Real Survivors
July 1st, 2010As many of you know, I grew up in Newark. That is neither a boast nor a plea for pity. Actually, if you ignore the riots, the racism, the gangs, the drugs, the muggings and the poverty, Newark wasn’t a bad place to grow up. I used to think of our family as being poor but, according to the government, we weren’t “poor,” we were “underprivileged,” which made us feel a whole lot better.
Newark is divided into “wards” (kind of like a hospital that has different wards to isolate people with various diseases from the general population). I grew up in the North Ward, birthplace of the Newark-style Italian hot dog (one of the seven culinary wonders of the world) and Ting-a-Ling’s (known for its world famous lemon ice).
For anyone who has grown up in Newark, the word “survivor” means a lot more than a reality TV series. Come to think of it, anyone can survive in a tropical paradise such as Borneo or Fiji or Samoa; for a really challenging “reality” show, try Survivor: Newark. They could drop the contestants in the middle of the Central Ward or the South Ward and give them some basic survival equipment such as a switchblade knife, a roll of duct tape, a $20 gift certificate to Kentucky Fried Chicken and a can of Raid. They should form tribes with catchy names; Crips and Bloods are already taken, but Muggers, Riots, Nicky Newarks and Dickee Dees are possibilities.
They will need to build shelters of course, but there are lots of abandoned buildings, construction debris and countless mattresses and automobile tires to be found (Hint: mashed potatoes from KFC make an excellent mortar for bricks). Foraging for flora and fauna may be a daunting challenge, although if they search hard enough they may find some dandelions and weeds. Foraging for half-eaten hamburgers and greasy fries in the trash bin behind McDonalds is likely to yield edible results. Local wildlife includes mangy cats, mongrel mutts, plump pigeons and rabid rats.
As for the challenges, there are plenty of cockroaches for the disgusting food challenge. How long contestants can sit perched on a telephone pole would make a great endurance challenge. And for the traditional obstacle course race, they could base it on inner-city survival skills: swimming across the Passaic River, crossing McCarter highway at rush hour in bare feet (you may lose a few contestants in this particularly dangerous maneuver), rooftop jumping, sewer spelunking, barbwire fence climbing and eluding police in a cross-city, on-foot chase.
Who knows, if Survivor:Newark is successful, they might follow it up with CSI: Newark starring Joe Pesci, with occasional appearances by Frankie Valli.
This blog is an excerpt from Pastor Ed’s Weekly Update (PEW-U). If you wish to receive my weekly e-mail Update, you just need to send an e-mail to mcc.ebanghart@verizon.net