Volume 2015 (2017)

Editor Notes

I’LL NEVER FORGET sitting crossed-legged in front of the new color TV, nose close enough to touch the screen, my mother swearing this new invention was going to turn humanity “cross-eyed.” Then, it happened. Dorothy stepped out of that house, opened that door, and suddenly I was transported into Oz, a scene as if Van Gogh and Monet and Toulouse-Lautrec all rolled themselves into a ball and then exploded color and form into my black and white world. Mother was right; I was cross-eyed for months trying to digest my new eyes, working both at the same time out of harmony, in separate directions trying to see, to understand how only my world, up to that point was color. Up until then, kids across the sea were black and white, two tones, contrast and focus; the world went from a simple “yes” and “no,” “right” and “wrong,” to the visible spectrum of color somewhere over the rainbow. The dark black on a uniform startlingly became what it was: red rich blood. The ocean became azure crystal. Snow became a new white – it was snow white. I was curious yet confused, elated yet scared. I suddenly felt a responsibility to grow up a bit and see the world as it was - a beautiful, conflicted, glorious, horrid, curious spinning blue marble against a black backdrop, sprinkled with glittered galaxies, the stars reaching their prism fingers, calling for conjecture.

This edition of Forces is our first all color edition, granted approval by our ever, farseeing Board of Trustees.

This edition is quietly, humbly dedicated to a long supporter of Forces, of the arts, of work ethic, of a “good hamburger,” and of the colorful life: Bill Kelly. One human being I can truly say that, “Because of Bill Kelly’s life, passion, and service, the world is a better place.” I would add, “God, rest his soul,” but, I’m sure he’s, “busy being.”