An Open Letter to the Girl Who Works at the Hot Topic at the Legends Shopping Mall in Kansas City, Kansas Who Didn’t Know Which President is on the American Dime

You broke me.  I have always been an advocate for members of generations younger than myself (I admit an ever increasing minority).  I have never scoffed at whatever people want to wear, listen to, do with their hair, or pierce.  Although I do not personally like tattoos, I have never thought that those who have them were any less then myself when it came to both positive and negative attributes.  I embrace pop culture trends, not always to the degree of actually participating, but always appreciating the creativity from which they sprang.  I know a lot of people are dumb in this world and I know each generation is burdened by the education older generations have deemed necessarily for their development – thus, some of ignorance and arrogance on the part of the young can be lain on the feet of those older than themselves.  This is how I believed, this defined how I treated others, and only now do I fear I might have been wrong all of this time.

            I’m going to venture to guess that you are at least eighteen.  Past that, I have no idea what your life is like or what your history encompasses, yet I will take it upon myself to make assumptions all because you were serious when you asked me who the president was who was on the American dime.  “Is this Truman?” you asked as you flirted with the guy who stood next to you at the register.  I give him credit for at least looking slightly embarrassed about the encounter.  “Truman was bald, right?”

            I know this has been a complaint handed down from generations fearful of the destabilization of the Roman Republic, yet I utter it anyway, *  sigh  * I fear American democracy, literacy, and/or the value of human knowledge will not survive you.  I know you didn’t exactly pluck Harry Truman’s name from the ether.  No more that a forty-minute drive (depending on traffic) from where you work is the Truman Presidential Library, thusly indicating that ‘Give Them Hell Harry’ came from our neck of the woods.  What you may have not know, because you slept through third grade to freshman year social studies classes, is that Truman had hair, although not the luscious variety as sported by Andrew Jackson (don’t bother looking it up, mainly because I trust you wouldn’t attempt such intellectual satisfaction, Jackson is on the twenty dollar bill).

            I know I’m sounding a bit harsh but listen, I wouldn’t expect you to know that Truman had hair if your Hot Topic was located in the Mall of America.  That is in Wisconsin, but don’t take my word for it, Wikipedia it yourself.  Yeah, I figured you would take my word for it.  (Shh, don’t tell her it is actually in Minnesota.)  I’m assuming you thought it may be Truman because you have heard his name in passing…such as that time your fifth grade class went to his Presidential Library and you got into trouble for talking excessively to Jim Boner.

            I realized later that you might have been confusing Harry Truman with Dwight Eisenhower, another presidential name you may have heard bandied about in the fine state of Kansas – Dwight being from Abilene, Kansas.  Now, I don’t expect you would have ventured all the way to Abilene, it being at least an hour’s drive away, to see his presidential library.  If you had, I’m sure you were too busy making out with Ted Player in the back of the bus while the teacher wasn’t looking, to actually pay too much attention to the experience from an educational standpoint. 

            Honestly, I don’t expect you to know that Dwight followed Harry into the presidency…that being the American Presidency if you were confused.  All I really want you to understand is that both men were from our part of the country.  No, no, no dear, we live in the Midwest.  Perry Lake does not constitute an ocean, ergo neither you nor I live on the east coast.

            I do admit that you earned a few points when I replied it was Roosevelt on the dime and you stated that you thought he had a mustache.  That was Theodore Roosevelt you were thinking of, which you may have seen portrayed by Robin Williams in ‘Night at the Museum.’  Oh, you weren’t paying attention because you were bumping uglies with Edward Hardcock; that guy who was in that band that disbanded soon afterwards.  Remember, and you caught an awful case of _____  from him.  Here is a bit of trivia, Theodore and Franklin and were fifth cousins – that is a four-cousin difference from the relationship between your parents.

            I know I have been harder than necessary.  You are young, working at Hot Topics, and have a nose ring.  You are just trying to find yourself and if that means that you don’t know whose picture is on a piece of coinage you handle every day, then so be it.  I suppose I must take comfort in what the dime says to the left of Roosevelt, “In Edward Gorey we trust.”

            Shh people, don’t tell her.        

           

© 2007 Westerfield

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