Another good-bye

Dear, dear L.O.,
Your going was so unexpected.
There was nothing to anticipate it.
Neither of us knew in the morning what the evening would bring.
Each day becomes lonelier.

And when life's sweet fable ends,
Soul and body part like friends;
No quarrels, murmurs, no delay;
A kiss, a sigh, and so away.  

92524

This and that

I was looking over my draft posts and see that I have more than a dozen that I've started and not gotten around to finishing, some dating back to early spring.  So many things have happened.  But I'll wind them up and post them soonest.

A woman's work is never done.

Well, one of these days. Maybe.  I'm pretty busy at the moment. Taking care of a new baby can be exhausting, and if you've got three other Shetland riders to herd ....  I'm glad my mom is able to help me, as is el jefe. My mini-me is kept busy by my mother but she, my mini-me, is also very helpful and interested in everything going on; well, she tries to be helpful. She does the best she can. El jefe keeps the two future world conquerors busy. He loves being a dad, no doubt about that. He keeps me busy, too, being a boob man (and an everything else man!). I'm happy to oblige.  Why not? He gives me what I want and I give him what he wants (respectively, a back rub and a sandwich...or something).

****

 We bought another airplane to supplement the BE-18.  El jefe finally gave in to my point that the Twin Beech was getting to be too old to be our main workhorse, especially if Randy, our local A&P man and expert on its PW radials, decides to move on, as he has hinted he might. So we got a Beechcraft G58. It's pretty good, has some nice avionics.  I wanted a King Air but it didn't fit the budget, plus it's really more airplane than we need on a regular basis.  Maybe another time.  I can tell that if I fly the G58 a lot I am going to get lazy habits. The BE-18 demands that you fly it.  Almost everything is manual, requiring the pilot to do everything, and actually control the airplane, relying on old-style "steam" gauges and the Mark I eyeball.  Not so with the G58. Which is not bad.  I could get used to it. The 21st century does have its points.

****

My mother and I recently invited some friends over for coffee and cake and we chatted about this and that, enjoying a pleasant afternoon.  During a lull in the conversation, one of my mother's friends looked directly at me.  I looked back and she held my gaze for a couple of seconds before saying, "You're a very serious girl."  I was a bit surprised and didn't say anything.  But my mother, looking at me, said, "She always has been."  I looked at my mother, then out the window.  After a few seconds of silence the conversation began again, covering other topics.  It was as if that exchange had never happened.

****

Male sexuality bemuses me.  For example, men in dresses -- okay, "transsexuals."  I guess that's where the "T" in T-girl comes from. 

 The thing I don't get is that supposedly heterosexual men seek out and enjoy sex with these T-girls, knowing full well that they are males.  I repeat, heterosexual men do this, not gays. There may be dudes with boobs but there definitely is no such thing as a chick with a dick.  If it has one of those, it's a male. Period. You may say that's just a small minority of men who go for them.  But I don't know about that.  I suspect that all this moral outrage men express over transsexuals is probably phony: men are really good at faking outrage over sex stuff. I wouldn't doubt that the most loudly scornful would have sex with a T-girl that caught his fancy without hesitation.

Anyway, men enjoying sex with men dressed as women is nothing new.  I found this story in the Dec. 10, 1907, issue of the Los Angeles Times:

“Twenty Los Angeles men, some said to be prominent in social and business circles, were arrested last night by police at a stag party in the home of former Mayor Harper and were booked at the police station on the charge of social vagrancy.”

“Seven of the men, including the host, Joseph Harper, 24 years old, are alleged by the officers making the raid to have been gowned in feminine apparel.”

After a few paragraphs, the paper says, “According to Police Sergeant Gifford and the officers of the purity squad who conducted the raid, a degenerate orgy was in progress when they entered the house.”

“All the men are charged with lewd and dissolute conduct. Seven were dressed as women and the police say their acts were such that the charges against them can be upheld in court.”

“Police said that officers learned about the party several weeks ago. Arrangements were made to have some of the officers in the house.”

“The raiding officers in plain clothes gained entrance to the house and mixed with the strange guests. Several other officers climbed into the house by way of a rear window and concealed themselves beneath beds. After watching the party for over two hours, whistles were blown and the raiding party rushed into the residence.”

Well, boys will be boys. And sometimes girls.  And the cops enjoyed the party for two hours before lowering the boom. Heh.

"Sadie Thompson gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her words. 'You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!'"
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Rain 

  But amusing pigs. Oink!

Girl Flyers

A repost from August 11, 2020 

I ran across this comment on a message board discussing East Asian cultural and history matters:
"I just finished reading the book Under The Same Army Flag. It was printed in China in 2005. The book has over 50 short remembrances from Chinese soldiers who fought in Burma and India during World War II.  In the chapter titled "War Time" by Li Derun is the following:
'All Americans seemed to be open-minded with lively personalities, men and women alike. When we were with ground services at the airport, we often ran into American female pilots who flew small aircraft.  These small aircraft with only two seats were used to rescue injured soldiers, flying into the most dangerous and difficult locations where there often was no formal landing strip.

Shirley Slade, WASP

'Unlike Chinese women who tend to be shy and more reserved, American girls were outgoing, forthright, and each had a unique personality, and they were dedicated, hard workers too. When there was an injured soldier, they would spare no effort to rescue him regardless of his rank or nationality, always safely getting him to the hospital. Their job had no regular hours, and sometimes they had to fly back and forth round-the-clock.'
Although the author is a little vague about where and when he was writing about, it appears to have been the airfield in DinJan in either late 1944 or early 1945."

Evening

 

It's when the swallows finish up their last swoops and hand over the night to the bats.  It's when an uncertain breeze springs up from nowhere, rustling the grass and rippling the leaves.  It's when coyotes begin to yip and howl, padding through the spreading shadows.  It's when Venus brightens into visibility in the western sky and an owl glides silently overhead.  It's when there are sudden silences and strange stirrings behind you.
It's when I feel peaceful and happy.

September

 

 September was when it began.
Locusts dying in the fields; our dogs
Silent, moving like shadows on a wall;
And strange worms crawling; flies of a kind
We had never seen before; huge vineyard moths;
Badgers and snakes abandoning
Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten;
Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods
Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors
Rising from the earth -- all these
And more began that fall. Ravens flew round
The hospital in pairs. Where there was water,
We could hear the sound of beating clothes
All through the night. We could not count
All the miscarriages, the quarrels, the jealousies.
And one day in a field I saw
A swarm of frogs, swollen and hideous,
Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,
Huddled together, silent, ominous,
And heard the sound of rushing wind.
~ Weldon Kees

 

INJUN SUMMER
John T. McCutcheon
Chicago Tribune
September 30, 1907

Yep, sonny this is sure enough Injun summer. Don't know what that is, I reckon, do you? Well, that's when all the homesick Injuns come back to play; You know, a long time ago, long afore yer granddaddy was born even, there used to be heaps of Injuns around here—thousands—millions, I reckon, far as that's concerned. Reg'lar sure 'nough Injuns—none o' yer cigar store Injuns, not much. They wuz all around here—right here where you're standin'.

Don't be skeered—hain't none around here now, leastways no live ones. They been gone this many a year.

They all went away and died, so they ain't no more left.

But every year, 'long about now, they all come back, leastways their sperrits do. They're here now. You can see 'em off across the fields. Look real hard. See that kind o' hazy misty look out yonder? Well, them's Injuns—Injun sperrits marchin' along an' dancin' in the sunlight. That's what makes that kind o' haze that's everywhere—it's jest the sperrits of the Injuns all come back. They're all around us now.

See off yonder; see them tepees? They kind o' look like corn shocks from here, but them's Injun tents, sure as you're a foot high. See 'em now? Sure, I knowed you could. Smell that smoky sort o' smell in the air? That's the campfires a-burnin' and their pipes a-goin'.

Lots o' people say it's just leaves burnin', but it ain't. It's the campfires, an' th' Injuns are hoppin' 'round 'em t'beat the old Harry.

You jest come out here tonight when the moon is hangin' over the hill off yonder an' the harvest fields is all swimmin' in the moonlight, an' you can see the Injuns and the tepees jest as plain as kin be. You can, eh? I knowed you would after a little while.

Jever notice how the leaves turn red 'bout this time o' year? That's jest another sign o' redskins. That's when an old Injun sperrit gits tired dancin' an' goes up an' squats on a leaf t'rest. Why I kin hear 'em rustlin' an' whisper in' an' creepin' 'round among the leaves all the time; an' ever' once'n a while a leaf gives way under some fat old Injun ghost and comes floatin' down to the ground. See—here's one now. See how red it is? That's the war paint rubbed off'n an Injun ghost, sure's you're born.

Purty soon all the Injuns'll go marchin' away agin, back to the happy huntin' ground, but next year you'll see 'em troopin' back—th' sky jest hazy with 'em and their campfires smolderin' away jest like they are now.

 From his pipe the smoke ascending
Filled the sky with haze and vapor,
Filled the air with dreamy softness,
Gave a twinkle to the water,
Touched the rugged hills with smoothness,
Brought the tender Indian Summer
To the melancholy north-land,
In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
     Hiawatha, 1855

 

 

 

Oogum Boogum

When I met up with el jefe in Germany last summer, we rode around on a BMW motorcycle he had borrowed via a friend, a former German Air Force pilot he had met somewhere along the way who now worked for the vehicle company.  It was an R1200GS Adventure, which I thought was the ugliest motorcycle I had ever seen, but it took us from Ramstein to Schwarzenau in about two hours, something like 250 kilometers or so.  We were definitely moving, considering the traffic. But we got passed by other bikers as if we were standing still.
We got rained on during the trip and when we arrived at Gästehaus Schwarzenauer Mühle, our spotless and very German hotel, I was embarrassed to step into the lobby, dripping water off my Barbour jacket and pants, carrying my bug-spattered helmet, my boots leaving wet footprints.  Why couldn't el jefe have borrowed a car, I thought, but I didn't say anything. Men like adventure, women like comfort and never the twain shall meet.

Buffet at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard park.

When we were in Portsmouth, NH, later last summer, after our sail out to the Isles of Shoals we nosed around the Naval Shipyard and ran across folks having some sort of get-together at the base waterfront park.  They invited us to join them and partake of their buffet. Most of the folks were retired Navy chiefs with their spouses, but a number were active duty.
Some of the wives gave me the fish eye because of the way I was dressed as my underthings were still wet from my swim at the Isles of Shoals and I was going commando under my sundress, but their menfolk didn't seem to mind. I noticed some of the old geezers maneuvering down sun of me before approaching to chat or offer me a glass of wine. I knew why. It made me smile.  I was flattered.  After all, what's the point of watching your diet and keeping fit if no one notices? 
Anyway, the event was a fun way to end our stay in that charming port city.  I hope I can go back and visit it again. 

Once when I dropped by the house of one of my aunts to say hi, she invited me to come along with her to visit her friend who was stuck in an unpleasant marriage. We sat drinking Lipton tea and looking at the friend's old photo albums, high school yearbook and assorted memorabilia from her early years. She was strikingly good-looking in her youth, with wavy chestnut hair and hazel eyes. Many of the photos were of her with a stolid, glasses-wearing guy who was clearly not the person who became her husband.  She explained that he was her long-time junior high and high school boyfriend whom she assumed she would wed after graduation. They had even decided on the names for their children.
But then a handsome, smooth-talking fellow set his cap for her and took her away from him.  He got her pregnant and in those days that meant a shotgun wedding or shame and social ostracism. So the two became chained to each other. 
Her first love, whom she already regretted being lured away from, humiliated and repelled by what she had done, no longer even acknowledged her existence.  If he passed her on the street and she said hello to him, he snubbed her. 
So she made the best of the bed she had chosen to lie in, and for the first few years of her marriage things went well enough.  But it was clear that her husband didn't really care for her or her child. He became verbally abusive and belittling. He was a philanderer.
Why didn't you divorce him, I asked.  She said what would I do then?  She had no job skills, having quit high school to marry, and had a child to support.  She was totally dependent on her husband and had to stick with him, afraid that he would divorce her.  She couldn't go back to her parents because she had shamed them and they would have nothing to do with her.  So she retreated into a might-have-been world, a world in which she had rejected the handsome Lothario and stuck with the unexciting but devoted boyfriend.  How her life would have been different!
While thinking I had stumbled into a variation on a theme by Flaubert, I asked her what happened to her old boyfriend, expecting to hear that he had married well and was living an idyllic life.  But she told me he had become an alcoholic and had otherwise not done well in life.  She blamed herself.  Maybe, I thought, but also maybe he got over her and considered himself lucky to be rid of her and his later alcoholism had nothing to do with his old high school romance.  And if the man she did marry had been a good husband and father instead of what he was, maybe she would have forgotten all about her old beau.

 I remember the time when I was in Gotham City, Jr. that I blundered into a bordello while wandering around waiting for my uncle who was getting a haircut. It was disguised as a lingerie shop so I had no idea. It had some cute items in the window so I went in to browse. The proprietress wanted to sign me up and a customer wanted to.... 
As I stepped lively out of that joint I was horribly embarrassed by the thought that someone I knew would see me.  How could I explain what I was doing there? Why I assumed they would know what the place was I don't know. I probably figured everyone but dopey me knew.  And I was sure that gossips' tongues would wag. I could see my whole world crashing down as el jefe dropped-kicked my heinie to the moon and my parents disowned me and.... 
But nothing happened. 
I told el jefe what I did and he got a kick out of it, laughing and patting my knee as he said, "That's my Wanda."  But my mother, listening to my tale, caught my eye and shook her head as she gave me her patented, "I can't believe I gave birth to a child with no more brains than God gave a jackass" look.

 When el jefe was chatting with dad about our trip home from Europe, he asked about the thunderstorm we flew through in Wisconsin. Jeff said he responded, "Severe turbulence, rain, hail, noise, lightning, seat belt getting full exercise and colon preparing for full evacuation." I had not known he was that affected.  He appeared totally calm, voice natural and relaxed.  Chuck Yeager had nothing on him.  Ah, dad....