Above: Mark Nemeth at age six in Ecuador.
Right: Mark Nemeth at age 27 in Lincoln. He has gotten taller.
Virtual reality
Experiencing Lincoln overwhelms, baffles the senses
By Mark Nemeth
Diversions Contributor
An intense storm of pack and clean over
came me at the end of August as I moved out of
my apartment and into my parent’s house 13
miles from downtown Lincoln. Bom in the
East, I’m moving West... tomorrow?
I finished a Harris Labs study from hell in the
middle of September. It freaked me out. I tried
to sit in my car when 1 wasn’t needed. I’d been
gelling in these bizarre arguments at 6 o’clock
every morning with this Libertarian bee owner
“B.,”(who’sdriving me loCalifomia) this nice,
wife-arguing, yelling, tobacco-chewing Navy
dude “Y.” and Noah.
Every day, Noah wears ’70s-collared ox
fords and T-shirts with animals on them; a
horse, two horses, zebras, etc. He’s studying
veterinary science. He works on a farm. On his
back is tattooed a Native American and a large
horse.
I asked Noah if he grew up thinking he was
Noah the Ark Master or if he identified some- .
how with the biblical figure. No, he said.
The first time I met Noah, he kept trying to
disgust me by relaying detailed accounts of
animal dissection. Noah asked me if I was a
free-lovin’ hippie and said he’d eaten horse
meal.
“We can cal animals because they’re less
sophisticated than us,” Noah said.
“Can we cal less intelligent humans?” 1
asked him.
“Let me pul it this way,” he said. “Would
you ride a horse?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Would you ride your grandmother?” he
asked.
“If she was strong and wanted me to,” I said. ,
One morning my mother drove me in the 1
dying Volvo with the alien light and moody
electric system to Harris Labs at 5:40 a.m. for
a drugging.
“Watch out. You’re over the line,” she said.
“You’re driving bad.”
---
No one understood what was cool
about the virtual reality body
suits. Vd remembered using them
before and having my senses
overwhelmed, but this time all /
saw were some LED lights in
these colored-glass goggles.
Maybe the batteries are low, /
thought.
-tf -
“I’m driving fine,” I said. “I drive with
cspect for safety, not the law. If every car
iround me was going 60 mph in a 35 mph /one,
I’d be going 60 mph. Metal is more foreboding
han painted white lines.”
“It’s my car,” she said.
“I’m the driver,” I said.
uon i smn gening scmsii, sue saiu.
“Don’t start getting angry,” 1 said.
“You look at everything like it’s a movie,”
she said. x
“You look at everything like it’s a clothing
store,” 1 said.
What were we talking about?
“You look at everything like it’s an episode
of Murder She Wrote.”
I tried to bring the logic of the argument to
harmless absurdity. We were both silent I think
we'wc’rt? both a Imle bhffled. The sun wasn’t
even up yet.
I like driving through, around and out of
Lincoln. It’s very clean. Docs it have the nation’s
second-highest per capita cop population? Gay
population? Fast food restaurants? Isn’tO Street
the longest straight street in the nation? Lincoln
must be a nice place for a hungry gay cop in a
hurry on a straight street.
See LINCOLN on 10
v
Interested in an
Assignment?
The Mennonite Central Committee, the social concerns
organization for North American Mennonite and Brethren in
Christ churches, seeks committed Christian volunteers.
Needed: health workers, agriculturists, teachers, Community
services workers and others.
Meet MCC representative Ron Brown at Ag Career
Day,Thursday,Oct. 8, in the East Campus Union.
i *
