Many Ron Prices

There are many Ron Price’s on the internet.  At one site the reader will be informed that “You've arrived at the internet site for a New Zealand medical drama called Shorthand Street.”  It is about the lives and loves of the doctors, nurses, staff and patients at the Shorthand Street Hospital.  The character Ron Price first appeared in the episode on July 27th 2004 at 7pm.  Ron is a well-dressed, moderately successful, middle-class man in his forties. He is conservative by nature and feels threatened by cultures he doesn’t understand.  His wife, Pauline Price, appeared on the same program also for the first time. Pauline is a well-educated, middle-class woman in her forties. Conservative by nature, she has enjoyed being a homemaker for her husband, Ron.  They share an interest in gardening and the firm belief that the different races shouldn’t mix.  Although she’s aware this is deeply unpolitically correct, Pauline isn’t afraid to air her views.
–Ron Price with thanks to “Street Talk: A Website for Shorthand Street.”

Other Ron Price’s at various websites include: Ron Price Motors(Subaru) in South San Francisco; a graphic artist Ronald Fullerton Price born in Chicago, Illinois on April 30, 1939  and died in 1998; another Ron Price has written articles on the New Testament for 20 years; there is Ron Price the photographer; a Ron Price who joined the Dallas ISD Board in 1997 and served as secretary and co-chair of its personnel committee; a Ron Price who was born on 5 Nov 1937 in Bradford, W.Yorkshire and educated at the Bradford Grammar School; there is a Ron Price who is Chair of some Radiation Safety Committee; Ron Price, a candidate for the Republican Party and member of the Santa Cruz County Central Committee; and an alleged wife beater. On and on goes the list.-Ron Price with thanks to the many internet sites found under the name of Ron Price.

Some names are common
and found on the internet
like my father’s name:
Fred Price dozens of them
found in geneological tables
and historical sites going back
hundreds of years about as common
as air like the nameless and traceless
millions, about as meaningful
as the eye of a dead ant
in the ultimate scheme of things.

To extract poetry from such a common
entity, to make such an entity interesting
now there’s the rub.  Can I mould this
brute matter into form, this ordinary
thing into the extraordinary or, in the end,
will I create a worthless prose-poem
not visited by any aesthetic passion,
by any spell and so cast it on readers
without pleasure or meaning?

Ron Price
September 3rd 2005