A Dad Reflects on Another Harsh Dichotomy of Our Struggling Times
- Allan Shedlin
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Guest Poetry by Alex Paramo
NM-based Author, Educator, and Community Organizer
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following poem was first published on Community Publishing's website. Community also is publisher of works by Dadvocacy Consulting DADvisors and regular Daddying blog contributors, Hakim Bellamy and Dr. Anthony Fleg. Alex's poem is reprinted here with his permission.
Author's note: Sometimes i turn down random roads and see real things that move me to take pictures that inspire words. Find it all at www.communitypublishing.org
Old Cars and Universities
I drive an old car
20 years old in 2 years
I drive an old car because I am a teacher in America
...and I can’t really afford two new cars.
I drive an old car so that my daughter can drive the good car
...down to the university
Out of my side-view mirror of my old car I saw the road, a flag, and a woman pushing a cart that was filled with her boxed belongings and a dog riding on top.
Out of the side-view mirror of my old car that I patch up every day to get it going to teach your kids, I saw a woman pause while pushing her belongings with a dog on top.
It was a hot day to be driving in a car with a propensity to overheat at the most unpredictable times.
It was too hot of a day to be pushing a cart filled with your belongings, on a black tar road, with your dog on top.
...The lady and dog were being punished by the sun on this scalding day and as they walked, she looked down upon the road before she paused again in a minute of ponder. She kept going though, for whatever reason, in the same direction as the sun followed her and the heat droned mercilessly upon her and the head of the dog.
...And in the opposite direction I took off in the old car so that my daughter can drive the good car…
…down to the university.
– Alex Paramo
2026 Daddying Film Festival & Forum Atticus Awards Announced!
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Alex Paramo is a father to daughter, Marisol, author, educator, and community organizer. He was born and raised in Queens, NYC. He moved to New Mexico for graduate school at the University of New Mexico and currently lives in Albuquerque with his daughter, who won the Bilingual Children’s Book of the Year at 10 years old for her book Bella the Caterpillar. He is a Middle and High School teacher in the South Valley, NM, Event Production Manager for the nonprofit, multi-arts gallery Expressions in Old Town Albuquerque, and was elected to the KUNM Radio Board in 2023.
Alex is the co-founder of Community Publishing, which is dedicated to creating virtual space for community based artists of all media (writers, painters, photographers, musicians, etc.) to collaborate on multimedia book projects with the purpose of promoting their work. Unlike traditional publishers, Community Publishing uses a “ground up” approach, which emphasizes an all-encompassing collaborative method. Community Publishing‘s projects also serve the function of promoting literacy in our communities. Alex also writes a regular local music feature for New Mexico Entertainment Magazine.
Alex has written and published two bilingual, multimedia children’s books with Princess Marisol as the protagonist, Princess Marisol & the Moon Thieves and Princess Marisol & the Portal. Both books were adapted for the stage and performed around the Southwest. A third book, Princess Marisol Presents the Wisewoman & the Moon, he co-authored with his daughter.
