Column 39 for May 7, 2000

My young son, Andy, continuously amazes me. Just as I sit down at the computer to write a column about Cuba, custody and a young boy and his father, I receive an e-mail from Andy, poetically describing one of his first personal encounters with our federal government. At least his encounter, thank goodness, was different from one of my early messages from Washington, which started "Greetings." I’m sure many of you received the same message… Anyway, Andy’s interaction was with the 2000 Census folks. In the e-mail Andy shared with me he stated:

"I experienced censorship recently, personally, in the form of a census. The government, apparently, did not like my answers and sent a man around to ask the same questions, and then change my answers to suit the needs and the misconceptions of the government. What is my race? Human, I said. All of the choices that the government was offering me were wrong. We are all one race, and the other distinctions are artificial, caricatures. What is my ancestry? Primate, I said. Maybe not all of them though. It is hard to tell. I could have just as easily said that my parents were born here too. That was not what they were asking though. History and genealogy are interests of mine, and my ancestors can be traced around the globe at least several times, the great mass of humanity always moving. It is dynamic. But the government was not asking for that. My answers were censored. Had I known the government was not interested in the truth I could have filled up the forms with elaborate fictions. That I am the offspring of a cardinal and a ferret,

that a stone is my brother and the apple is my sister when she is not the song of the cardinal on the breath of the ferret. I don't know, but censorship does seem to be a problem. I don't know what the government of South Africa is like. My great-grandpa was a Scottish pastry chef, and he probably made éclairs for the English officers during the Boer War, while he was serving in the army there. He died while my grandpa was a child, and never told me anything about the place. It has changed since then, I'm sure, and he was probably more familiar with the inside of his ovens. My grandpa told me a story about crows, that when their tongues are split they talk like real people. Government officials... are an appropriate target for the birds. May their limousines be spotted whitely!"

I guess maybe I’m just too old, or more likely too trained and beaten down by our government (images of Mad-Dog Brown, my drill sergeant appearing…) over these many years to be so imaginative, so utterly truthful in my answers. I’ve been blandly, routinely, filling in "official" forms ever since, never even thinking about my answers.

But I’ll tell you what my friends, when that 2010 Census form arrives in the mail, Ol’ Cap’n Tom is gonna give ‘em hell! Thanks Andy. You can catch Andy’s latest, a poem titled "Moses" at www.electricwine.com. tomiswho@mindspring.com