Eclectic Muddlehood

There is a certain stretch of Texas highway I occasionally traverse to and from various activities with the Triad that always simultaneously humors and sobers me with its ironic scenery.  Positioned on the same side of the road, less than two miles apart from each other, stand two institutional structures.  Both are for the most part surrounded by a tall chain link fence.  Both are about the same height and constructed with the same southwestern peach tinted brick.  Both are scattered with narrow windows that cannot possibly bring much natural light inside the structures.  Both have sizable parking lots with tall floodlights protruding from them.  The inhabitants of both buildings must adhere to strict schedules and myriad rules dictating everything from where they must be when to their very bodily functions; when they may eat or use the restroom.  They both contain brutally challenging peer cultures where deviations from the mainstream culture are at minimum sneered at, possibly crushed visciously and more often than not result in cruelty and violence. 

I can never remember which building is which from a distance and until I am almost upon them, they remain fighteningly similar.  Once I am almost even with them, the differences emerge.  A football field and bleachers peak out from behind the rear corner of one building, while the guard towers that punctuate the fence of the other become easier to distinguish.   As both buildings fade into the horizon in my rearview mirror, I cannot help but sigh and wonder sadly how many inhabitants of the one institution are merely headed for the other in a matter of a few short years.