Terry Sullivan is nothing like me. She is graceful,musical, delicate, intellectually serious, tough-minded, moral but never moralizing, good humored, but never over-the-top. She is 100% Woman,but no feminist. She is very easy on the eyes and reminds me of Audrey Hepburn and Jennifer Jones.
We take long drives out of the city and into the rural beauty that is Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.
We like to listen to Jazz and Classical, until the sweet little girl gets sleepy and then I crank up Outlaw Country (Hank Williams, Jr.David Allen Coe) , Kinks, James Brown, Zepplin, Steppenwolf, CCR, and the Animals Stevie Ray Vaughn, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon. . . . then I get a serious dressing down. " May we please enjoy a bit a of quiet?"
We drive in quiet for some miles and then I tell Terry tales of the south side and other points of interest Kankakee County & Laporte Indiana oddities and oddballs etc..
"When I was in Grad School at Loyola ( pronounced LYE -olla in the vernacular) I had this class with a guy who studied under a Noam Chomsky . . .a real pan in the ass . . ."
" Is that qualifying phrase necessary; though I believe standard to all of you declamations? Really?"
". . .sorry. Like I said he studied under Chomsky and banged out his theories on Semiotics and the abuse of language by society. In English,a double negative always deconstructs the negatives into a positive. However in Russian, a negative and negative can remain negative. So I asked him, is it possible for an English Speaker to offer two positives and have that construed as a negative."
"What did he tell you?"
" He told me , It seems not unless you are Ronald Reagan because 'Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.'"
Terry turned to me, " But that does not answer your question."
"Yeah. Right."
" I am going back to my nap."
On we sped and did not stop until we had reached Redamak's of New Bufflao, Michigan where Terry Sullivan asked me to not play the jukebox, use a toothpick in public, nor refer, again, to the town as Neuf Bison.
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