Life in a Bubble With the Unanswerable

draft


Perhaps you can read between the lines of an autobiography, but trying to put pieces of information from a biography together towards some theory, or conclusion, can lead one to an opinion. I have an opinion, based on my data gathered to date (because I'm just beginning my research), and I don't like my opinion. Michael Jackson fans won't like it, though there's a life and death lesson to be learned.

Maybe there were changes in Michael's life later on that would lead me to change my opinion--which I can't come right out and state. What happened from the time that Michael and the rest of the brothers quit going to "regular school" in Gary, Indiana to the time they each received a California state diploma equivalency certificate is documented somewhat in the six hour television movie, "The Jacksons: an American Dream," which I have recorded and not yet viewed. I hope to fast forward through several hours of commercials.

Realizing how Joseph Jackson pushed his sons in what seemed to be perpetual and strictly structured entertainment rehersals, I don't imagine there was any checking of homework completion before the music work began each evening. I can see Katherine signing report cards, with perhaps a little reproach for needed improvement, but always a big hug and an assurance of love.

Having been a teacher, I can imagine that by the time Reebie and several of her brothers had been through the same schools, that the family would have developed a kind of reputation as learners, or cut ups, or as those proverbial apathetic bumps on a log. I'd really like to talk to anyone who ever had a Jackson as a student.

With nine sons sharing one bedroom, sleeping in three triple bunk beds, do you suppose there was a desk, chair, and a lamp that they all shared in scheduled order? I rather think not. How big was the kitchen table?

I can't even figure out how everyone in the family of eventually 11 children had room to keep up with their own clothes. I have ever growing respect for Katherine Jackson, as a woman, as a mother, as a homemaker, and as a religous being. As much as I admire her, I don't like her husband Joseph. He was never nice. He did things for a reason, and it seemed usually to be for himself, and his own pleasure of power.

Joseph Jackson says his father was an educator, but his attitude and behavior don't match the background. He didn't read the contract he signed joining the Jackson 5 with Motown. He, nor any legal person of his choosing, nor anyone for a long time ever read that contract. People and contracts and reading were all easier in the sixties, but maybe that just my opinion.

Just because a person doesn't read, doesn't mean he can't read. But when you don't know enough to read your possibly enslaving contract, on which you're counting on taking your family from rags to riches, it makes me wonder about the man's intelligence. When would anybody think it was smart to sign anything you didn't read? How many people sign things today, never realizing what they are agreeing to because thty don't read it? Six point font be damned, I know how to read, and make the printer bigger if I need to. I don't claim genious skills very often. Perhaps I'm underestimating myself.

I don't know of any of the Jackson 5, or their sons and daughters have availed themselves of a higher education--though the funds, one would think, must have been available. Are all future Jacksons destined to be musicians, seeking to replicate the magic Michael had? Is that a good thing?

.............notes for later............


stop, drop, and roll, to the Pepsi fire--wasn't that a 2nd grade lesson?
or did you just panic....

Michael! How could you have missed Watergate? How did the older brothers miss out on the draft? Everybody older than Jermaine was elligible for a draft lottery number. Nothing on the Jacksons and Viet Nam yet....


Ebonics.... to sheeps



. . . . led me to ponder the difference, or the relationship, between education and creativity. People have different learning styles, and most people continue to learn from life after their high school diploma, in areas of particular interest if not just general living knowledge.