In Line

In Line
by Samuel Ramratan.

I remember remembering when I was young that one day we would have the
world for ourselves, one of us would be principal, one of us would be
the lab assistant, another would be Chief Justice, and someone had to be
Army General, in other words we would be next in line. From this
thought arose a barrage of questions for others, how old are you? what
did you study in school? who is your wife? do you have children? How
many children do you have? I had gravitated towards people much older than
I, so much so that when it was my turn to be married, I married someone
two years older than I, who thought that I had either forged my age to
enter a Canadian University, or worse, I had deserted a wife, left her
behind, in my country of origin. At twenty, those ideas were brushed off
as small talk. Surely everyone seriously knew about being next in line.

Merit, hard work, rigorous thought, sporting plays, confidence building,
watching others develop, laughter and graceful losing found their way
into my everyday life under the noses of my sisters and parents. In other
words I was developing an awesome planning and action neural network. Come
to think of it, I must have slipped entirely under the rug of time. Why,
do you think you know everything, my way older sisters would question
me. Under pressure I cracked up, keeping my thoughts to myself. Silly
pair, my emerging ethics dictated to me. The last line I remember being
laughed at was when, using our new telephone for the first time, I asked
my black way older friend, a neighbour, who lived two houses away, what
are we going to talk about now? What was next over the line? Never gossip.

Some things fell in line easily for me, like being elected head prefect
by seven hundred girls, from the final three. out of a pool of forty young
men. Sure it was a Catholic oriented school, and my first year there I
received about one hundred Christmas cards. After the elections, it was
revealed that, I was no push over, but willing and capable to raise the
bar, do what was correct for all concerned. The very next Christmas I
received two next to the heart cards. However I had revived some particular
attributes to their school life, things I had noticed earlier, many years
before, while attending my previous all boys school, and admiring what
they were doing. I had had no idea that would have been next in line for
them. Things had become difficult for them and many nice things had
disappeared from their school life. Mental health is one of those good
things that last forever, when installed on line in your forever file.

The first time I saw a North American football game, its much hyped rush,
seemed such a confusing two, three yard endeavor, a tad boring, so yeh, I
preferred the passing downs along with field goal attempts. Yep, I even
tried the game at the Varsity level, what was it called, oh yeh, flag
football. I was good at that, pulling flags off the opponents waist, even
as a rookie. I remained a rookie and to this day I still consider myself
a rookie. On television next in line, was guess what, a real appreciation
for the rushing game. Tony D, Walter Peyton, Earl the Pearl Campbell, here
we come. At that time Jim Brown was a statistic, the baton had been passed
on, yard sticks had been moved up towards the end zone. At the Varsity
level some things bothered me about the way the game was played, because
once you were black, you got the ball intoning you automatically knew how
to play, knew how to run, knew how to catch, knew how to throw the ball.
As a brown lad from the Caribbean, I was sidelined, except for my first
year greenhorn experiences but all those good fellas had been enjoying
their final year. What no tryouts, OK I will excel on defense. Sad to say,
when I played, after the first three opponent possessions, no plays came
my direction. Piss me off you fucking jerks, get on my nerve. You see when
those first fellas I met, left as a Varsity championship finalist team, I
had been the only remaining player from that era, but sadly I had nothing
in line for me in my second year. The lines had been repainted. My first
games were the best for they had even thrown the ball to me, it had truly
been baptism by fire.

Sometimes you cannot wait for things to happen all nicely in line. Things
like I want to do that cool job. Sorry, you have to have a work permit.
The interesting job I wanted was to be the Technical Advisor who answered
all the computing problems, getting to help all the girls, all the
professors, at the University Computing Center, not that in my day there
were many girls computing facts. It had never occurred to me that that job
would be next in line for me, after I married a Caulk, excuse the term,
but there were lots of them in action those days, no one else on the line.

When one thing ends another one begins. The classic deterministic
calling, cause and effect. End of the year implies another year begins.
End of one marriage does not necessarily imply another marriage though.
I guess that is where Quantum Mechanics comes in, there is no cause,
only an affected state with some kind of interminable history whose
initial conditions may as well be invisible for all its worth. That's
how I view another marriage, I have to wait for my history lesson.
For what it's worth, nothing is next in line, so many people are scared
of QM, preferring to live a planetary existence following Newtons
predictions like ten.

However things become confused, because in football, when men like
Dan Fouts, Terry Bradshaw, Ron Jaworski, Steve Bartowski, Roger Staubach,
Bob 'Greasy' and of course the inimitable Dan Marino have the ball on a
passing down, you know what's next in line. Then you hear the names of
the back up Quarterback's, hear them echo, Steve Young, Brett Favre,
Boomer Easiason, then look at today's rosters imagining, who and what is
next in line, after Warren Moon, Manning and Brady. Quantum Mechanics does
not seem to have a future, so how can anything be next in line?

Our accepted belief is babies are born with a Tabula Rasa, which is a
clean slate, and babies act the same as people who begin learning a new
discipline, like Quantum mechanics. After agreeing that experiences are
nought, emotional content is zero, physical action being nonexistent, I
worry about mental moral computational capabilities that sidestep our
complete Tabula Rasa idea. Next in line is the ethics committee babies
will eventually realize in their heads. At least that is known about us.

With my sisters, what had become next in line was they became semi
millionairesses and sent me back in line, or was that to the back of
the line. Anytime I met my parents after that, the conversation
usually turned towards, boy you ain't got no money, what happened
to you? Mama, Papa, the city is tough on me. I am too open, I smile
and laugh way too much, and I am thorough except I party like ten.
I still love my sisters even with all their silly airs and graces.
I think I am a nine so next in line must be ten or perhaps nine point
oh four. Waiting while in line.

At six to seven years old, I never thought waiting in line would be so
occupying. In my late teens our in line joke was when a communist saw
a line they just queued up, no questions asked because something was
supposed to be at the end of any line. Capitalism has lines which work
slightly differently. Capitalism can make you think you are in line,
make you think merit counts, then it repeats, next, next, next, next,
passing you over.

Sometimes small errors can help with line jumping like that time back
in GT, eight and a half years old, with no teacher in the afternoon.
We all decided to reconvene the class on the nearby playing field for
a soccer match. I said yes, but about six boys chickened out staying
in school. The rest of us filed out orderly to play soccer, but because
I was no soccer player I sailed on home where my Aunt heard a small tale
from me. Next day all who were absent from afternoon class were in big,
big trouble, the parents of those who were caught red-handed on the
soccer field were informed. The rest were assumed to have been in school.
Yep, I was not in line that time, only in line for respect from my school
mates for exiting unscathed, but jumping that line never made me
susceptible to line jumping. For some reason I have never liked line
jumpers, I always give them a holler whenever I can, exceptions made, of
course for those ones, you know the ones, those who cannot help
themselves. They get a scary nod.

Capitalism lines things up pretty well. You got a real captain and
crew, and after starting at the bottom, if while looking up, you are
being observant, what's next on the line may be seen. Before they called
it keeping up with the Joneses, your neighbours or competition, but
directly in front of your eyes awaits attention, appreciation, and
congratulations all in the name of being in line, part of the crew and
additionally in the computer age, on line and logged in. Ever notice
when in line, the one directly ahead seems to control your heroes,
heroines, the teams for whom you root, the movies you go see first,
and the size of your ego! However when you head up the line, your own
interests can take on a life of its own until exhausted.

Children aren't next in line for anything except play. Four, five, three,
even up to eight years old, play plays an important part in the
development of a child's attitude when acting within the collective. At
these ages thought is spontaneous and if the environment is adultly
immature, children may be in line to be perceived as posessing madcap
characteristics. After that, depending on who gains control of that
information, believing knowledge exists in that played form, the child dies
a slow ignominious internal death, at times even inappropriately drugged
up. Play is a child's drug useful for all children in the same way
organized sporting activities rage against competitive children sports.
I never played real competitive sports until sixteen and by then my team
had a reputation, other teams were fearful of playing against our team.

Then again child's play was a term usually given to people who convert
their knowledge into intelligence then when acting intelligently utilize
that same specific knowledge in a manner exuding simplicity in action.
OK you win but let the fat lady sing. Issac Newton did just that, all he
had to do was wait for the apple to fall on his head while sitting under
his tree of knowledge. The gravity that pulled the fruit into the garden,
is the same gravity that makes the rain fall onto Earth, and it is the
same gravity keeping us on the ground. The predictions that Newton was
able to make as a result of his discoveries have allowed us all to plan
our lives properly and in a more sophisticated manner with additional
physical tools aiding us along. With Newton's ideas we can now organize
trips away taking into account the time we would be occupied going there,
coming back and staying at our picnic spot. Our planetary lives are
mostly governed by the laws of nature Newton found out. He made Child's
play out of the putty made available in our designated worldly area. We
now posses that knowledge. Differences exist in the way our Newtonian
knowledge can be applied as opposed to our current knowledge of Quantum
mechanics which addresses our topological structure. Quantum mechanics
does not allow children to play after dark, when light intensities leave
our existential state, but QM allows small shifts in our existential
state, like spinning on our heels, or clicking our fingers while dancing
and clapping. Unfortunately for children Quantum Mechanics does not allow
them a luxury of predicting their next state since the tendencies and
their associated probabilities come to light only after maturity. So, if
I, was pretending to be Newton and a Planck fell on my ead, I would have
to say that small children need to run their routines or learn about
appropriate actions at least three times before their tendencies within
any given state become biased towards its desired effect. Long live QM,
yeh, parenting just became infinitely more difficult. You may then say
that today's parents in the early twenty first century are off line.

I never wanted to be Newton even though he is listed as one of my heroes.
I never even thought about sitting under plum trees, but by golly if I
was ever ever under a hand like the one Quantum Mechanics shares, I would
be thankful that I didn't fold. The tree of knowledge now has new meaning.
I am thinking the new year will be here in twenty four days, so
Quantum Mechanically speaking Happy New Year two thousand and eight, when
I am in line to be forty eight. So next time you find yourself in line,
look around, you may not be alone, someone may be on a quickened parallel
line. From one state to the next - over and out, unless good things do
last forever. The stately existential state of being.