Ferrous

Date: Sunday, July 20, 2008
Time: 01:49
Place: Home

I believe irony is a prevailing force in my life.

For instance, many years ago, my father lived in Manhattan on 10th Street and Avenue D. Some years later, during one of the many times I was "misbehaving", he took me and my brother to visit his old neighborhood. The building he have lived in was long since torn down to make way for a tenement. He told both of us, but me mainly, that if we screwed up enough, we would find ourselves living down there.

Cut to a few years later, maybe 1 or 2, and I'm in a group home on St. Marks Place (East 8th Street after 3rd Avenue), between 1st and 2nd Avenue. That's right, not too far from where my father grew up.

The group home had something resembling a library on the 5th Floor. Most guys who lived in the home used the books as doorstops or to hit people whenever a blanket party was being held.

For anyone who does not know, a "Blanket Party" is what is thrown for a person nobody likes. The "guest of dishonor" is covered with a blanket, which is then held down by 2 or more people. Then, the rest of the house take turns hitting the poor slob while he struggles to free himself. Thankfully, I have never been a recipient of a Blanket Party.

Anyway, one day, I was feeling bored, so I went to the shelves to see what was there.

I found an entire trilogy by Michael Moorcock (His "Dancers at the End of Time" series), 2 books by Robert Heinlein (Farnham's Freehold and Glory Road), a book entitled "Twenty Years of Fantasy & Science Fiction (a collection of stories from the magazine, one of which was called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", which is what "Total Recall" was based on.), a book entitled "Star of Stars" (which had the story "It's A Good Life" which was turned into a famous episode of "The Twilight Zone"), several other science-fiction novels, and a book of poetry.

The book of poetry was a school textbook. The school in question was Seward Park High School, which my father attended, and it's copyright date was 1934, a year after my father was born, but also the same year my mother was born.

One of the poems is called "Sea-Fever", and it is the favorite poem of Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

I count 5 points of Irony. How many did you get?