Tuesday, May 24, 2005

In The City

Last week I drove down to Boston with my dad in order to chauffer him back home after his bi-annual eye exam. He has had some eye troubles in the past and goes to the Tufts Medical Center a couple times a year to make sure nothing is getting worse. They dialate his pupils and use very bright lights and his vision is blurry for a couple of hours afterwards, hence the need for a driver to bring him back home.
Anyway, as I was sitting outside the exam room, correcting the final translation projects of my third year students, a heard a clanking noise that got progressively louder. I glanced up from my papers to see a pair of moving feet shackled in chains and a very bright reddish-orange jumpsuit on a very large, older black man with a shaved head being escorted by three law enforcement officers. The prisoner's hands were also shackled. My first thought was to wonder what he had done to end up shackled like that. My second thought was that he probably has much better access to quality medical care than I do.

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