256 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
256 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
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Underground eXperts United
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Presents...
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[ Freedom ] [ By Eric Chaet ]
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____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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FREEDOM
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by Eric Chaet
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Oklahoma. Hot. Flat Interstate 70. I was hitchhiking, again, east. This
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time, I didn't know what I was going to do, or where I was headed.
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Highway, fields of corn, milo, wheat. Cars. Always cars. An irregular
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heart-beat of cars.
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Interweaving chirps of grasshoppers, cicadas, crickets. Wood poles,
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black cables strung a little slack between them, red-winged blackbird atop
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a speed-limit sign. White highway stripes on black asphalt, soft with the
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heat.
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Blue sky, white-gray clouds.
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Bright sun, red dirt - clay.
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It would be nice to find a dry spot in the tall green grass.
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And to lie down, and just WATCH - the clouds drift across.
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Bushes and trees, low hills behind me, to the west, out of which I had
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come.
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Also, behind me, a highway overpass. And a gas station - an elevated,
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yellow, shell-shaped plastic sign (Shell Oil Company), posted prices of a
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gallon of regular, premium, diesel gas. A row of pumps on a paved-over lot.
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Thru the window of the small cube of a building, three guys, out of the hot
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sun and humidity, talking in the shadows, one seated behind a desk.
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A ride with a fellow who said he had worked in the oil fields, for
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good wages, before the price of oil dropped. Now he worked for a lot less,
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behind the counter of a convenience store.
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I slept in the tall grass several hundred yards beyond a ramp onto
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the highway just north of Oklahoma City, and, in the morning, got a ride
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with... I already couldn't remember... I must have slept thru the ride.
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That's about the most unmannerly thing you can do when you're
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hitchhiking. The driver almost always wants to talk, and even for you to
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say something now and again, to help him or her deal with boredom and
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sleepiness. I try never to fall asleep on the drivers who pick me up.
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But I must have slept thru the ride. I couldn't recall, already.
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Was it already a decade ago? Or was it two? A man giving me a ride -
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he said he sold pornographic books and magazines that he bought at a
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warehouse full of them in Wichita, from the Mob - told me that powerful
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people, unknown to the public, lived on this bluff here, on the Kansas side
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of the Missouri River, just southwest of Kansas City, Missouri - overlooking
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cranes moving cargo on and off barges tied to the docks, by the wide,
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slow-moving, muddy river...
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It would be nice to let myself fall asleep, to evaporate, not to have
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to present myself to the next driver, whoever he would be...
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I thought I was done with hitchhiking a long time ago.
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It would have been easy to fall over...
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This is being faint, I thought...
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For several hours I waited, caught rides, little hops, from one ramp
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to the next - around the edge of town - impatient under dark, threatening,
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heavy clouds building.
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They were tall, their upper edges were brilliantly white - like big
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ocean-going sail-boats, but - vast.
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Toward sundown, I was down in what the last driver had called East
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Bottoms. He was a truck driver, and his depot was one of several located
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here: wet grass-land, mud and gravel roads, truckyards. Nowhere to make
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myself invisible for the night, to put down my sleeping bag and rest -
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too open, too muddy, too much truck traffic.
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Above was the bridge over the Missouri - a nifty bit of building - full
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of traffic - headlights on - heading north out the city. But it was illegal
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for me to walk up and across. And, anyway, it was inaccessible by foot.
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I'd have to wait.
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Again.
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A man my age - cautious face, cold eyes - mirroring my own, now? -
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eyed me from the cab of a pick-up he drove by. We got a good look at one
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another.
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I put my thumb down - my arm was so damned heavy - and sighed.
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Then, squaring off my will and shoulders, for the next driver, I lifted
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my arm, and... BEEP! BEEP! The driver who had stared into my eyes, so
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coldly, had stopped, and backed up - a dangerous manouver - on a curve - for
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me.
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I picked up my pack, and ran for the cab door, so that he would not
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have to risk himself too much, backing up for me, and, also, so that he
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would not have time to decide it wasn't worth it, and take off.
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"Ride in the back," the driver mouthed, silently, over his shoulder,
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absolutely non-committal.
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I knew that the man was a philosopher - that is, that he thought his
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own thoughts, that he had - justified - fear of strangers, and that he was
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brave and kind. Instantly, and deeply, I regretted that we would not be
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getting acquainted.
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I leapt up over the side, and, when he engaged the engine, rode up and
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over the river on the bridge, and past the grid of city businesses and
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homes. He let me off at a ramp at the first town - considerably less traffic
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here - beyond the city.
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It was raining hard - and time to wait, again.
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I had a good rain poncho. I'd held onto it for nearly two decades now.
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It was my oldest possession.
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I'd had it longer than my brain cells.
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I got two quick, short rides, from one ramp to the next. Each of the
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drivers wanted to tell me about Jesus.
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"I believe that Jesus and I are team-mates," I replied. "I believe that
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Jesus was one of the greatest - maybe the very greatest - prophet and
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philosopher. That he was brave and wise. And that his parables and sermons
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are the work of the greatest literary artist ever.
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"But I don't believe that Jesus was a Christian or would care any more
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for the various Christian churches of the last 2,000 years than he did for
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the Hebrew synagogues and sects, or for the Roman or Greek institutions,
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myths, and rituals of his day, or for the issues and arguments of their
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adherents.
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"I don't believe that most Christians come close to acting in
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accordance with his teachings and example.
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"And I don't believe everything even Jesus is supposed to have said.
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"Everything recorded in the gospels can't be accurate - tho they're
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wonderful stories, full of insight. There are contradictions.
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"The system of things - and it's a damn shame - has lasted a very long
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time. Jesus is supposed to have said - probably he did, in which case he
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was wrong - that it wouldn't last even beyond the generation in which he did
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his work and was rewarded with the wavering adherence of twelve men, the
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wild and misunderstanding enthusiasm of occasional crowds, and crucifixion.
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"Of course, he may have been referring to the rule of Israel and
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Jerusalem by the Temple rabbis, subordinated to the Roman governors and
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puppet kings. But I don't think that's what you're talking about, and - even
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if he didn't realize it - that was only PART of the system of things..."
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I think I said all that - maybe half to one of the drivers, half to the
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other. Or maybe bits and pieces to a dozen drivers and other people over two
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dozen years.
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Or maybe I've never said so much, aloud.
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I tried not to get into with the drivers. They were giving me a ride.
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And they meant to do me further good by enlightening me.
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Yes, I said, as agreeably as I could, I thought very highly of Jesus.
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But, no, I had to disagree, I didn't believe that Jesus had saved them
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- hadn't Jesus said that they had to save themselves?
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While the conversations were going on, in each of the vehicles that was
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carrying me farther from the concentrated center of the hive, I was hearing,
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over the car radios, that a convict had escaped, supposedly armed - that he
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had already killed three people, that the police were searching for him -
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right in this area.
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That meant that 1) a dangerous man was on the loose around here, and
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2) the police would be unusually curious and trigger-happy about hitchhiking
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strangers.
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I got out of the second vehicle, where the driver turned off the
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highway, for home - and took off, walking north, in the rain. In spite of
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the rain poncho, I was soaked from the thighs down, and from the top of my
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head to my shoulders.
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Coming upon a fire station, I went in and asked a fellow who was
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organizing a huge hose, where the fence along the highway ended, and the
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open country began.
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"About two miles," he said.
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While I was at it, I pushed my luck, and asked if I could use the
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bathroom. As I was given permission, I went in - it was clean and bright and
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built to accomodate many men at a time - and changed to my other clothes,
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used the plumbing, brushed my teeth, shaved, dried and combed my hair, used
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the plumbing a second time, marveled at my face in the mirror - "Still
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alive!" - then walked on.
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On either side of the highway now, the ground rose steeply.
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I climbed up to the edge of the chain-link fence - beyond was a big
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yard with two empty clothes-lines and a full-crowned tree and a house - and
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sat against a fence post, with my knees against my chest, and my rolled-up
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sleeping bag, under the poncho, between my spine and the fence-post.
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Morning, I woke up, vaguely uneasy: shouldn't I be comparing my
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progress against the achievement of some goal? But I couldn't remember what
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goal. It was morning - no longer black, but gray, a steady drizzle. A
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cocker spaniel was yapping at me, not more than a foot behind me, from the
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yard with two empty clothes-lines, tree, and house, on the other side of the
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fence.
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When I was a boy, I was very fond of the cocker spaniel who lived with
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the Wilhelms, two houses down the street from my parents' house. This
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crystal-clear memory flickered thru, like a stroke of lightning, and left a
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faint, sweet odor of ozone....
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In fact, it coincided with a stroke of lightning - a beauty! - over the
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Missouri highway and the soggy fields and yards...
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I wondered how the escaped convict was doing, as I got up, and got
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going. Given the escaped convict, the dog's owner might call the police -
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to whom I would have to explain my presence - which I did not know how to
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do.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uXu #560 Underground eXperts United 2000 uXu #560
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Send your submissions to: submission@uxu.org
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