Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Texas A & M University and Mickey Mouse’s Dog
Private Joe Gomez: “What you readin'?”
Private Marion Hotchkiss: “Plato.”
Joe: “You mean they wrote a whole big book about Mickey Mouse's dog?”
-Leon Uris, Battle Cry
Texas A & M has banished wise Plato
(Some colonel is shaking in his aiguilette)
Shoved philosophy out through the old North Gate-O
(Asking questions scares the admin soviet)
We mustn’t teach thinking on the Texas plains
Or read the books that our ancestors wrote
That kept us free from cruel tyrants’ chains -
No Plato, now, and maybe soon no vote
A university no more; that how it looks -
Their homecoming bonfire now is for burning books
NB: In the long-ago A & M rightly dropped me for skipping class. I wasn’t allowed to skip class in Viet-Nam, and that was a sterner lesson.