Cousin Myron was beet red and angry. That was not unusual, Myron is often angry and he is naturally beet red. I tried to get a reading on just what was bothering Myron this time, without getting on the wrong side of the cousin. Myron has one of the best left jab-right cross combinations to ever come out of Brownsville, Brooklyn and that’s saying a lot—Mike Tyson is from our old neighborhood.
“School vouchers,” Myron spat.
“School vouchers?” I repeated.
“Are you going to repeat everything I say,” threatened Myron
“I didn’t,” I said trying to explain, “My response was a question.”
I ducked a vicious right hand and backed up a bit.
“It just surprised me that a high-school dropout would have such a strong opinion on school vouchers.” I said—perhaps unwisely.
“Just because I dropped out of Thomas Jefferson HS doesn’t mean I didn’t get a lot from my public school education,” fumed Myron. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” he said—slipping in a little Dickens to make his point.” “For one thing, I got to mix with all kinds of people” “When I meet someone now for the first time, I’m not uncomfortable—I know at least a little bit about where they might be coming from.” “This Country is supposed to be a mixing pot,” he said heatedly.
“That’s the problem with these vouchers,” he continued. “They want to segregate their children in religious/private schools and teach them values instead of history and gospel instead of science.” “Fundamentally,” he said—with no irony— “they don’t want their kids to go to school with my kids.”
“Because, you’re Jewish?” I asked Myron.
“No, you idiot,” he screamed, throwing a wicked left, “because I’m redheaded.”