Special Report

The Funny Side Of Rivalry
By Aimee La Fountain

I grew up in New Jersey, which is a fine state except one aspect -- it’s full of Yankees fans. As a dedicated Red Sox fan, I have always thought that the strong Yankees following in Jersey is its fatal flaw.

Now, at this point you may be wondering how someone in New Jersey is a Sox fan. It’s simple really -- family heritage. My father is from Massachusetts and wanting to be a good parent, he naturally raised me to follow the Red Sox. What’s really inconvenient is that there are very few Sox fans in New Jersey. So, I have endured the jeers and various other challenges to my loyalty that come with living in New Jersey as a Sox fan. Yes, there’s nothing quite like the experience of walking into a classroom in a Sox tee shirt and getting banished from the room because the teacher is a Yankees fan.

When I came to New York, I hoped that the Yankees-Red Sox ratio would balance out a little more. I figured that between Mets fans and people form out of state, the presence of Yankees fans may be more modest than New Jersey. Turns out, it’s hard to escape the Yankees ghost. I was horrified to find that I was still surrounded by an abundance of Yankees fans. I soon realized that Red Sox fans are like a secret society in New York.

Whenever I spot a Sox fan in the city, it’s like seeing a long lost relative. And, on the chance that two Sox fans should cross paths there is a remarkable sight in that mutual look of admiration between two baseball minorities. Surely, you’ve seen one of us out there; we’re that one person in the bar that’s happy when the Yankees lose a game or the only people smiling the day that the Yankees lose the playoffs. And, if it sounds strange that a Red Sox fan should be in New York, I can offer you an example of the opposite effect and refer you to my friend, a Yankees fan, who lives in Massachusetts.

This brings me to the complicated issue of mixed relationships. Growing up in New Jersey I was exposed to Yankees fans at a young age and understood that I should respect people who may have baseball beliefs that conflict with mine. I’m always in favor of practicing tolerance and this is why I have many friends who are Yankees fans -- I’ve learned to accept them, despite their sports misjudgments.

The most horrifying phenomenon, however, is when you’re shocked to find yourself romantically interested in someone of a different baseball affiliation. Such was the case when I met an incredibly charming man who seemed perfect until the day I spotted him wearing a Yankees cap. However, I overlooked his weakness and we ended up dating. It didn’t work out in the end and I’m certain that it was our mixed baseball beliefs that cursed the relationship.

Life is funny. The harder you try to escape certain things the more you find yourself surrounded by them.

Aimee La Fountain won Honorable Mention in the 2008 Mortimer Levitt Essay Contest for Marymount Manhattan College students.

Special Report

“Life Is Funny”
By Priya Joshi

Sometimes, on a sunny, cool winter morning, while I walk around the Angel Fountain in Central Park, I become overwhelmed with sadness. Sometimes, on a beautiful summer afternoon with the most vibrant sunrays that I’ve felt in years streaming down my back, without a care in the world and only happiness ahead, I fall to my knees and cry so hard I have to stop and breathe. It’s just that sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake the thought that all of the beauty around me is dwarfed by all of the madness.

I throw up every time I think about it. If you take all of the sick, repugnant, horrifically unspeakable things about society and roll it into a tight, hot mess and try to swallow it, that’s how I feel every time I think about it.

I picture a man on a December day. I picture him walking his dog through a park in Queens, N.Y., the grey winter light reflecting off his eyes and illuminating his smile. I picture him softly saying, “bless you” to a complete stranger as they sneeze into their rabbit fur mittens. I picture him as a child, walking to PS 116, stopping for a moment to give his milk money to the bum on the corner.

This man, this honest, hard-working, caring and contributing member of our society, who is a constant visitor to many Queens neighborhoods, has ruined more lives than he’ll ever know, and it’s all because of me. This working-class, father-of-the-year, giving individual has been a pawn on my chessboard for a decade.

For years this man has set his alarm for 4 a.m., gone out in the cold, rain, sleet in winter, and the unbearable heat in summer to deliver to me, my friends, my cronies, my clients and their mothers our packages of goodies. Never once did this honest, hard-working, caring, working-class father-of-the-year suspect that he was feeding the mouths, veins, noses and causes for each, and every sick addiction you could imagine.

Never once did he think as he drove his delivery truck that these simple, small brown packages he delivered to the sweet, young couple on 36th street contained enough morphine to kill a horse. Never once did it cross his mind that the innocent, always friendly residents of 45th Street and 30th Avenue were truly the ghouls and goblins that he spent his life trying not to become.

The funny thing is, no matter how many times a day you shower, and no matter how many good deeds you do, or how many sneezing strangers you give a sincere “bless you” to, you can never completely wash your hands clean of the scum from the underbelly of what we call our Great American Society. No matter how many anti-war protests you attend, people still die. No matter how many drug-addled youths sober up, there is still a kid passed out on the cold tile in a halfway house with a syringe a quarter of the way into his vein.

The funny thing about life is -- ignorance is bliss after all.

Priya Joshi won Honorable Mention in the 2008 Mortimer Levitt Essay Contest for Marymount Manhattan College students.