April 09, 2002
TUES APR 9: A PILGRIM IN PARADISE (8)

PILGRIM, SLICE, and BARNES, are at the top of the hill at the 8th tee, overlooking the entire frisbee golf course.

PILGRIM: What a course.
SLICE: More like a battlefield, Pilgrim.
PILGRIM: Battlefield?
BARNES: Yes, a place where wars are fought, usually out in the open, but it can be used to describe a religious homeland.
PILGRIM: I know what a battlefield is, Barnes, I’m just wondering why you would describe our course this way, Slice?
SLICE: Well, Pilgrim, you have been waging war of a different stripe on this terrain, and winning, it would appear. But too, it is the anniversary of a very famous date in our history, the end of a brutal war, fought on a battlefield of its own soil, with its own children as soldiers.
PILGRIM: That sounds like what is going on across the way over there right now.
SLICE: Oh no, Pilgrim, that is not one people fighting with each other, that is different people refusing to share one land because of differing beliefs. But this historic war I am referring to was neighbor fighting against neighbor, in some instances brother against brother.
PILGRIM: It is, which war was that?
BARNES: Oh, that would be the Civil War, wouldn’t it, Slice?
SLICE: Yes, Barnes, that is correct. Today is the anniversary of the date when Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army, some 28,000 strong, to the Union Army under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant, later to grace the currency of this nation in some circles, Barnes.
BARNES: Yes, I do believe I’ve seen him on a fifty dollar bill.
PILGRIM: Barnes, you are blind as a bat.
BARNES: Well, but this a printed medium, Pilgrim.
PILGRIM: Wha...!?
SLICE: The Civil War, Pilgrim, fought between the North and the South
BARNES: Oh, the Senior Bowl! I’ve seen that game...
SLICE: Before there was a Senior Bowl, Barnes.
PILGRIM: There you go again, Barnes.
BARNES: Well, I must have read about it, then...
SLICE: Same problem, Barnes. But Pilgrim, this was a war that freed the slaves...you may not believe this but there used to be states in our union in which it was legal for one human being to own another, and force him to work at manual labor. They kidnapped Africans and brought them to this continent to be sold into slavery.
PILGRIM: What do you mean I might not believe it, I from the looks of things not that much has really changed.
SLICE: Whatever do you mean, Pilgrim?
PILGRIM: Well, I have seen the way African-Americans are treated over here; you told me yourself that until Halle Berry won that odd little trophy no African-American woman had ever won one for that category. And you said that Denzel was only the second African-American male to win one. And what about the workplace, upper management, and sports--head coaching and general manager’s jobs. Was Al Campanis speaking for everyone? And according to the records, that was over a dozen years ago.
BARNES: I’m blind, Slice, and even I can see that what he is saying is true.
SLICE: Well, Barnes, I suppose you can legislate people’s actions, and ban certain behaviors and practices; but you can not legislate people’s beliefs.
PILGRIM: In that case, how different are you really over here than those people over there who are killing eachother because they do not want to share the same land.
SLICE: It’s a good thing we never discuss politics or religion in this forum, pilgrim, otherwise I might have to answer that...
-CURTAIN-

Posted by cronish at April 09, 2002 02:17 PM