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGION AND ROCK AND ROLL". HE GAVE ME A JAMAICA MAILING ADDRESS FOR FUTURE CORRESPONDENCE...LIKE MY RELATIONSHIP WITH AUSTRALIA'S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE-WINNING CHILD PSYCHIATRIST, DR. HELEN CALDICOTT.

THE PHOTOCOPYING STORE IS LOCATED BESIDE A SMALL PARK, AND AS I WAS SITTING AT THE BUS STOP WAITING TO GO BACK TO MY HOUSE, I HAPPENED TO SEE A PAIR OF SMALL RED SHOES LEFT BEHIND BY PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN.

NOW ON THE ONE HAND, THE BOOMING CANADIAN AND AMERICAN ECONOMIES DURING THE 1990'S AND TO THE PRESENT DATE HAVE OBVIOUSLY MEANT NOTHING TO ME AS IS EXPLAINED BY THAT LINKED TERM OF REFERENCE.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I TRUST IT'S NOT SO LONG AGO THAT MOST OF US CAN'T READILY RECALL THAT WHEN I SAW THOSE CHILD'S SHOES IN 1988...THE ECONOMIC PICTURE WASN'T SO ROSY.
SO, I WAS PERPLEXED BY THE FACT THAT THESE WERE NOT SHOES THAT BELONGED IN THE GARBAGE--THEY APPEARED ALMOST BRAND NEW.
SO, THAT PICTURE OF THEM SITTING THERE IN THAT PARK LINGERED IN MY MIND FOR A FEW WEEKS (AS I CONTINUED TO ENJOY MY ECONOMIC "SITUATION" WHICH CONTINUES EQUIVALENTLY TO THE PRESENT DATE IN THE YEAR 2000) UNTIL I DECIDED I PERHAPS WOULD TRY TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT THIS TO PUT THE MATTER TO REST.

BUT I JUST COULDN'T FIND THE HOOK, IF YOU WILL, THAT WOULD GIVE ME SOME SENSE OF CLOSURE ABOUT IT UNTIL I SAW A NEWS STORY ABOUT MRS. MARCOS, WIFE OF THE FORMER PHILIPPINES LEADER WHOSE COUNTRY HAD BEEN ONE OF AMERICA'S LARGEST FOREIGN AID RECIPIENTS IN THE POST WORLD WAR II PERIOD...AND WHO HAD PLUNDERED THAT AID AND ROBBED THE PHILIPPINES PEOPLE FOR HIS/THEIR PERSONAL GAIN.
THE STORY, AS MANY WILL RECALL, WAS THAT SHE HAS MORE THAN 300 PAIRS OF SHOES.

STING:-->IF YOU GET HERE BEFORE I HAVE FINISHED THIS, CONSIDER UP TO THIS POINT MORE OR LESS FINISHED--SUBJECT TO EDITING WITH RESPECT FOR SHIFTING CIRCUMSTANCES.
THE NEXT PART IS GOING TO SET UP LINKS TO MY PENDING SUBMISSIONS TO THE ISRAELIS, "ORGANIZATION OF THE ISLAMIC CONFERENCE", THE VATICAN, AND U.S. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE DENNIS HASTERT.
IT'S MOSTLY ABOUT SETTING UP THE LINKS AND POLISHING THOSE STATEMENTS THAT REMAINS TO BE DONE.
AND IF YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT THE 1982 STATEMENT TO JIMMY CARTER SANS A COMPLETED FOOTNOTE CONTAINS, TAKE THE LAST LINK HERE...

I THOUGHT THAT "THE LEGACY" SAID THE REST OF WHAT SHOULD BE SAID ABOUT THIS...BUT THEN THE IDEA OF A "LEGACY" ENTERED THE LEXICON OF WHAT I FOUND I HAD TO DEAL WITH IN ORDER TO SEE A CHANGE IN MY ECONOMIC "SITUATION" BY MEANS OF A PROCESS THAT I DECIDED UPON AS IS ILLUSTRATED BY WHAT YOU FIND IF YOU TAKE A SERIES OF BRIEF SIDESTEPS HERE.
link to 1982 quote of "The children of Israel" to Carter