FROM: Terry Lynch@aol.com; POB 241035; Montgomery, AL 36124-1035 
Phone: (334) 272-4217 voice  (334) 277-3582 fax via arrangement

DATE:  July 15, 1998 

TO:  Letter to the Editor      

SUBJECT:  The Little Gray Rat's Tale 

Way down south in the Heart of Dixie there was this town full of 
big fat white rats.  They got fat taking money and eating votes.  
They used the money to build nests and raise fat little white 
rats that went to church and said their prayers.  They knew the 
Lord of rats, who was white, blessed them and so long as they 
could keep all the black rats out of the green money garden they 
were happy.

One day a black rat named King came to town and started 
preaching.  Soon all the black rats wanted some of the money to 
build their nests.  There was a bus boycott and sit-ins, marches 
for votes and civil rights for all, black and white rats alike.

One of the white rats named Wallace didn't like that at all.  He 
believed in separation of the rat races and so he ranted and 
raved until the white rats made him king.  He was so determined 
to keep black rats out of the money garden that he called out the 
National Guard and stood in the school house door.  One of the 
white rats even shot and killed the black rat that was doing all 
the preaching.

Time passed and some of the black rats managed to get money 
nests.  But the white rats were very clever.  They knew as long 
as they sent their kids to private, expensive white rat only 
churches and schools, that the black rats would always be second 
class rats.  Never would the black rats have enough money to 
change the status quo.

Over time the white rats got fatter and fatter.  They had names 
like Hunt, Blont and Folmar. There was even a little Wallace, Junior 
rat.  There was even a fat rat that was so much like the old king 
of white rats that they started calling him the "Wallace Lite" 
rat after a type of piss-poor beer the rats liked to drink.

Then one day something very strange happened.  A little gray rat 
from a far off land came to town.  Things were different where he 
grew up and he started telling the rats how there was enough 
money for everyone.  All they had to do was go to the same 
churches and schools and stop teaching their kids that the Lord 
of rats was black or white.

But rats will be rats.  Nothing seemed to change.  Yet the little 
gray rat knew that by telling his tale over and over in time all 
the rats would see the light which is exactly what happened after 
a long, long time and countless retellings of this tale.

Sincerely, Terry 
Lynch Montgomery, AL