Big Screen and Operatic

06. April 2008 · Comments Off on Big Screen and Operatic · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Memoir, Military, Veteran's Affairs, World

Being a child of the later baby-boom, of course I remember seeing Charlton Heston on the big screen – the very big screen at the drive in, when Mom and Dad packed JP and Pippy and I into the back of the trusty jade-green Plymouth station wagon for an evening at the double-feature. We were all in our pajamas for this sort of excursion, with our pillows and blankets in the back; lamentably, we usually fell asleep before seeing very much of the first feature, let alone the second.

But I do have a hazy memory of him as El Cid, in desert exile, seen through the windshield of the Plymouth, between Mom and Dad’s heads, as Ben Hur – especially the bone-crunching chariot race – a very much better one of him as Moses in The Ten Commandments – this one at one Pasadena’s gloriously ornate picture palaces, and of him as the devious and worldly Cardinal Richelieu in Richard Lesters’ Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers. Mom always said it was because of his background in classical theater, that he could swish about in historical costume so convincingly.

So, he was about the biggest star that any of us had ever heard of, when he came to Zaragoza, Spain sometime in the late 1980s, and the Public Affairs office informed us that we had a chance for an interview. We were all of a twitter; Zaragoza was kind of a backwater – I used to compare it to Bakersfield – and whereas it had a lovely old downtown, a cathedral (two cathedrals), a Roman bridge and a Moorish castle, practically everywhere else in Spain had better, more beautiful, more historic and better preserved. Our radio and television broadcasters there had practically no chance of doing celebrity interviews; I saw more interesting and famous people come through Sondrestrom, Greenland than I ever did in Zaragoza.

What was he doing in Zaragoza, of all places? Filming the commentary for this program series, on location in the old Alcazar; of which he said jokingly during our interview that it was practically the only castle in Spain that he hadn’t been to before. We were the only news outlet to get a TV interview with him on that trip; he was terribly busy with the location shoots, and it wasn’t the sort of enterprise that needed additional publicity anyway. We all liked to think that it was because of his service connection that we even got in the door. He couldn’t have been more gracious or considerate to our two nervous young airmen who shot the interview.

No, I did not do the interview; I came up with the questions for our staffer to ask, since the ones suggested by the Public Affairs officer were embarrassingly amateurish. We all watched the raw video of the interview afterwards and marveled – because he was a pro. We could use practically every second of the footage we taped, he was that good. Most people we did interviews with were nervous, fidgety and stiff. They radiated discomfort; it came off them in little wavy lines that you could almost see, like those used in cartoons to signify a stink. We usually had to spend a lot of time putting them at ease, and a lot of video time and editing to just get something useable that didn’t make them and us look like idiots.

But Charlton Heston sat still, graciously playing to the camera – (Of course! He was an actor!) – he didn’t fidget nervously. His responses were thoughtful, smooth, as composed and literate as a small essay or sonnet. No awkward umms and pauses, no false starts; he was at ease, completely comfortable and polished to a high gloss in a way that most of us- even those who had interviewed various currently popular celebs before – had never seen. He wasn’t just a star; besides being a military veteran, he was a total pro in a way that you rarely see these days.

(Note – I am a bit off Amazon.com, and protesting their recent decision to pressure POD publishers into using their print service by sending all my links for books and DVDs to Barnes and Noble. Take that, Jeff Bezos!)

Random Thoughts on Interstate Highway Travel

04. January 2008 · Comments Off on Random Thoughts on Interstate Highway Travel · Categories: Ain't That America?, Critters, Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Memoir, Site News, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Topmost on my list of such thoughts is – oh, god, it’s good to be home! It’s good to be able to sleep in ones own bed, to stretch out and not have cold feet, cold hands, cold-whatever-body-part-winds up pressed against the side panel of the Montero and is just a thin sheet of metal and some miscellaneous plastic bits removed from the frigid, wind-whipped New Mexico or West Texas weather.

Oh, yes, it was bloody cold out there; there was no snow to show for all that cold, but some nice patches of blowing dust and sand. The winds kicked up the day before we left Mom and Dads and made such a racket we couldn’t sleep that night anyway – and followed us all the way across three states. Nothing says “I want to go home” quite so much as vacating the area at 2 AM.

The best thing about departing in the wee hours on New Years Day – no traffic, once you finish dodging the drunks. There was one suspiciously careful driver, weaving gently down the Valley Center grade, which Blondie felt obliged to try and call 911 about – but all we got was it ringing about twenty times and then an answering machine. On 911; I guess they had their hands full. And the driver we were worried about didn’t look to be the reckless sort of drunk driver.

The “Starbuckifaction” of the coffee-drinking element has spread it’s what some would claim is an insidious influence far and wide, yea my brethren even to the truck plazas and gas stations along the interstate highway system. The Flying J/Pilot stores provide a surprisingly excellent selection of coffee… and have half-and-half on tap. Not just exclusively that ghastly powdered chalk non-dairy “cream” muck, thankyouverymuch. Extremely drinkable and for about a third of the cost of an equivalent at a Starbucks. No demerara sugar, though, but I expect that to appear by the next time I do a long, long road trip.

Oh, and speaking of coffee in the wee hours, I must pour scorn and derision upon the Carls Junior, just off the 1-8 in the eastern suburb of San Diego where we attempted to purchase some handy breakfast comestables and coffee at 4 AM. Yes, I know it was 4AM on New Years Day and the single unfortunate young person running the place was so junior as to make drawing fuzzy end of the lollipop and working that shift inevitable… but still; no breakfast items? We were told that only lunch items were available… oh, and sorry, the coffee brewer wasn’t fired up. And payment could only be made in cash. Yeah, so he wasn’t senior enough to have the keys to the debit-credit card processor or the coffee urns, but lunch items at 4 AM? Jesus jumping key-rist on a pogo stick, the whole damn reason for 24 hour fast food places is to dispense coffee!

Gas prices – not to shabby once outside California, and Blondie’s Montero got very good mileage on the highway. We filled to the top four times and came in well under budget, having allowed for gas at $3.25 a gallon when we planned the trip. Most gas stations along the interstate in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona had it within a nickel of $2.90, either way.

What to call the road-kill count – Bambi Bits? Bambicide? Whatever it is, the deer population takes a hell of a beating; that stretch of 1-10 through the Hill Country is a veritable holocaust for them. As a stratagem to keep ourselves awake and amused after coffee ceased having the required effect, we counted road kill from Mile 300 to Mile 511 in the median, on the roadway and off on the shoulder. Not counting various nasty looking smears and blots on the paving, our grand total was 49 deer, 8 raccoons or opossum, 3 skunks, 3 large birds (turkey or guinea-fowl of some sort) and 23 U-L-O-M, which is our acronym for “Unidentified Lumps ‘o Meat”. At that, we probably missed about a third as many, off-sight on the opposite side of the highway.

So – we’re home – and when I get home, the first thing I find is that Eric at Classical Values posted a lovely review of “To Truckee’s Trail” and Da Blogfaddah linked to it. With a resulting uptick in sales through Amazon. Maybe I should go away more often. Oh, never mind – provision of good bloggy ice cream will commence as soon as I finish going through my email in-box.

The Perils of POD Publishing

12. December 2007 · Comments Off on The Perils of POD Publishing · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Memoir, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Strictly speaking, unless your last name is Grisham or King, Steele or Rowling or any other scribbling royalty lurking meaningfully on or near the of the NY-Times best seller lists, life is bleak and full of frustrations. And also very short of people who are nice to you as a writer and welcoming to you and your books. No wonder so many of them turn to drink, or otherwise crash and burn. Even the flash in the pan overnight successful ones fall to this– Grace Metalious, anyone?

Those of us at the bottom, toiling and marketing in obscurity take our little successes where we can, lonely beacons shining in a dark and generally frustrating world. Everyone who reads the Book and loves it, or recommends it to a friend, or drops a favorable comment in an on-line forum; that’s a light like Erandil in the dark places of the day. Not quite up there with royalty checks in three figures, but the trick to being happy is to be happy with what you have.

Last night I found a comment in a discussion forum about off-road vehicles; a contributor quoted a bit from “To Truckee’s Trail” about storage arrangements in Dr. Townsends’ wagon and drew a very neat parallel between that, and how modern off-roaders now install storage for long treks – that just about made my evening. Such crumbs as do nourish the writers’ ego on these long winter evenings after looking at my ranking on Amazon.com. It’s available in the Kindle format, by the way. Or so it appears. I think. Even if there is no picture of the cover or links to the reviews for the paperback edition. No idea from the admin responses in the author forum as to why… just another way that the non-royal scribblers are incessantly kicked in the teeth by a cold and unfeeling world.

Ah, yes – reviews; absolutely necessary to have in order to market your book. Think of them as word of mouth, made solid and permanent in print. In the grand halls of the literary industrial complex, competition is fierce to review the books of the scribbling royalty and the well-connected commentariat; even so, it will take months. Almost always, the book is made available to a select few way in advance, and rumor has it that sometimes reviewers are paid and quite healthy sums too. It’s a necessary step in marketing the book, think of all those lovely complimentary quotes on the back jacket, or in the first couple of pages. At a lower level – naturally the one occupied by other indie authors – are also paid… by getting a free copy of the book. It’s one of those nice little freebies available to those in the loop and I confess to having scored a nice little collection thereby. (I asked to review a book last month for no other reason that I looked at the description and thought what a wonderful Christmas present a copy would make for a certain friend.)

Alas, it has taken months and months to assemble my collection of reviews, and pushed back my marketing plan by a considerable period. Good thing that it is a POD book, as a traditional publisher would have pulled the plug by this time. On the other hand, a traditional publisher would have been able to squeeze a review out of the San Antonio Express News, whose book editor informed me snottily that their policy is not to review POD books of any sort, not even by local authors. Don’t know what their reasoning is, probably afraid of getting literary cooties or something. God knows there are some simply dreadful books out there, but last time I looked, quite a lot of them came out of the traditional publishers. Indie writing may be the next wave, just as indie movies and indie music have offered an alternative to the traditional Hollywood blockbuster and the manufactured and wholly synthetic mega-hit.

Next – why it’s an uphill fight to get the book into traditional bookstores, and why do I bother anyway?

Memorial Day Links

11. November 2007 · Comments Off on Memorial Day Links · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Iraq, Memoir, Military, War

Two essays for this day, the eleventh day of the elevenths month: First – Austin Bay and second, my own reminiscence of my great-uncle William

Later: from Youtube, via my computer genius friend who sent it to me this morning – “A Pittance of Time“.

On With the Dance!

14. September 2007 · Comments Off on On With the Dance! · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, Literary Good Stuff, Memoir, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine...

And someone throw another quart of liquid soap in the bubble machine, the madness of the writers’ life waltz has just been ratcheted up another couple of notches. No, wait… that’s the Tylenol cough syrup kicking in… that blue stuff does have a kick, doesn’t it? Yes, sports fans, I seem to have contracted the current misery of a very sore throat and hacking cough. Fortunately our vast collection of over-the-counter medications seem to be kicking in at long last. The cats didn’t mind… much. Not with something warm to curl up next to, 24-7 but the coughing rather disturbed them. Whenever I started hacking like Camille, I would get this dirty look from Sam and Percy – like “Do you mind keeping it down?! We’re trying to sleep, here!” “Well, don’t mind me, fellas, that’s just me and part of a lung.”

Finished the first draft of the Civil War volume this week; next stop, revisions, but only after reading… a lot. Went and ordered some books from Amazon, bought some more at Half-Price and picked up an armload at the library, including a local history of the town of Comfort, Texas, written (I kid you not) by a gentleman named Guido Ransleben. Is this a great country or not? I went to school with a kid named Sean Nardoni, though, so maybe I am used to ethnic collisions when it comes to names. My stack of required reading is as high as an elephants’ eye, metaphorically speaking. I did some work for Dave the Computer Genius early in the week, but was too damn sick to do anything else but read or sleep.

One of the library books turned out to be damned fascinating: “The Civil War in the American West”. Sort of an overview and very well written, I thought… of everything that happened west of the Mississippi River during those years; in Arkansas and Missouri and Minnesota, in New Mexico and Colorado and Texas; all those efforts to secure the overland trails to Santa Fe Trail and Sacramento. How the regular Army troops were withdrawn, and so many of their officers resigned their commissions and declared for the South, while local companies of volunteers assembled; not to go off and fight in Virginia or Tennessee, but to take the place of the regular Army, in securing the frontier forts. And the frontier went up in flames during those years for two reasons… the Regular Army stepping back and the Indians seeing an advantage, while the local volunteers were much more accustomed to conditions and much more eager to settle the Indians’ hash for them. Which is how we wound up with the Sand Creek massacre…

Fascinating stuff… also found a compilation of short biographies of women in the Texas cattle business, who trailed herds of cattle to the northern railheads, or to California. Some went along with their husbands; some did it as a business after being widowed. Most of them seemed to have enjoyed the experience terrifically; and I am taking serious notes on this. Volume 3 of Adelsverein, or Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a lot of Sidearms will get into this territory. I am still pretty amused at the difference between how the cattle bidness appears in Western movies, and how it really looked in people’s memoirs.

Jousting With The Windmills

06. September 2007 · Comments Off on Jousting With The Windmills · Categories: Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Memoir, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Always fun to land a blow on an ever moving target, with a wobbly lance. And no horse to speak of, just me at a dead run across the hillside, this being the perils of the low-budget POD author, when cleverness and creativity try and make up for not being able to do what the big playas in the literary-industrial complex do… which is to throw pillowcases of money at the providers of advertising, reviewers and air-time.

Progress in the case of transforming “To Truckee’s Trail” into a best-seller feels as slow and torturous as a slug crawling across a twenty-acre parking lot on a Texas afternoon in August. It’s endless and frustrating, every bump in the pavement is a nearly insurmountable obstacle… and it’s very, very hot.

On the other hand, successfully negotiating them, one by one by one allows me the illusion that I am getting somewhere, after all. Those readers and fans who ordered autographed copies from me last month have received them, and I have a couple of cards and emails assuring me of their utter delight and enjoyment. Pure nectar to the writers’ ego! And very welcome too, but must be careful not to soak in it too much. Or to be battered by its’ obverse, all those various stripes of criticism. Note to self, suggested response when encountering this: there’s a bajillion other books out there; If mine doesn’t send you, one of them surely will!

I sent a box of review copies last week to KC in Sparks-Reno, who aside from being one of those readers who encouraged me to even write the book in the first place, also is connected in various media and publicity outlets there. Quite a lot of the book happens in that area, so she can scrape together enough of the ‘local interest-local history’ attention-getting machinery.

And I sent a box of review copies to my parents. Mom is one of those retirement-age busy-bodies who is well-connected in Northern San Diego to the local artistic and literary circles. God love them, Mom and Dad are also sending me my Christmas present early, on the very good grounds that I may make better use of that check now than in three months. Out of that, I’ll get another box of review copies, and some advertising, of the kind that has to be paid for.

Sent a review copy to a reviewer for Blogger News. Net, and another to the editors of “True West” and to the California Oregon Trails Association. No results to report, yet.

Sent out about 65 postcards to an assortment of independent bookstores, and frontier/pioneer museum bookstores, following up with emails. So far, only a bookstore in Truckee, and the Truckee Donner Historical Association have nibbled, that I know of. Just not enough demand, not enough people have read it, liked it and said so very loudly!

And Cpl. Blondie has chatted up the manager of a chain bookstore, who is agreeable to ordering three or four copies, displaying them prominently, and if there us enough demand, ordering more, and even staging a book signing. Now if I can only get it reviewed by the local newspaper, I could make a bit more of a splash here in San Antonio. So far, I haven’t gotten an email back from the person who allegedly edits the Sunday book section. Honestly, these people are always wondering why no one reads the paper any more…

Off to crawl across some more parking lot, and stick some more stamps on post-cards!

Jam Tomorrow – Progress Report

22. August 2007 · Comments Off on Jam Tomorrow – Progress Report · Categories: Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Memoir, Site News, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

“The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam to-day.”

Or so saith the Queen, and I can just completely relate, because in the mad writers-life waltz that is my own life these days, there is always the hope of jam tomorrow. The bread today is plain and budget, and naked of jam, but tomorrow it may be miraculously spread with finest-kind Confiture Bar le Duc.

Or so we keep hoping. I think the cats are holding out for a can of nice juicy salmon, hold the toast hold the capers, just plain, thank you. The dogs will be ecstatically happy with anything edible that has only bounced once when it hit the floor.

Tiny tastes of jam include the fact that “To Truckee’s Trail” is in Booklocker.com’s list of top-ten print best-sellers, and I did get an email from this bookstore in Truckee City thanking me for my query and noting that they had ordered some copies from the Ingram catalogue to stock in their bookstore. I am testing out running an ad here; home central for all things Western… and I finally got paid for the magazine article that had been published several issues ago. (What a goat rope… I’m not really sure I want to submit any more articles, not when I have to wait to get paid for months and then throw a temper tantrum. How demeaning is that? And do publishers do it because it’s a hell of a lot easier to stall writers than suppliers and printers?) But I had some paid work at Dave The Computer Genius’ place of business, and he let me use his computer and soft-wear to tweak my book-website, so my need to buy my own copy of it is put off for at least a little while. All good, all jam., or at least a tantalizing expectation of same.

Still haunting the mailbox though; last week I ordered a box of copies from the publisher; these are the autographed copies which readers have ordered, and some are to be sent out to reviewers. I ordered another box this week; more review copies, and one for the kid in the sandwich shop where I get a smoked-chicken sub every Saturday… and I have promises of all kinds of linky-love and reviews in the very near future. As soon as I have the books in hand. And mail them out.

There was that saying about promises and pie crust, though…
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Things I Like About My New Job

03. August 2007 · Comments Off on Things I Like About My New Job · Categories: Memoir

Just wanted a list of first impressions that I can look back on later and remind myself when I get tired of showing up every day.

– It’s not the Air Force.
– The dress code is very laid back. Jeans allowed. Hell I could wear shorts and sandals if the place wasn’t kept as cold as a meat locker. That’s been nice.
– It’s only about 6 miles away from home.
– I’m driving away from the city while most of the traffic is driving in to the city.
– While I’m starting out at the entry level, there’s plenty of chances to move up and even out and about in the company.
– I’ve got about a year to learn the ins and outs before I decide which track I want to take.
– There’s every fast food joint and grocery store I could possibly need between home and work.
– The Cafeteria rocks!
— The breakfast burrito I had yesterday morning was made on the grill while I waited. It was great.
— The salsa for said yummy burrito has never seen the inside of a can or jar.
— It’s got a great dollar menu for lunch.
— The condiments’ tray includes, and I know you all are going to appreciate this, TWO bottles of Rooster Sauce along with four different types of Tabasco and similar hot stuff.
– You know those promotional pamphlets you see about someplace being a “best place to work?” and all the people are grinning like idiots? The people that work there seem to be honestly happy to be there with the exception of all the kids wearing black with their iPods vibrating their heads during breaks.
– With all of the benefits, the total package is actually about $5K more a year than I was making in the Air Force. The 401K is SWEET. If I put in 5% of my paycheck they match my contributions by 150%.
– Even if I go with less insurance, between work and my my mil benefits, we’re so covered it’s kind of weird. You might say we’re too covered, but with our health stuff, I’m okay with that.
– We’re going to save about 70 bucks a month on our cell phone plan and we’ll have every feature on the menu, even stuff I don’t understand yet. Why would you send a fax from your cell phone?
– Foosball, pool table, Air Hockey and a TV Lounge in the break area.
– You can still smoke out back and no one tweaks. Yeah, I know, shuddup.
– Everyone is VERY friendly.

All in all I think I’m going to be very happy there until I burn out, and then I’ll just have to move up.
Cross Posted at Faster Than The Blog.

First Day

30. July 2007 · Comments Off on First Day · Categories: Memoir

Mostly HR and Policy Briefings. Some things don’t differ from the military to Corporate America.

One of the things that does differ is the continuous harping on absentee-ism. Is it really that much of a problem on the civilian side of the street? I mean seriously, does the company really have to tell us every hour on the hour about how important it is to show up for work? How sad is that?

I’ll probably have to mention to my coach (trainer) that I’m not rolling my eyes because I don’t think it’s important, but because I’m having a hard time understanding why they have to keep harping on it.

Ginormous

24. July 2007 · Comments Off on Ginormous · Categories: Memoir

I had a good interview with the ginormous telecom today and they’ve offered me a position in their customer service center. Two months of training and then I may be the guy you talk to if/when your cell phone isn’t doing what it’s supposed to.

That’s assuming the background check and references pan out. Strangely (Top Secret Clearance and wonderful references.) I’m not all that concerned about that not working out.

Job Search Update

20. July 2007 · Comments Off on Job Search Update · Categories: Memoir

Have three interviews next week.

One with a ginormous telecom, starting in their call center but my growth potential is very nice. Short term needs being stomped down by long term goals.

One with a temp agency that does 50% of the tech jobs here in the valley. Possibility of moving into another ginormous tech company’s pool, but I’d be a subcontractor to the temp.

One with a small company who needs an IT guy. Doubtful that I’d get close to the money I need.

Other leads are coming in daily and Beautiful Wife is also starting her job search because frankly, we simply can’t make it without her.

Say what you want about the AF, but I was making a lot more that I’m apparently worth on the outside.

I’m also not in Afghanistan for six months like the guy who took my place.

UPDATE: Beautiful Wife got a job with her old friends at the home-made jam and jelly place. Yeah!

Remembering Vince

14. June 2007 · Comments Off on Remembering Vince · Categories: Air Force, Domestic, Memoir

In late August 1984, I arrived in Mountain Home, Idaho, my first permanent station with the Air Force. As a single airman, I was destined to live on-base in a dormitory. The Headquarters Squadron had two dorms – one of them housing the Dorm Manager’s office.

The Dorm Manager, a senior NCO named Vince (I’ve forgotten his last name, because we all just called him Vince), was either a Technical Sergeant (E-6 for our non-USAF readers) or a Master Sergeant (E-7 ). Swarthy-skinned, short and powerful, he was a former aircraft mechanic who’d been re-trained due to health issues.

Vince met me, talked to me, and assigned me to room with another airman who was close to my age. He thought we’d make a good match. I spent months convinced he was wrong, and then one day something clicked and my roommate and I became good friends.

Vince was smart like that. He was smart in other ways, too. There was nothing he couldn’t fix, from a broken faucet to a wounded heart. The guys would talk to him about “guy stuff,” whatever that is. But the girls could talk to him, too. He listened, and he cared.

Dorm Managers are part of the background in an Air Force dormitory. Like the building superintendent in an apartment building. Or like your parents after you’ve moved out on your own. You know they’re there, but unless there’s a problem, they’re not really in the fore-front of your consciousness. But they’re there, a steady force in the background, one more stable piece in an often unstable world, one more part of your life that won’t change.

Vince wasn’t going anywhere. This would be his job, and his base, until he retired. He had a business in town – I don’t remember if he ran an apartment building or if it was a trailer community, but there were rental units involved. I never dealt with that side of his life, and at that point in my life I was much too shy to just sit and visit with him, as if we were just regular folks. He was an NCO (or senior NCO – wish I could remember his rank), and I was an Airman. In my mind, there was a huge chasm between us, and it was enough that I was allowed to call him Vince, instead of Sgt Whoever.

As dormitory residents, we were not only responsible for keeping our rooms clean, we also shared the responsibility for keeping the dorms clean. Every so often your name would come up on the rotation list, and you would spend a week as “Bay Orderly,” or as we called it, “Bay Hoser.” For that week you belonged to Vince, doing whatever tasks he assigned. Cleaning the day rooms (TV lounges, basically), vacuuming the hallways, dusting, etc. I seem to recall that we even moved furniture, on occasion. Menial work, but necessary to the comfort and well-being of all those living in the dorms. And it was for Vince, and with Vince, so it was ok.

I was at Mountain Home for about 3 1/2 years, and Vince was part of my life for most of that time. Until one summer, and I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t even remember which summer it was, but I think it was late summer, 1986. I was spending a week in town, house-sitting for my first sergeant while he was on vacation, when the phone rang. Part of my job as house-sitter was to take all his messages, so I answered the call.

I could barely understand the voice on the other end, then I recognized our Assistant Dorm Manager. He was trying not to cry as he asked for the First Sergeant. It seems that on this unseasonably hot Idaho day, Vince had been mowing the yard at his rental community, and his heart gave out. That magnificent, caring heart, that made him such a good dorm manager for two buildings of young adults who were mostly on their own for the first time in their lives, wasn’t up to the strain of heavy yard work on a blisteringly hot summer day.

We had a Service on the base. Three or four dorm residents were asked to speak – I was Dorm Council President, so I was one of them. I don’t remember anything I said that day. I remember very little of what anyone else said that day, other than one of the other airmen saying Vince was a father-figure. I hadn’t thought of it until she said it, but she was right, for all the reasons I listed above. I blocked most of it out, willing myself to not hear, to hold it together until the end.

The service ended, the Honor Guard marched out, I shook the widow’s hand and murmured something appropriate, then ducked and ran for the nearest latrine, where I locked myself in a stall and released the tears I’d been fighting since the other airman compared him to a father.

The stability that Vince had represented disappeared with his death. We got a new Dorm Manager, and later that year, a new First Sergeant. I moved out of the dorms the next spring, and shared a small house with a co-worker until I moved on to my next duty station that December. The dorms weren’t the same without Vince.

Vince was an amazing man, who always had a smile and a kind word. I’d not thought of him in years, until I read Timmer’s post about his red-eyed airman grieving for her friend lost in Iraq. I’m glad I remembered him, even though the memory brings tears. He’s worth remembering.

Fall and Rise, Part 2

11. May 2007 · Comments Off on Fall and Rise, Part 2 · Categories: European Disunion, General, History, Memoir, Military, War

The summer that I was sixteen and a half was the one spent in Britain and Europe, doing the Eurailpass/Youth Hostel/$5.00 a day adventure… which upon reflection at a point nearly four decades later seems nearly as long ago as luxury steamship travel and the Grand Tour. I learned many useful and useless things during that summer, and acquired a certain sort of fearlessness about travel and new places, and strange people, as well as the ability to manage a 70-pound backpack in all situations, including the narrow confines of the little stairway to the top level of an English double-decker bus. It’s an awkward thing to manage, of course, and sometimes total strangers were moved to be of assistance, especially when we were shedding our packs (which were our entire luggage) or taking them up again.

It’s of enormous help, you see, for someone to grab the pack and hold it steady as you slip the straps off your shoulders. Then you turn around and thank them, and taking the pack by the frame, you stow it away in the overhead, or set it down…or whatever. We came to know that there were two kinds of men who would instantly offer this assistance: the young ones were Boy Scouts… and all the older ones had been soldiers.

My travel buddy, Esther Tutwyler and I struck up a conversation with one of those helpful older sorts in an English railway compartment… who of course turned out to have been a soldier, and also confessed that he was always grateful to Americans because Patton’s army had liberated him from a German POW camp. This was an instant bond, as Esther’s father was a career Army warrant officer who had fought his way all across France and Germany and done his share of liberating various bits of personnel and real estate. But when I asked the Englishman where he had been captured, he answered with the name of his unit, and that he had been captured at Dunkirk as part of the British Expeditionary Force. I actually recognized the name of his unit, (I knew all sorts of useless trivia at this time) and remarked that they had been part of the defending force around the pocket where the British forces had been driven, upon the opening of the German drive into France,
“Oh, yes,” he said, with great good humor, “But if I had known then it was the perimeter around the bloody place, I would have made Jesse Owens look like a turtle!”

The German offensive of May, 1940 punched through the weak point— Belgium, Holland, and Luxemburg— and split the Allies in two. The bulk of the British Expeditionary Force fell back towards the flat sandy coast between Calais and the Belgian frontier… towards Gravelines and La Panne, Nieuport and Bergues… and Dunkirk, with its inner harbor and much of the town smashed to rubble and rendered useless by German air raid. Black smoke from burning oil stocks shrouded the town, and set up a column of black smoke that could be seen for miles. But the outer harbor was sheltered by a long jetty, or mole; wooden gangways spanning concrete plinths reaching out from the shore and sheltering the outer harbor. The moles were not intended as a means of landing or loading personnel, but in a pinch, ocean-going ships could tie up and take on troops… but it was a tricky maneuver at best, and made even more of a hazard by constant German air raids. German artillery dominated most of the sea routes approaching the town… but still, according to most accounts, more than three-quarters of those rescued from Dunkirk were taken off from the moles, by ships who packed in human cargo wherever there was room. It took about seven hours to load 1,000 men on a destroyer, for example… and every minute of those hours, that ship and the men lined up on the mole, patiently waiting their turn to board would be a target of everything the Germans could throw at them. On the evening of 27 May, 1940 the Navy officer on station in Dunkirk sent a message to his superior, saying essentially that evacuating from the moles was too slow, too hazardous. He asked for ships to be sent towards the beaches, east of Dunkirk… and for all available small craft to serve as ferries between the beach and the larger craft.

There were already hundreds of regular Naval and merchant-marine vessels at hand to serve in the evacuation, plus a number of requisitioned Dutch coastal transports, known as “scoots”… but during the night of the 27th, Navy officers scoured boatyards, yacht-ports and wharves all through the south-eastern coast and rivers of England for small craft that could be of use. Fishing trawlers and tramps, tug boats, motor yachts and countless numbers of row-boats, fire-boats and cross-channel paddle-steamers were pressed into immediate service, with crews formed by a mix of reservists, regulars, volunteers, civilians and owners… hastily equipped and fueled up, sketchily armed, formed into convoys or taken under tow, they all went straight into the thick of it… to get their soldiers out.

The legend of the little boats was born out of Dunkirk, of civilian boat-owners sailing into hell … even though it wasn’t quite like that, there’s enough truth in it to stir the blood of anyone inclined to step forward in a time of crisis. Though most of the BEF that escaped did so through the harbor, the image of shallow-draft little boats sailing close into the shore, and of columns of soldiers standing chest-deep in the water, waiting for their countrymen to come for them and bring them safe home … oh, yes; there is the image imperishable, of nine days of glory in the midst of defeat. The British Army left their armor, their heavy artillery, their transport behind; with luck all of it spiked, scattered and burned all along the sandy dunes along the shore from Dunkirk to La Panne. They came away with what they carried, their weariness and pride, for they were still alive.

Arms and transport, armor and artillery, they could be replaced… at a cost, and in some little time; but in only a fraction of the time it takes to train an officer or an NCO, or to raise up an Army. And that was the victory of Dunkirk, delivered out of defeat and captivity at the hands of Hitler’s marvelous war machine; an Army that would return. And that was the victory of the little boats, the volunteers, and the organization of everything that could float, and head towards the column of smoke in the sky…and carry away a soldier or two. It must have been all the sweeter, a victory and an army, snatched from the wreck following on the defeat of an ally which had been until then thought stout and strong.

I couldn’t resist this coda, found from one of my reference books: A very junior Navy officer on the destroyer HMS Grenade was later asked by his commanding officer to write an account of his experience, after the ship was fatally disabled by a bomb which went straight down the funnel and exploded in the boiler. He wrote

“Dear Sir: there was a bloody great bang. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your Obedient servant.”

Why I Write

01. April 2007 · Comments Off on Why I Write · Categories: Domestic, General, Memoir, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Because I breath, and I can tell stories, and stories are important. They connect us to our history. Those stories are a shining path in the tangle of that amorphous mass loosely known as popular culture. Stories are a guide and inspiration for those of us who must find our way through the tangled jungle, for those of us who would rather not sleep-walk along a perilous knife-edge… and certain stories are also a warning of danger

“The story of the Fall of Singapore has exercised a powerful influence over my imagination, because it was in its way a dramatic re-enactment of the tragedy of the Titanic on a much vaster scale. Singapore was a place where the assumption of the British hereditary right to rule was so strong that even the obvious advance of the Japanese Army down the peninsula could not waken social circles which had known nothing other than ineffable superiority to the new reality.

The British governor told his army commander, “oh I suppose you’ll see the little men off.” Only after the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk in an afternoon did it begin to dawn on them that they were all of them doomed. Doomed.

They simply couldn’t imagine what doomed meant. People accustomed to teas and dances, deference from the natives; accustomed to snapping their fingers and parting crowds at the bazaar simply couldn’t come to terms with the idea that in a little while they would beaten, raped, and starved. If they were lucky. This effervescent bubble of oh so clever people even organized something called a Surrender Lunch, during which they were supposed to gorge themselves in preparation for the privations ahead. It was beyond sad. It was pathetic.

And as I said, Singapore has exercised a powerful influence on my imagination because this forgotten incident is the nearest we can come to past as prologue. That is what awaits the liberals when Islam takes over. They will still be yelling for their rights as they are led away to be flogged.”

Comment, Wretchard, at The Belmont Club

Wretchard’s example of the fall of Singapore is an example of an historical event that I also circle back to, along with a handful of others. Writers have our favorites, apparently. Certain events, times and places force a recognition that all things are transient, that all flesh is grass, that these things shall pass, as immutable as they might seem to the casual glance. The apparently unsinkable ship can sink out from under you. We aren’t at the end of history, after all. Maybe this might be a good time to retrieve into active consideration certain of our historical memes.

I started writing on this blog when it was still Sgt. Stryker’s Daily Brief, when the original creator of it put out a call for more writers, active duty and veterans both, round and about July or August of 2002. A lot of things changed in five years. My first post here is now three jobs (not counting temp assignments), and three posts weekly times 52 times 5 years more or less, plus a whole change in professional focus ago. When I started, I thought of myself as an office-manager/administrative assistant who wrote on the side, but as of last July I began to think of myself as a writer who did a little office managing/administrating on the side. So, for a few years, I wrote about mil-bloggy matters, interspersed with entries about my admittedly eccentric family and non-conformist childhood, about living in Japan and Europe as a military member, and about my daughter’s doings as she was deployed with her Marine Corps unit to Kuwait and Iraq, early in 2003.

I looked at writing for this blog as a means to educate and entertain the general reader about the wonderful, wacky world of the military. But on the way to that end, a lot of other stuff happened. First, there are other military blogs now, veteran’s blogs, family-of-military blogs. We stopped being unique in that respect quite some time ago, in blog years. (Which must be somewhat like dog years) Writing for the blog was always supposed to be about the writer wanted to write about. Current events, politics, war, military trivia, and popular culture. Whatever… just make it good writing, sparkle a bit; and someone will find it interesting. Which is good, but nothing stays the same for long.

I pretty much milked the family stuff pretty well dry. (It’s all in the book, mostly, be a sport and order a copy if you want all the scandalous details). The same for my various cross-Europe junkets; I wrote all about that, don’t want to repeat myself. I can only extract so much amusement out of the menagerie of dogs and cats, and the maintenance of my house. So… I moved on.

Everyone does. A lot of the bloggers that I used to read regularly in 2002-2003 have done exactly that. Other interests, other lives, they had said all they wanted to say on a particular subject, they wanted to write a book, they had health issues, family issues, other interests, another job. Some of them turned to writing seriously about things that they felt were important to them. And so have I.

(More to follow. Of course. Would I leave the regular readers hanging?)

Anatomy of a Rotten Day Part Deux

05. February 2007 · Comments Off on Anatomy of a Rotten Day Part Deux · Categories: Allied Treachery, Domestic, Good God, Memoir, sarcasm, The Funny

So this one time at Camp Pendelton, there was a Marine in my section and he had a bad day.(Found out that his wife had been sleeping with his best friend and she took the kids and split.)
Our wise SNCO called all of us NCOs into his office and said , “We needed to help this Marine out and make sure he does not hurt himself.”
So three of us were volun-told to get over to his house ASAP and take away and hide all of the things that he could hurt himself with (just in case).
I drew the short straw and got the knives, so I took note of all the sharpest and most lethal and packed them up to go to the armory. Then I hid the rest in plain sight.

Long story short he didn’t hurt himself… and he never found the knives I had hidden in plain view. He got out of the military, moved and never found them.

So I guess the moral is*if there is one*you’re not having a really shitty day—

unless I show up and hide your flatware!

How I Became a Veteran

30. January 2007 · Comments Off on How I Became a Veteran · Categories: General, Memoir, Pajama Game

I didn’t grow up in a military family, at least not active-duty military. But we were replete with veterans. Dad fought in Korea with the Marines, his dad was with the Army in WWI. Dad’s older brother was in the Merchant Marines. Both of Dad’s younger brothers served at least one tour with the Marines, and Mom’s great-grandpa served with the Ohio Infantry in the 1860s. Come to think of it, Mom’s baby sister joined the Air Force after she graduated high school, in the early 1950s. My brother joined the Marines in 1973 to avoid being drafted, but got a medical discharge before ever completing boot camp. The military was seen as a valid career option, a respectable choice, as well as a place to grow up. We saw it as a rung on the ladder of success, a starting point from which one could reach the moon, if one so desired.

I enlisted in the military twice – the Army National Guard while I was in college, and the Air Force after I graduated. Total time in service was just shy of 12 years, I think. Both times I joined for basically the same reasons – I didn’t see any other clear options for my life, and I wanted to serve my country. And both times, I would say the former reason carried more weight than the latter, but that doesn’t negate the desire to serve. And my time in the military, and the experiences I had there, crystallized and solidified my love of country, and strengthened my belief that while the U.S. isn’t perfect, it’s a damn good country.
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The Writers Life Waltz

27. January 2007 · Comments Off on The Writers Life Waltz · Categories: Domestic, General, Literary Good Stuff, Memoir, Pajama Game, World

It’s been kind of a frenetic waltz this week… which is a round-about way of explaining why I didn’t write much original stuff this week. I just got obsessed with the new book; yeah, this one has taken hold, and when I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll, and nothing else seems quite real, or very important.

See, the first book… well, it was actually the second book, if you count the memoir which you really can’t because that was all basically little scraps of reminiscence stitched together… the first book was pretty easy to write. I sat down and wrote the first draft in a pell-mell rush, all over the space of about two months. The plot was pretty much already there, from start to finish; being based upon real people and real events has the effect of handing me the hardest part on a silver platter already. All I had to do was flesh them out a little, do a little guessing as to how they might have related to each other, come up with some amusing conversation, and a lot of description… hey presto, there you go. 120,000 well-polished and carefully chosen words. As a celebrated wit whose name I can’t remember at the moment was supposed to have said, “It’s easy, just open a vein, and let it flow.”

It actually was easy, because I was able to think about them for a long time, before I actually buckled down and did the writing…. For me, that’s what I need to do about half the time; to work out in my head what needs to happen, and how to go about making it happen. Sometimes I need to bounce ideas off other people: believe me, that kind of feedback is above price. It’s were the best ideas develop. And sometimes the magic is happening. I sit down at the computer and stuff just happens. I cope up for air, and there’s half a chapter written, and it’s pure gold, and it’s already four in the afternoon, and where the hell did the time go?
Anyway, the last book was something I lived with for a long time, before I actually buckled down and put it all on paper.

(It’s still in front of a publisher, by the way … and there are two more I will submit it to, in case of rejection. (Have to wait and do it sequentially, these people are anal about simultaneous submissions!) As my writer friend on the West Coast says, trying to find a publisher for a novel is kind of like trying to find adoptive parents for a minority Down ’s syndrome child: they are out there, but it takes a bit of looking.)

The new book; now, the one about the German colonies in the Texas Hill Country? I have built the scaffolding of plot and character for that from scratch… although there are some real people in it, some of who are very interesting people in their own right and who will take over, if I don’t keep a firm grip on them… (You… sit down, and behave, this story is not about you!)
What is really curious to me is how many of the fictional people, and the plot events just seemed to spring up from something I read in the course of doing research. A sentence here, a paragraph there, even just a single name… and a whole character is launched, obstreperous, amusing, and fully alive to me. There were incidents and events that I just kept circling back around towards, without knowing quite why: I just had the sense that they would have something important to do with the story. I had to set them aside like pieces for a mosaic, and figure out how to fit them all together later. There are also some characters who start out in the plot as a sort of extra, with one or two lines, but one way and another they turn out to be a little more important and before you know it, there is a fully functional and almost essential sub-plot… when all I had really needed was… you know, like two lines! It may take a lot longer to work through the first draft, then sit down and expand, edit and polish to a high shine. I’m guessing six months, at least, especially if I have to take (bleah) more paid outside work!

At this rate of proliferation, there just might be two books in this epic: the first one to cover the immigration, the building of the settlements, and the peace treaty with the Comanche, and the second to cover the Civil War and aftermath. There is no end of incident to cover, not to mention operatic levels of drama, murder, revenge, stolen children, madness, true love, sudden death… all this and civil war, too. And maybe a cattle stampede, just to vary the program. Just by way of a tease, I think I shall post a sample chapter…. (Suggestions and feedback are welcome, always. And any introductions to a literary agent will be extremely welcome, being that the big publishers are closed to me, unless I have one… and they are even harder to find!)

Later: Entry deleted and re-entered, in order to allow comments. Something about punctuation in the title often screws these things us. Don’t know why – Sgt. Mom)

I Habba Code (Update)

25. January 2007 · Comments Off on I Habba Code (Update) · Categories: Memoir

So I did a half day of work yesterday and I’m going to try and do the same today. It’s not easy, my head is just a huge, snot filled balloon that feels like it’s going to go at any. freaking. minute. And I’ve got to write an EPR because my troop is in Africa and can’t/won’t give me anything resembling a decent bullet. He must have done something. Everytime I went to his desk it was filled with piles of stuff that moved and changed shape. Something productive must have been happening. Right?

Alka Seltzer Cold is pretty cool stuff though. It kicks in almost immediately after you take it. You just have to remember to take it every four hours and…well…when I’m sick, I have no short term memory.

What I wouldn’t give for a decent 12 hour cold tab. It’s hard though because you HAVE to go off base to get any good drugs anymore, and then you can only get about 2 days worth otherwise you’ve got the cops coming to your house looking for a freaking Meth Lab. And who wants to have a warrant served as they’re waiting for their head to explode?…been there…done that.

I wonder what other sort of fun the single moms in the office are going to bring in from the infecteous disease lab child care center. What’s that, SrA Snuffly is on quarters with Pink Eye? Frelling lovely.

Why I joined the Air Force

21. January 2007 · Comments Off on Why I joined the Air Force · Categories: Air Force, Memoir, Military, Pajama Game

I originally posted this on DragonLady’s World, but have updated it some for readability, and a thing or two I just left out of the original.

I can’t write about why I got out without first talking about why I joined. There were many reasons for both. During my last undergrad course (the internship), I was looking for a post graduation job. The box factory was fine for summer work, but I didn’t spend 6 ½ years getting a 4 year degree to stack and pack boxes. My professor put me in touch with a former student who worked at the Frigidaire factory. The company was looking to fill a position working with her, as she was a single point of failure type of job. By that, I mean she was the only one who could do what she did, and if something were to happen to her, they would be hosed. I was called back for a second interview as they had narrowed the applicants down to me and one other person. Then the company decided not to fill the position.

I was bummed. I started hitting the temporary agencies to get something while I started a new search. By this time, I had my B.S., and was not looking forward to more factory work. (My degree is in Industrial Technology with a Manufacturing concentration.) This was the point that every recruiting commercial I had ever seen flashed through my head. I decided to join the Guard. I talked to Army vet hubby first. He told me that I would be happier with active duty than Guard, and to join the Air Force, not the Army because “the Air Force will take care of you.” So, I called the recruiter, and he processed me both as enlisted and officer. I was joining no matter what, and as it turned out, OTS board results would not come out until after I was scheduled for basic training. My enlisted job was guaranteed, and rather than risk losing my guaranteed job (which I methodically picked primarily because it looked fun and easy and “combat” wasn’t in the title or description), I chose to enlist rather than wait for OTS board results.

I had thought about joining the Guard in high school. My parents always spoke about the military with great respect, and built up this honorable entity for me regarding the US military. Now, of my mom’s six brothers, five were in the military: two Marines, one regular Army (he was drafted during Vietnam), and two National Guard. Of my dad and his three brothers, only two were in the military that I know of. Uncle Lawrence tried to enlist in the Army, but they didn’t want him because he didn’t finish high school. He was drafted after Pearl Harbor, and volunteered for the Army Air Corps, mainly because he thought the LT who told them about it was full of it. He said by the end of the day, he was on a train headed for FL for Air Corps training. My dad volunteered after Pearl Harbor, but the Army wouldn’t take him because he was missing two fingers on his left hand, and they considered him handicapped. Then they tried drafting him four or 5 times. He said he almost made it through the physical exam once without anyone noticing his hand. He was at the last station, and was a signature away from making it when the doc noticed. He finally moved to Alabama and joined the state militia there (which eventually became the National Guard) for the rest of the war. I also had several cousins on both sides of the family who served in the military. Anyway, I mentioned joining the Guard in front of a friend’s dad back in high school. By the time he got finished describing his experience at Ft Polk, I had changed my mind, which was his intention.

Now, that all makes it sound like I joined just to have a job, but with patriotic or family history leanings. Both are true, but not the only reasons. The hubby and I were not in a very good place in our lives, and really needed to get away. Also, neither of us had any kind of health insurance, and I knew we would eventually want to have kids. Both kids were born during my first assignment. I got to “see the world,” though Kuwait was not on my list of places I wanted to see. I got the GI Bill that is helping pay for graduate school. Most importantly, I finally got some much needed self-discipline.

Reaching Gratitude

13. January 2007 · Comments Off on Reaching Gratitude · Categories: Memoir, Pajama Game

I once had a teacher that I hated. Sandra Mahan. No one looked forward to being in her class, and I don’t recall any kids having great things to say about her after having had her. She was notoriously “mean” and taught sixth grade. On the first day of school in sixth grade, I was full of dread. When she came in, she told us that 3 students would be moving to the other sixth grade class, and asked who wanted to go. Now the other sixth grade teacher was the former fifth grade teacher. I loved her. Granted she cut me no slack, and I didn’t push her since she went to school with my mom and got her hair done by my uncle. She wouldn’t hesitate to announce any of my shenanigans to my family. Still, I didn’t raise my hand to go back. I remembered how our fourth grade teacher had a “mean” reputation and she wasn’t that bad other than giving us lots of homework. Oh, no; Mrs. Mahan’s reputation was spot on.

Sixth grade was a miserable year. That woman stayed on me to the point I knew that she had singled me out as her problem child. Every morning I woke up dreading school, but kept thinking that sixth grade was only one year. Finally we reached the end of the year, and she announced that she would be returning to school over the summer to get her certification for high school math. She would become the junior high and basic math teacher starting in the fall. Oh, no. Two more years in her class. Seventh grade wasn’t too awful bad, but eighth grade was pure hell. Ninth grade was a new beginning. No more of her classes. It was nice, and then we moved and I transferred to a new school.

There were a couple of teachers at my new school with similar reputations, but the one taught a class I wasn’t going to be taking. The other, however, was waiting for senior year. Her class was my last class of the day as a senior. Mary Oates taught world history, and I wasn’t much of a history fan so I expected another year of hell. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Sure she was tough, and you didn’t play in her class, but she made history fun to learn. She taught us how to take notes properly, though I still suck at it. She became my favorite teacher even though most people could not stand her.

Despite the fact that I took all advanced courses in high school, and even a couple of Advance Placement courses, I was totally unprepared for college. I never dreamed I could be so happy with C’s. It took me 6 years, but I finally graduated with slightly better than a C GPA. Then I joined the Air Force since the job market around the area was such that I was looking forward to toiling away in a factory for who knew how long. The factory was fine for summer jobs, but I needed something more, and had to go away to get it.

I have often looked back over my short (8 year) Air Force career and said that basic training was my best assignment. I know how sad that sounds because I did not enjoy basic training in the least. Anyway, thanks to my age and height, I was assigned as an element leader. So not only did I get yelled at when I screwed up, I got yelled at when the girls in my element did anything. Granted, I had the best element anyone could hope to get, so I didn’t often get yelled at over them. However, ever time a TI was in my face chewing me out, I kept thinking, “I made it through three years of Sandra Mahan. This is nothing.” As I was studying in Tech School, and getting damn good scores because of it, something started to dawn on me. Mrs. Mahan was not riding my ass because she was mean; she was riding my ass because she knew I could do so much more than I was doing. She expected me to live up to my potential. *Gasp!*

I went back and started looking at what I learned from her. She taught us mind tricks to help us remember concepts. For instance, I never “got” the greater than “>” and less than “<” symbols. That gave me problems all through elementary school. I knew which number was larger, but I couldn’t keep the symbols straight. She gave me the key: the point points at the smaller number. In eighth grade, our school got some computers. Not many mind you. But the high school got three Commodore 64 computers, and each of the math teachers had one in their classroom. When Mrs. Mahan was telling us about it and what it could do, she decided to have someone come up and actually sit at the keyboard while she continued the explanation. She picked me, and I instantly bonded with that computer. I have often wondered why she picked me, but as I sat there while she instructed, I knew I wanted to work with computers when I grew up. So, if you were to ask me today who was my favorite teacher, I would still say Ms. Oates. However, I believe my best teacher was Sandra Mahan. I still find it ironic after all these years that as much as I hated her back then, who would have ever dreamed I would not only get over that misguided hate, but would hold her responsible for finally getting through my thick head what it takes to succeed. She tried and tried to get me to push myself when all I wanted to do was have fun. Now that I see what she was trying to do with me, I wish I had realized it earlier, and I am grateful to her for her efforts. It took a lot longer than it should have, but she did finally succeed with me.

A Little Bit of Silliness….

10. January 2007 · Comments Off on A Little Bit of Silliness…. · Categories: General, General Nonsense, Memoir

For some reason tonight, I was reminded of a bit of silliness from my young adulthood. A wee bit of doggerel, if you will, in which I laid bare my soul to my neighbors and landlord, and expressed my dissatisfaction with my living conditions at that time.

I had graduated college, with no idea what I was going to do next, and while trying to figure that out, was working at the university bookstore, as a shipping and receiving clerk. To make ends meet, I was rooming with a friend in a former frat house that had been converted to something like a boarding house (sans meals). The rent was minimal, there were at least 3 bathrooms, a full kitchen, and my friend and I were the only females living there. We were an over-sized family, a bit heavy on the brothers, but still a family, and so it didn’t bother us that we didn’t have a key to our room. The door locked, if we were inside, we just couldn’t lock it when we left each day. The fraternity rep promised to get us a key, but when I moved out in March, we were still key-less.

The agreement was that the fraternity, which still owned the house, would provide basic amenities – toilet paper (3 rolls in each bathroom at all times), snow shoveling, trash dumping (“Just leave it in the hall. Our resident mgr will collect it daily”). That kind of thing. Everything else was up to us, as tenants. We were all either students or recent graduates, so it sounded great.

This would have been… fall 1983/winter 1984. I moved out of there before spring, getting ready to go to Air Force Basic Training. It was a good situation, as situations go. Great roommate, good neighbors, easy-going, laid-back environment, with everyone caring enough about hygiene that we weren’t overrun by vermin due to unwashed dishes and the like.

But there were some flaws. Management flaws. Landlords not keeping up their end of the bargain flaws. Little irritations that pile up until you just can’t take it anymore flaws.

And finally, one dark winter evening, I’d had enough. So I wrote the following, and posted it where it was certain to be seen – on the wall next to each of the toilets. I signed it “anonymous,” of course, but I’m pretty sure everyone knew the author. I dont know that anything improved after that, but I felt better. Over 20 years later, it’s still one of my favorite bits of silly writing.

Ballad of a Tenant’s Rebellion

I am but a simpleton,
believing lies told by a man
who promised life’s amenities
for paying monthly rent.

And so I pay,and so it goes.
I’ll catalog my daily woes.
Amenities are near extinct,
but I’m paying monthly rent.

My door won’t lock, for lack of key.
Trash piles, unheeded, in the halls.
Unshoveled snow begs me to fall.
While I’m paying monthly rent.

But worst of all, the very worst –
what makes this man by me be cursed.
A certain roll, of paper made,
is not speedily replaced.

A horse I’m not, e’en less a cow,
to wipe my bottom with my tail.
Tissues will not quite suffice –
three rolls, as promised, would be nice.

I’m certainly a simpleton,
for believing lies told by this man.
But if amenities remain extinct,
I’ll stop paying monthly rent.

Christmas Eve Surprise

24. December 2006 · Comments Off on Christmas Eve Surprise · Categories: Domestic, Eat, Drink and be Merry, General, Memoir, Pajama Game

Some few Christmases ago, when Blondie was still stationed at Camp Pendleton, and my personal economics allowed me to fly out to California to spend the holiday at Mom and Dads’ house, my daughter and youngest brother conceived a grand scheme to give them a large color TV for Christmas.

Blondie and Sander also wanted to surprise them, and a huge box under the Christmas tree, no matter how cunningly wrapped, just would not deliver the same element of surprise… no, my daughter and my little brother had worked out a cunning plan to remove the old television, which had been inherited from Granny Dodo’s estate, install the new one, and gift-wrap the remote in a little box which would be in Mom’s Christmas stocking. They could pull this off because the television normally resided on a shelf of its own in a wall of books and cupboards, with a pair of louvered shutters closed over the screen. It was one of Mom’s enduring standards about television; that it be out of sight when not actually being watched, if not out of the living room entirely.

Such was the plan, but for the maximum surprise to be achieved, several challenges had to be worked out: the installation would have to be done after we were all done watching television on Christmas Eve, and Mom and Dad would have to be out of the house. The old TV would need to be unhooked from the antenna and VCR, and the new one put into its place, and all the evidence removed. Blondie and Sander estimated they would need at least twenty minutes. The optimal time to perform this substitution would be while everyone was at midnight candle-light service, at a church in Escondido, about half an hours’ drive away. As soon as they were out of the way, Blondie and Sander would set it all up and follow the rest of us in his car; hopefully not missing too much of the service. After all, this was one of the two official times per year when Dad actually set foot in church.

On some pretext, Blondie and Sander would lag behind, while all the rest of us; Mom and Dad and I, Pippy and her husband and the children, and JP and I would head down the hill to church service in several cars. And Blondie had sworn me to secrecy; my part in the plot was to make sure that Mom and Dad left the house on time. The new television was outside in the back of Sanders’ car, having been hidden at a neighbors’ house… oh, yeah, everyone was in on this, except for Mom and Dad, and possibly the pastor and church council.

At about twenty to eleven, Mom began reminding us all to change into something suitable for the midnight service. Dad turned off the television and closed the shutter doors, an event we all noted with covert interest, before Blondie and I went to the guest room to change. Blondie was going to wear her dress uniform… this always went over well with Mom’s friends at church, who were heavily into competition on the grandchild front. And her excuse for lagging behind would be an inability to locate one of her dress pumps, which she had carefully hidden under the bed.

So, everyone was ready but Blondie, with one shoe in her hand and making a pretense of frazzlement as she looked for the other, Dad was looking at his watch, Pip and her husband had rounded up the children, and were herding them towards their vehicle out in the driveway. In accordance with the agreed-upon plan, I put on a bit of a frazzled look myself (really, I am a better actress than most people give me credit for) and announced that Blondie can’t find her shoe, and that we should leave now. Sander chimed in on cue: he would stay and help her look, and catch up with us in his car.
“Don’t you have another pair of shoes you can wear?” Mom asks.
“No, I only brought the one set of dress pumps,” Blondie answered. No one even suggested that she borrow a pair; for a start, she wears a size nine and a half.
“It must be in the guest room,” Dad said determinedly, “Five minutes, we’ll take everything apart and look for it.” He and Mom looked like they were about to drop everything and look for the damned shoe. It meant a lot to them to have Blondie show up in uniform.
“Give us another minute, we didn’t look under the bed.” Blondie and I retreated to the bedroom and close the door.
“You’re got to get them out of there!” Blondie hissed at me.
“Give me a minute… OK, got it.” Of course… how devious. Devious, but effective.” I put on my coat, and picked up my purse. Down the hall, Mom was fussing around with her own coat and scarf.
“Did Blondie find her shoe?” she asked, and I whispered, conspiratorially
“It’s not lost, it’s just an excuse for the two of them to stay behind and set up a surprise present for Dad. Forget about the shoe; just get Dad out of here.”
I found Dad pacing up and down in the solarium
“Did you find it?” he asked, and I lowered my voice again,
“It’s just a ruse, so Blondie and Sander can stay behind and bring in Mom’s surprise Christmas present… just get her out of here, so they can get to work.”
Dad looked amused; he has always liked this sort of intrigue and with a minimum of fuss, they both headed for the car, with me trailing after and congratulating myself on my efficiency and guile.

And so it went according to plan… all except for Sander and Blondie getting to church after service had started, not knowing that they had locked the door into the sanctuary because of the late hour, and having to pound on the doors until the ushers let them in. The next morning, Mom unwrapped her first gift, and looked at the new TV remote with great bewilderment. Under all our expectant eyes Sander opened the doors to the TV cabinet with a great flourish… and Mom and Dad were both very, very surprised.

Merry Christmas… May all your surprises be the nice ones!!

Holiday Travel Travails

22. December 2006 · Comments Off on Holiday Travel Travails · Categories: General, Memoir, Pajama Game

When I was a child, our holiday travels were limited to the 80 mile drive to Grandma’s house. It wasn’t “over the river and through the woods,” though, just “out of the city and onto the not-quite-expressway and eventually onto the back-country roads through the Ohio coal-mining country.” Usually in the dark, usually with cranky kids in the back seat, and cranky parents in the front.

Our departure date and time hinged on various factors – what day Christmas fell on, what time we got out of school, what time Dad got home, etc. Mom had us working for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, making hand-crafted gifts to give to all the relatives. She got her ideas from an old craft magazine, “Pack-o-Fun,” which was all about re-using stuff that would normally be tossed. And this was long before Earth Day was established.

I remember using gallon bleach jugs to make piggy banks for my cousins. Or felt to make a holder for a yardstick, so you could hang your yardstick on the wall and always know where to find it (side note: my cousins called it “Mr Yardstick” and he figured prominently in their punishments when they misbehaved). One year, we taped tomato-juice cans together, stuck an orange juice can inside one of them, and created “yule log planters” by covering the whole thing with plaster of paris and brown paint.

When it was time to head “down home,” we’d gather all the stuff into the trunk of the car, bundle ourselves into our good clothes and winter coats, and head out.

The only travails these travels held for me were the cramming of 4 kids into the back seat of a 1966 Chevy Impala 2-door coupe, and the fact that there was absolutely *nothing* to do at Grandma’s, especially if the weather kept us indoors.

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Remembering a life: Jan 4, 1930-Dec 12, 2003

12. December 2006 · Comments Off on Remembering a life: Jan 4, 1930-Dec 12, 2003 · Categories: General, Memoir, Pajama Game

mom at 66

On 12/12/03, my Mom passed away. The following is what I read at her funeral. I try to re-read it every year, to remind myself of how special she was.

Other than marriage, the parent-child relationship is probably the most complex relationship we’ll ever experience. Who doesn’t remember either saying or hearing, at some point in their life, “I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

And then one day you wake up, and they *are* dead, and your entire life is changed forever.

Hopefully, the “I hate you’s” were replaced by “I love you’s” over the years. Mine were, and I’m eternally grateful for that.

I’m still trying to realize what all I lost last week. Before I can do that, I need to realize what I had.

Mom was so much more than just a label – “wife,” “mother,” “sister,” “friend.” She was a human being, full of the complexity that we all are made of. I’m not going to tell you that my mom was perfect – she wasn’t. But I’ll let you in on a secret — neither am I. 🙂 She accepted my lack of perfection, and I learned that it didn’t matter if she wasn’t June Cleaver – what mattered was that she was my mother: the only one I’ll ever have. And now all I have of her are memories.

The nice thing about memories is that we can choose what we want to remember. I’m choosing to remember the good things, and the happy times.

I remember hot breakfasts on cold winter mornings before we would walk to school. I remember walking home at lunchtime to eat a hot meal that she fixed for us. I remember family dinners with home-cooked food, all made from scratch.

I remember our yard not having any grass, because all the neighborhood kids played at our house. I remember hallowe’en parties, with our basement turned into a haunted house. I remember a fairly happy childhood, with a mom who was involved. She had 4 kids in school, and juggled the class visitation and room mother duties somehow.

My mother, who was always nervous around large bunches of kids, became a den mother for my brother, and a girl scout troop leader for me and my sisters. She helped start an after-school activities program at our church.

As a kid, one of my major complaints was that she knew where the “off” button was on the TV set, and she would use it. 🙂 Instead, we would play games, or do arts and crafts, or even – gasp – clean house. Back then, I complained. Today, I tell my friends about these times, and treasure the memories.

We’re in the middle of the Christmas season, right now, and for me, that will always bring memories of Mom baking. She’d start baking before thanksgiving, and continue on until… forever, it seemed like. We had a cookie tree — a small, table-top artificial tree, decorated with candy canes and Christmas cookies. No matter how often we ate all the cookies off the tree, there were always more to replace them. Pies lined the counter, at Thanksgiving and Christmas both. And Mom made her pie-dough from scratch.

She made her bread from scratch, too — twelve loaves at a time, every week. Four kids go through a lot of bread, after all.

And in the middle of all her Christmas baking, she would find time to bake me a birthday cake, every year. I don’t know how she did it all, honestly.

She cared about people, deeply and genuinely, and people responded to that caring. My brother brought home a friend in the early ’80s — Mom gave Tom a “certificate of adoption” for Christmas one year, and treated him as if he were another son. Tom’s still a part of our family, 20 years later.

She was a determined woman. She knew what she wanted, and she made it happen. Although she didn’t graduate from high school, all of her kids did, and all of us attended at least *some* college classes.

She was terrified of lakes and pools, but she made sure we all learned how to swim. She didn’t drive, but she made sure that we all got our drivers’ licenses.

It’s hard to grasp what we’ve lost with her passing. She was our historian, and our glue. She was our constant – she would always be there, she would always love us, she would always believe in us, and want us to be happy.

She was our “doer” — “mom will do that,” we’d say. Or “ask Mom – she’ll know.” And she usually did.

She was a unique woman – an original. Not perfect, but not too shabby either. And she had a fantastic sense of humor.

I called her for Thanksgiving – a day late, as usual. We talked about how I hadn’t mailed her card yet (or her anniversary card, from late Oct, or Dad’s birthday card from mid-November, or even her own birthday card from last January) — I BUY the cards, I just forget to sign and send them. 🙂

A week later, I got 2 cards from her in the mail. One was my Christmas card, and the other one had a note that said “so you wont’ be embarrassed about how late your cards are.” I opened it up, and it was a Valentine’s Day card, for last Feb. I laughed out loud, and was going to call her and let her know how much I had enjoyed it. But it was the last week of the semester, and I had three papers due. Besides, I could tell her when I called her in a couple days, on my birthday, I thought.

I thought wrong, unfortunately. She didn’t make it to my birthday. But she knows now, how tickled I was. And she knows, better than I could ever find words to express, how very much I love her, and how much of her lives on in me.

We share the same faith, so I know I’ll see her again, as well. Until then, I’ll make do with my memories, and I’ll make sure I’m hanging onto the good ones.

Literary Persuasion

25. October 2006 · Comments Off on Literary Persuasion · Categories: Domestic, General, Memoir, Pajama Game

So, I always was interested in being a writer, having actually begun to scribble down stories and adventurous narrations from when I was in the seventh grade, or shortly thereafter. Junior High school was just as deadly, and most of my peers were just loathsome enough that taking that particular refuge in imagination was a perfectly sensible response for someone whose nose was buried in a book very nearly twenty-four seven anyway. I liked to read stories, and I liked write them, and to think up stories and tell them to people… especially to my little brother Sander, who was a perfect mark for some of my best. Like the one I told him, when we were at the beach, once when he was about five; there was a factory or a power plant away down the coast, with the towers and chimneys just barely visible. I told him that it was a factory for making soap; that it sucked in all the white foam off the waves that were breaking all along the beach in front of us, and transformed it into soap and detergent.

Then there was the one for Blondie, when she lost a helium-filled balloon; as it floated away, I told her about the Secret and Mystical Island of Balloons, away off in the middle of the Pacific. It was the natural home for all balloons, where they went as soon as they escaped from children who had let go of their strings. They even, I told her, had rescue squads who ran special missions to retrieve the remains of popped balloons from wastebaskets the world over, and revive them, once they were safe on the Mystical Island of Balloons. Then there was the time she was frightened by the original Gremlins movie; she insisted there were gremlins under her bed. Heck, I had once heard leprechauns under mine. “How did you know they were leprechauns?” asked my mother, when she found me sleeping in the closet the next morning. I had curled up there for some peace and quiet; the leprechauns were very rackety. “Because they were little enough to be under my bed, and they sounded like Grandpa Jim, “ I told her; always logical. I told Blondie that she was safe from gremlins as long as our cats, Patchie and Bagheera, were sleeping on her bed; it was a little known fact that cats were absolute death on gremlins. One of the hundreds of reasons I love small children, they are so gullible.

The trouble with going straight into writing became clear to me along about the time that I went into college for that amusingly useless degree in English, when a couple of things gradually made themselves clear to my young and wide-eyed self. One of them was that only a very few of the duly and properly anointed works of Great Modern English Literature written after about 1930 did not bore me into a coma. Seriously: the reading list for a course in the Modern Novel was enough to make me want to slash my wrists, it was that depressing. Secondly, I realized that of the writers I did enjoy, both ancient and modern… most of them had done something else! They had done something else, seriously and with varying degrees of success before picking up the old goose quill and writing. (Classic quip about trying to earn a living as a writer: “It’s like hooking. Before you start charging for it, better be sure you’re pretty good.)

Just look at the list: Chaucer— diplomat and courtier. Shakespeare — actor and theatrical manager. Dickens — newspaper and magazine writer. Kipling — reporter. Mark Twain — reporter. HH Monro— ok, so he was a man about town and wrote on the side. Sir Walter Scott — lawyer. Robert Lewis Stevenson — trained as a lawyer, worked as a travel writer. Thackeray — journalist and editor. Even the modern popular writers that I liked most had done something else for a bit. James Jones —- soldier. Raymond Chandler — oil bidness. Dorothy Sayers pottered around in advertising, and so did Peter Mayle of Provence fame. Carl Hiaason — newspaper reporter. Hemmingway — well, he squeezed in some reporting. Joseph Wambaugh — policeman. James Herriot spun a career as a veterinarian into four books plus. Only JRR Tolkien camped serenely in the academic utopia for most of his writing life, but he had served in World War I.

There were some exceptions either way, of course, but those works of literature, most especially the modern writers anointed by the academe seemed…. Well, pretty juiceless. Enervating. Arid. Given over to navel-gazing, and the weaving of elaborate language with nothing much to say. Even those few who did attempt something more in a novel than a dry exercise in special language effects seemed to look at real life, and real people as if they were something faintly exotic, carefully placed in a natural setting in a zoo and seen through a plate glass window. It almost seemed as if doing something else, anything else for a while filled a writer up with people, experiences, scraps of odd conversation and occurrences… filled them up with life and energy, and that was the kind of writer I wanted to be. Besides, going out and doing something else for a while looked like being a lot more fun than hanging around for post-graduate studies.

Comment #1, unaccuntably killed by SPAMINATOR, for which I extend apologies:

Email : jocrazy02@yahoo.com
Author : Joe
URL :
Body:
“One of the hundreds of reasons I love small children, they are so gullible.”

When my boys were about 6&7 years old, they had a penchant for testing
escallators. What small boy doesn’t like an escallator? So we were visiting
SEARS one time and their escallator was down for maintenance. They had the
bottom all cordoned off, the steel access panels open and aside, and work lights
shining down in the bowels of the machinery. Scattered around the opening were
several articles of children’s clothing they had been using for rags. I pointed
those out to my boys and said “See? That’s what happened to the last little
boy who played on the escallator. They had to take it apart to get him out and
all that was left were his clothes.” It was one of those Kodak moments and I
had no camera to take a picture of those big round eyes staring at that horrible
sight of the shredded, dirty clothing. All that remained of that last little
boy who played on the escallator.

My youngest is 24 and he STILL remembers me telling that story. LOL

Keep writing. It inspires the imagination of your readers at the most unexpected
of moments.

And as for the great writers? I still remember suffering under the required
reading list back in HS Senior English. Adam Bede. Wuthering Heights. Scarlet
Letter. If I hadn’t been a science fiction fan, that dry as old bones writing
would have destroyed my love of reading forever. I know it has a place in
literature, but I just couldn’t find a place for it in my reading.
Coment #2, also unaccountably killed by SPAMINATOR

Author : Matt
URL :
Body:
I had a friend who told his nephews that he had four hearts and used to be a
trapeze guy in the circus. He was very funny and never missed an opportunity to
spin a yarn, about anything at all to anyone. He was a computer geek for a
living – at one point he was on a team, employed by [large Detroit auto company]
that hacked into [large Detroit auto company’s] computers, networks, etc. to
test security.

I am not sure why we still have the current iteration of SPAMINATOR, as all it seems to do is delete and insult our regular commenters

Green Stamps

27. September 2006 · Comments Off on Green Stamps · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, History, Memoir, Pajama Game

I don’t know what brought it on, remembering green stamps and blue stamps, and those thin little books that you glued them in to… possibly emptying all those receipts from the grocery store out of my purse, especially those wadded up ones that accumulate down at the bottom. Heck, is that one from the hair-cut place where if you bring in the last receipt again they give you a dollar off? Maybe I had been reading one of Lilek’s little musings about paper ephemera, and it all came together; the memory of Granny Jessie folding her receipts and a long perforated block of green S & H stamps neatly into her purse, and all those times when we were considered slightly older and more responsible, and dispatched to Don’s Market on Rosemead (about a block south of the intersection of Rosemead and Colorado Boulevard) which had had Granny Jessie’s grocery-buying custom for the best part of three decades, with a couple of dollars for some small item, and strict orders to bring back the change and the stamps.

When was the last time I ever saw a block or a string of trading stamps? Mom didn’t patronize grocery stores that offered them, but Granny Jessie did, and most likely Granny Dodie did also. It must have been sometime in the early seventies; by the time I came back to the States to live for good, trading stamps had gone the way of home milk delivery and those wire baskets with glass milk bottles that used to sit on front porches across the last. Which is to say, along with the dodo and passenger pigeon, except in certain very rare neighborhoods. They were a customer rebate scheme dreamed up early in the century just now over, intended to build customer loyalty, and keep the regular customers coming back, again and again and again. That description fit Granny Jessie to a tee. She patronized the same grocery and department store, the same shoe store, the same church and the same doctor for most of her long adult life, from the time she and Grandpa Jim married in the early twenties, until she went to live in Long Beach, in the Gold Star Mother’s home, fifty years later. According to this entry, they were given out mostly by grocery stores, department stores and gas stations. There were several different kinds, and colors of them. I remember S & H Green, and another sort which was blue; both were about an inch long, half an inch wide, perfed and gummed, and given out at the rate of a single stamp for every ten cents spent.

I do remember Granny Jessie sometimes had great long sheets of them, which must have come from Hertels’ on Colorado, where she had an account for as many years as she was a customer of Don’s Market. And Grandpa Jim must have gotten strings and blocks of them when he bought gas for the ancient Plymouth sedan which he had to sell after being rumbled by the local traffic cop when he made a left-hand turn from Colorado Boulevard onto South Lotus Avenue… from the right-hand lane of Colorado Boulevard. Grandpa Jim’s indignantly voiced plea that he had performed the turn in that manner every day for nearly thirty years cut no ice with the Pasadena constabulary, especially when they discovered that his license was several years expired and he was nearly blind, anyway.

Back to the trading stamps…. They had to be dampened and pasted into the pages of thin little books, so many a page, which was nice and easy when it meant the long sheets, earned when Granny Jessie had spent a lot on groceries and Christmas presents, but was not so easy when you had to paste the little strings and small blocks of stamps gleaned from many small purchases. This was rather finicky and tedious work, which may be why Grannie Jessie saved it all up for JP and I to do, when we came for a visit. She had a great lot of empty stamp books and a bundle of stamps in a drawer in the kitchen hutch. It would be our job, to sit down at the kitchen table with a damp sponge set onto an old china saucer, and fit stamps onto the pages of the blank book. This meant working in several months worth of stamps, tearing off the large blocks at the perfs, and fitting together the smaller quantities in order to completely fill in the page.

And this was entirely worthwhile from Grannie Jessie’s point of view, because the filled books could be taken around to the S & H Green Stamp store…. Which was, I think, on Rosemead, close to Don’s Market, and redeem the filled books for various bits of consumer merchandise; plates and saucepans, serving dishes, appliances large and small, furniture large and small. I have a distinct memory of Granny Jessie saving up her filled Green Stamp books for some rather substantial piece of household fittings, a television even. Probably much of what passed for luxury goods in the tiny white house on South Lotus, with the enormous oak tree in the front yard, came from Granny Jessie’s careful collection of stamps.

Mom had no truck with them at all, though; she was of the opinion that the stores that offered them were more expensive than those which didn’t, and Mom shopped on a strictly lowest-price-available agenda, no fancy fripperies like Green Stamps need apply for Mom’s household dollar. And furthermore, she had no time to fiddle around with pasting stamps into a book… and that is probably what led to the decline and fall of the whole scheme, although it does linger in several different and less cumbersome formats.

Apostasy in Black & White

17. September 2006 · Comments Off on Apostasy in Black & White · Categories: Domestic, General, Memoir, Pajama Game, That's Entertainment!

My parents stoutly held out against the menace of television until the late 60ies, when they accepted the gift of a tiny black and white portable television from a good friend who was moving into a smaller place and had to shed possessions to make that transition. The television itself was about the size of a case of beer, and since Mom had very firm convictions regarding the trashiness, aesthetic and otherwise, of putting a television in the living room and angling all the chairs towards it, the television was banished to the bedroom that my sister and I shared.

The television, with its miniature 12″ screen sat on top of one of the long toy chests that Dad had built to maximize space in our room, and we generally piled onto the bottom bunk bed to watch, during those limited hours per week that Mom had decreed would do the least damage to our school work, family life and general social development. We also had to thrash out a compromise amongst ourselves about what to watch on Friday and Saturday evenings from 7:30 to 10:00 PM, and on Sunday from 7:30 to 9:00 PM. (School on Monday morning, you know.) Generally, if a program aired at any other time than that, we knew it not; or only during summer vacation when we caught up on other programs through re-runs, or visited my grandparents.

So we were television apostates: but I was secretly even more than an apostate. As far as one particular TV icon went, I was a perfect heretic. I wondered for ages what would happen to me, should I ever confess my deep and heartfelt loathing for a certain ground-breaking star of early network television. But I digress.

At Granny Jessie’s house, and at Granny Dodie and Grandpa Al’s, the television— generally a large console model— sat boldly and unashamed in the living room. Grandpa Al even ventured into exploring the wide world of color television, somewhat in advance of the neighborhood, but they drew the line about watching TV during the day; feeling as Mom did that really, one ought to have better things to do during the day.
Oddly enough, Grannie Jessie had no such compunctions, or perhaps thought that by putting no limits on our TV watching during our visits, that we would become surfeited. Generally, she kicked us outside when her soaps came on, and we would stumble outside, blinking at the daylight, dazzled by the real world. After spending hours focusing on the comparatively small, surreal and black and white one, we would be cast on our own inner resources for amusement, and always be at a bit of a loss for a while.

One of the classic television standbys at the time were re-runs of even older television shows – especially reruns of ancient episodes of I Love Lucy. This has always been fawningly described as ground-breaking, insanely popular, luminescently humorous and a veritable Mount Everest in broadcast television. Lucille Ball is similarly worshipped as a genius of comedy, a master of her own image, genius of physical comedy and a canny business-woman, blah, blah blah – and I didn’t accept a word of it – well, maybe the business-woman part. And she was still making movies and television shows well after I Love Lucy, so it appeared that people did, indeed, love Lucy.

But not me. From my earliest memory of watching that show, I was horrified, and embarrassed at the spectacle of ineptitude presented. It wasn’t funny, charming, or amusing – it was cringe-making,pointless – even a bit masochistic. Watching I Love Lucy meant observing a very pretty but spectacularly dim woman make a grandiose and impossible plan, screw it up in every way imaginable, and then bawl her head off in a totally unattractive manner, until her exasperated husband made everything better – in half-hour chunks. I usually felt like blowing chunks, two thirds into the episode. It wasn’t funny – it was a train wreck of ineptitude. Not only did I not find any of it in the least amusing, it made me embarrassed to be of the same sex.

Laughing at Lucy seemed to me like laughing at a retard; kind of cruel, when the decent thing should have been to look away and pretend that you hadn’t seen her embarrassing herself, her friends and her husband once again. And this was – what? Classic television? At any rate it set up in me a burning desire not to look stupid, never to be incompetent, to view situations with a coolly realistic eye, and never, never, ever cry noisily and expect anyone else to rescue you from the consequences of your own stupidity. Which as good a reason to have developed into a small ‘f’ feminist as any other available.

Not only did I not love Lucy, I couldn’t figure out why the hell anyone did, either.

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