When I looked at Paul Theks peice the first thing that came to mind was the news paper and the headlines on it.  This to me represents reality and in most cases corruption of man.  Painted across the newspaper is a painting of a sesaw and birds which to me is a sence of childhood and innocence. I remembered a story from this painting that happened to me when i was little.

I remember that day so vividly that it burns my mind to think of it.  Was I so naive?  May days playing tag and swinging overshadowed that of the quote unquote real world around me.  The days the terrorist attacks on 9/11 occurred the  world seemed to crumble to everyone besides me.  There was this whole world around me I didn't understand so I isolated my thoughts to only who was next up in the kickball game.  People kept dissapearing, my teachers, my friends, the playground was almost empty.  Had people's granparents died? Had everyone gotten sick?  Had everyone just left because they felt like it? Questions kept running through my mind left and right that I soon began to grow insane.  I saw tears, I saw anger, and I saw pain but i dissregarded it all and kept playing.  My teacher told us she wasn't supposed to tell us what happened but she said she would show us instead.  There it was, a plane crashing into a skyscrapper.  What?  Was this a movie?  It looked so unrealistic that i couldnt even believe that it actually happened.  Of course because my teacher couldnt explain this image in words I was completly clueless.  This day was the first day my carefree childhood became the real world.  This day innocence was lost.