EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 THE FOURTH

Today is the Fourth of July and it creates competing feelings. First is respect and reverence for an experiment that began as a glorious way of government for a few, one that we have grudgingly expanded to include the rest of its citizens.

Until now.

Next, a sort of selfish feeling of gratitude that I was one of the Americans fully able to appreciate the largess of its democracy.

Then, a sort of begrudging sense of pride that I sacrificed four years of my life in thanks for the opportunities that America provided me.

Also, a feeling of loss as I ponder what the next four years will bring.

And finally, a bewildering sense of wonder as to whether I would have given those four years had I known that so many Americans would someday worship at the table of a cult led by the likes of Donald Trump.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 WORDS

We live in a complicated world that can’t be addressed by simple beliefs, no matter how hard we try. Take words, for example. We read now how certain words face prohibition because they make some young people feel unsafe. I don't imagine they have ever heard the sound of a walking mortar barrage coming toward them.

As a person in the generation before me said of life in an infantry battalion, “You just pray to live one more second, just one more second.” I never reached that point, but I lived through situations that taught me what true terror is, and it wasn’t caused by words.

But then, I’m not a ten-year-old African American child hearing a word hurled at me by a Southern bully, a word that deserves banning if a word ever achieved that status.

Part of me worries though. It would be impossible to write an honest novel based in my home state of Arkansas, or any other southern state, or perhaps even in America, and set in the 1950s with no possibility of using that word, even in an absolute condition of context.

The answer? I don’t know. Perhaps we might start by accepting the truth that they are only words. As simply words, they might be used to teach and elucidate, or even add the appropriate textures to historical reporting, The control that we might exert over their use would be a sign of discipline, not destruction. Words teach us. They don't tear us apart. They deserve enlightened use, not eradication.

Which might be more useful for the young, teaching them ways to maintain their personal safety, or banning the use of the word "rape" in news reports?

 If we allow words to establish our condition of safety, what will happen when the mortar barrages begins?

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 SURVIVING

If The Cult prevails, I may survive. They will only come after me after they come for the people of color, the sexually different, the morally righteous, political opponents, and the librarians. I may last until their energy dissipates.

I only hope that the arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice as a great person once said. If so, the eventual victors may someday force The Cult survivors to march past the remains of the struggle, as General Eisenhower forced the inhabitants of villages near the camps, to march past the corpses of European Jews.

What will sustain me during the crisis?

The thought that I will never have to be in this line.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 PROBLEMS

From Westmoreland, the General Who Lost Vietnam by Lewis Sorely: In 1967, word came to General Westmoreland that those in Washington had become increasingly concerned that, despite the buildup in troops and equipment in Vietnam, the enemy was increasingly gaining the initiative. Westmoreland responded to the problem by having his staff “develop new definitions, criteria, formats, and procedures relative to the reporting of enemy activity which could be used to assess effectively significant trends in the organized enemy combat initiative.” No worry.

They had redefined the problem right out of existence.

I think that idea caught on. I see people trusting the future of their children and grandchildren to those who gloat victoriously as they apply what they think is the right solution to the wrong problem.

 Lived in San Francisco back in the day. Enjoyed life there, particularly the shows in North Beach put on by the drag queens. The Draft Board interrupted my carefree life. Wound up on a bunker at the edge of the jungle hoping I wouldn’t get shot that night. Did exercises to stay awake. One was to make a mental list of people in my life who had done me wrong and another of those who had done me “solids.”

The drag queens never made the first list, but a lot of politicians and self-proclaimed Christians did. Funny how the people on that list never went away but are still around in the same form with different faces, most of them snarling.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 BELIEFS

America has entered a paradigm that concerns and confuses me. I understand certain aspects of it. The seeds were planted when Ronald Reagan chose to announce his presidential campaign in Philidelphia, Mississippi, the place where three civil rights workers were seized to be executed for promoting voting rights among southern African Americans. This was a "dog-whistle" that, unfortunately, resounded with some normal minds as well as those of bigots.

The seeds germinated through the efforts of Newt Gingrich and others who preached that hatred of political opponents was not only permissible, but a necessity for domination.

The weeds sprouted full grown with the election of a man of color as president of the United States of Americana nourished by 24-hour-a-day fertilization by the Fox organization. Whereas the Germans had real problems to be utilized by the Nazis, false news pundits created false problems in the minds of Americans. It was easier than having to deal with real ones.

So here we are. I understand how many fell into this scheme. I grew up, after all, in the American South. What I don't understand, and what I will carry to the grave with me not fully understood, is the participation of those I thought would never inure such shenanigans.

These are people I once considered friends and fellow believers in the potential for righteousness among Americans. Now I find them posting support of a cult that calls me a sucker and loser for serving my country while calling the January 6 insurrectionists heroes, hostages, and victims. The leader of this cult is one who portrays not one shred of what we call human decency. He seems to strike some emotional chord not explainable by our present moral standards. There must be a source buried deep within our primordial consciousness.

It seems that the answer may reside in our evolutionary disposition for violence in service of our tribe. I shall study this more and return.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 EGO

Long ago in an America far away, I stood on the edge of the Great Tide Pool in Monterey, California (actually Pacific Grove) one bright November morning. For those who don’t know, I had positioned myself very near the most western spot of dry land in our country.

In one hand I held a copy of orders to report to the Support Activity in Da Nang, Vietnam for a year’s duty in Naval security. They would soon train me to use weapons, throw grenades, and be brave even when I didn’t feel safe. Then they would set me at the edge of a jungle with a rifle in my hands, waiting for whatever happened.

In the other hand I held an offer for an all-expense-paid escape into Canada, from where I was told then I would be safe from the war but could never return to America.

I sat on a dry rock and smoked a cigarette, an infiltered Camel as I remember. The moment was too important for distillation. Finished, I put the cold butt in my pocket. That place was too sacred for despoliation.

My mind was tearing itself apart. My ego was telling me that no person or agency could make me participate in a war that I didn’t support. My life belonged to me to do with as I pleased. What I wanted stood far above what my country wanted.

My heart was telling me that my America had nourished and protected me for my entire life and deserved repayment. My family's name was worth the danger to a son and brother.

My ego screamed, “Do what you wish.”

My heart said, “America may wander afield, but she needs good people to bring her to harmony."

I stood and turned to face land. The entire United States of America lay in front of me, from where the wild Pacific pounds on her shores to where the gentle Atlantic flows past a simple public place called Fort Sumter, bought with the blood of many who may have been as unwilling as I.

Life demanded a decision.

I put my ego aside and did what I thought was best for our country.

Sometimes you just have to do that, even when it hurts, even when it hurts very badly.

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

 HOLDEN CAUFIELD

“I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.” - Holden Caufield

It's good to re-read books from the past. Perspectives change. Situations change. Even memories change. We realize that the two motorcycle riders we thought were so cool back when financed their journey by selling dope that destroyed individuals, families, and even entire neighborhoods. Here are some present-day thoughts on a seminal book from the 1960s, The Catcher In The Rye.

Maybe one reason for the book’s continuing population is that it nails the pains of adolescence so well. The fact that Holden didn’t handle it well doesn’t make the act of growing up any less real, or as John Steinbeck put it: “Just because something didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” We have, each of us maybe, wished on more than one occasion that our lives could have been frozen like a museum tableau at some less painful stage in our life.

But then we reach our "golden years."

We find, and "give with brief thanksgiving" a blessing for the fact, that we have come through it all, and most of it we wouldn’t have missed for the world. That a brief dream about a face from 40 years ago can break our heart one more time simply reminds us that once upon a time we loved that hard and hopelessly, not a bad thing. And though the deck may heave beneath us, we’ll always find a welcome port.

 As a lesson, the perspective of years says to me that the tough part of life is the living part. The things of value for me have always come hard: education, patience, empathy, perspective, and on and on. One can’t become an adult simply by being able to purchase cocktails in a bar. One doesn’t truly set one’s self apart from his peers by wearing an oddball hat. One doesn’t become a protector of the innocent by daydreaming. It all comes hard, some of it damned hard.

But hard as it was, it has been worthwhile. I treasure the acquaintance and I will see you later Holden, my old friend. You’ve been instructive through it all, even through the war and all the other dark times. Thanks for teaching me, way back then, that bemusement was okay. I’m not sure I could have made it through some of the times without that. Making it through has always been important to me. Oddly enough, making it through was the one thing you seemed never to get a handle on yourself. Maybe you did eventually

I hope so. I really do.