It's interesting to see what people believed made American girls different from those elsewhere 80 years ago. It was a time when Americans were going overseas to serve in the war and the GIs were observing foreign women and comparing them to the American girls back home. It came through clearly to them that there was a distinct "something" that made Americans different, we were as separate a people as French and Germans, English and Italians. Just what was that?
By the way, in those days people spoke of race when nowadays we would speak of nationality. Thus Norwegians and Irishmen were said to be different races. Click the pages to enlarge them.
It's hard to believe, looking at the photos, how normal life was in the before times. Who could have imagined then what a decadent, crime-ridden freak show life in these United States would turn in to.
Things keep getting crazier and I don't understand why. None of it makes any sense to me. Who is profiting from this raving nonsense? Is it, as Theodore Dalrymple says, merely a way to humiliate people by forcing them to accept and parrot lies that they know to be lies? If so, why? What is gained?
But...what is it that "they" want to control? And why? I can't figure it out.
Well, since my time machine is still in the experimental stage and the transmorgrafier cam wheel flange has flooglelated again and Amazon is out of stock, I'll just have to hang around in the present for a while longer. Rats.
But what I can do is just ignore it all, focus on what's real and important to me, and especially those who mean so much to me. What else can I do -- and, when you get right down to it, what else do I really want to do, now or at any time under any circumstances? All things come to an end. This, too, shall pass. In the meantime, I'll never forget what is always most important to me in my life. I hope you can do the same.
It's easy to think of adults being the prime listeners to big band music during its heyday, roughly 1938 to 1942, give or take, maybe because we have a memory of grandparents listening to it. It's reasonably easy to imagine them as middle-aged people, but not so easy to imagine them as high-schoolers, but that's who was listening the most to Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, et al. Sometimes they were called subdebs, sometimes bobby soxers (although that phrase belongs more to the late 1940s early 1950s) and sometimes the now-standard teenager.
The radio was a common way to listen to the tunes of the day, but so was hanging out at a juke joint, feeding nickels to the record machine and dancing the Lindy Hop or jitterbugging.
But juke joints had an unsavory reputation and were often infested with lowlifes. And, of course, bars had juke boxes, but teens didn't go to bars. Record stores, however, allowed you to listen to records before deciding to buy or not and you could hang out with your friends all evening if you wanted to. It was safe to walk home after dark in the America of that era, but should trouble arise there was always a cop walking his beat nearby.
Of course, you could always invite your friends over for a platter party, playing your collection of 78s and dancing with each other to "Chatanooga Choo-Choo" or "Stardust."
When the Japanese surrendered, the peoples who had been colonized by the European empires naively believed that the old order was gone forever and they tried to establish their own nations again.
Fools.
The Europeans would not let go of their cash cows so easily. Even the Japanese were planning ways to stay part of the robber syndicate. And their erstwhile enemies welcomed them.
And make no mistake, those colonized hated their colonizers. They looked to America, as a traditionally anti-imperialist power, to help them.
We should have. Imagine a world in which we did.
Stories are from postwar 1945. Click image to enlarge.
By that I mean when was the point, if you were to go back in time, that you would still feel in familiar circumstances but if you went back only somewhat further you would feel you were in an alien world?
I've thought about this a lot over the years because I have an abiding interest and curiosity about the past. I want to know what it was like to be alive in those far gone times, how was daily life lived, not merely in general terms but in the most minor details.
So, anyway, I've decided that today's world, at least today's American world, came into existence, picking a somewhat arbitrary year, in 1940, but probably a few years earlier, but by 1940 for sure. And a lot of things we think of as happening post-1945, after World War II, would have happened sooner, television, for example, without the war, which seems to have set back civilian developments about a decade.
Okay, okay, I know that nobody would want to have a root canal done by a 1940 dentist, or have TB or polio treated by 1940 medicine and et cetera. But that's not what I'm talking about. Look at the kitchen in the Hotpoint ad. It's from 1942. It's got a refrigerator and electric stove and oven, but also a sink disposal and a dishwasher. It's basically the same as a kitchen today. The ad copy says postwar appliances will be better, but the important thing is that all those appliances already existed. So did small kitchen appliances such as electric mixers and a variety of coffee makers -- drip, siphon, percolator. Frozen foods also existed. The Bird's Eye ad is from 1940. Of course, all variety of canned goods were available, lots of the same brands as today. Breakfast cereals the same as you can buy at Safeway today were also well established, as were candy bars, the same ones as we enjoy today. You could buy Parkay margarine and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (cooks in seven minutes!) at the A&P or Jewel supermarket. And speaking of Jewel, there was the then-famous Jewel Tea Man, who took orders over the phone from the Jewel catalog and delivered right to your door -- and not just food but all sorts of household items. The milkman also delivered to your door not only milk and cream, but butter, eggs and ice cream. The bread man brought fresh bread to your door, too, as well as pies and donuts, cakes and other goodies. The local grocery store delivered: call in your order in the morning and a local boy would bicycle it to your home after school and even help put away your purchases. Mail was delivered twice a day, morning and evening, and the postman famously always rang twice to let you know you had mail.
Bathrooms were essentially modern, too, with hot and cold running water, flush toilets with the same Scott toilet paper as well as Kleenex we can buy today, not to mention Modess sanitary napkins. They had sinks and showers and bathtubs, nice towels and bathmats, vanities and medicine cabinets, just like today.
But more important than all of this, important as it is, at least to me because I would want to enjoy a pleasant and
Happy suburban neighborhood c.1940. Safe and sane!
comfortable life, is the fact that, with whatever skills and education you have now, you could function in the world of c.1940, even in small details, and almost certainly find employment.
Let's take handwriting, for example. I can write cursive because my mother taught me as a child. Lots of people nowadays can't write cursive, it was not taught in school, and aside from a scrawled signature, they have no particular use for it. Well, okay, if you can't write cursive and you found yourself in 1940, guess what, you could use a typewriter. Maybe you've never even seen a typewriter, but you would recognize the same qwerty keyboard you use with your computer and you could easily figure out how to use a typewriter, maybe the return carriage lever being the only really odd thing you'd need to get the hang of. So you could carry out correspondence in an adult, professional manner. And that would mean you could get an office job.
And back to cursive -- If you can write it, you write it Palmer style, the method taught in the US from the mid-1920s until cursive faded away. Before that, people were taught to write cursive in the Spencerian style. That style survives in the Ford and Coca-Cola logos. It's much fancier than Palmer. Imagine having to write cursive in a Spencerian hand -- legibly. Everybody educated before 1925 could do it. If you wanted an office job, you'd have to be able to write it. But by 1940 or so it was fuddy-duddy stuff and you wouldn't need to worry about it.
Also by 1940 there were dial telephones and telephone directories. Yes, you'd have to dial "0" to get the operator to make a long-distance call, but otherwise making a call would be very much like today. So you wouldn't be isolated, unable to contact others.
And also by c.1940 cars were not that much different from those of today. Yes, yes, I know cars of today are vastly superior and all that. But what I mean is that, for example, you could climb into a four-door sedan, scan the controls and instruments and see they were pretty much like today's -- speedometer, gas gauge, horn, headlight switch, windshield wipers, ignition key and starter, even a radio. The big difference would be a manual transmission, if you don't know how to use one. But you could learn that. And if you couldn't,
Notice the caption says these 16-year-olds drive!
Oldsmobile introduced the automatic transmission in 1939, so buy an Olds. Oh, and even high-school kids drove and had their own cars, at least the guys had their own, usually old cars -- jalopies -- that they fixed up. Or they borrowed their parents' car.
And while their weren't any interstates the roads were paved and signed just as today, there were traffic cops, parking lots, drive-ins, motels and campgrounds, full-service gas stations everywhere that offered free roadmaps, roadside diners, even travel trailers you could tow behind your car as you saw the USA in your Chevrolet, visiting the national parks.
Anyway, you could drive to work, drive to shopping, drive on vacation, or just take a spin on a Sunday afternoon.
There were local and transcontinental bus lines if you didn't want to drive, public transportation in the cities (safe and clean!), and of course those wonderful passenger trains with dining and club cars, Pullman sleepers and observation cars. There were commuter trains between city and suburbs (yes, they already existed), but there were also inter city and even inter-small town passenger trains.
And, believe it or not, there were plenty of scheduled airlines operating planes like the DC-3 and DC-4 or the Boeing 247 and 307, or Lockheed Electras. I've flown in a DC-3 and in the later version of the DC-4, the DC-6. They were pleasant, comfortable passenger liners. Some airlines flew sleeper versions of these planes, so you could take a night flight and arrive at your destination in the morning after a good night's sleep. Pan American's flying boats that spanned the Pacific not only offered sleeping accommodations but also dining and lounge facilities. At the exotic island stopovers, first-class hotel and meals were included in the air fare. Taking a few days to leisurely travel from San Francisco to Macao via Honolulu, Wake, Guam and Manila in an airplane flying only a few thousand feet above the sea, so you could wave at ships and see whales, get up and walk around, dine at a table served by a waiter, sleep in a bed, take breaks at exotic locales....
Back to finding a job, there were plenty that you could probably do. If you are a book keeper or accountant, you could do those jobs with the same skills you have today. No Quickbooks or Turbotax, but you could use an electric adding machine and the type of accounting and tax preparation you would do would be the same as today.
You would have no problem figuring out how a cash register worked and so be a cashier. A job as a waitress or waiter would be the same. As would that of a bartender or short-order cook -- people ordered the same drinks and the same foods, more or less. Ham and eggs or bacon and eggs, pancakes, waffles, cold cereals or oatmeal were standard breakfast fare. Hamburgers were popular lunch fare, as were ham sandwiches and BLTs, road beef and club sandwiches as well as fried chicken, chicken-fried steak, hot dogs, potato chips, cole slaw, potato salad, etc. Steak for dinner or maybe a roast chicken or spaghetti. Desert would be apple pie with ice cream or maybe chocolate cake with coconut icing and a cherry. Coffee after. Typical American fare then as now. No pizza, though, except maybe in a big eastern city like New York.
You could drive a truck or a taxicab. If you are mechanically inclined or like to noodle around with your lawn mower or dirt bike or fool with an old car, you could get a job as an auto mechanic and find the job much simpler and easier than it would be today, needing only basic tools. And you could work on any engines, from chain saws (yes, they had them) to airplane engines (no turbines yet!). All internal combustion engines, either simple side-valve or pushrod-activated overhead valve. Rarely would you encounter an overhead cam engine. All had manually adjusted ignition points and timing. Simple, simple, simple. You could open your own shop, work at a service station or a car dealership. Lots of job openings.
Rules and regulations were much simpler and imposed far fewer costs -- no OSHA, no EPA, no race and gender quotas, no this, no that. So opening your own business would be a lot simpler and require much less in start-up capital.
When it came to clothing, everyday wear was not so much different from that of today. Women's casual dresses were a bit dowdy, and the patterns were a bit much, to my eye, but they were comfortable. No corsets and bustles and wasp waists. No bloomers!
Women's business attire was quite chic and, if I tossed away the hat, I could probably walk down a street in a city business hub today wearing a 1940 woman's suit and not get a second glance. I particularly like the shoes women wore in those days, as stylish as those of today and not looking somehow odd, as those of only a few years before do to me.
The plane is an Aeronca, still lots flying.
Women wore slacks and shorts and loafers and tennis shoes, even blue jeans, although they favored those in baggy styles with the cuffs rolled up. Hairstyles were a bit fussy, even complicated, but if you didn't choose to get too fancy, nobody seemed to mind.
I think you guys would be okay with 1940.
Women also dressed to be sexy; after all, this was the era of the pin-up, the Petty Girl and the Varga Girl, copies of which would soon earn immortality as the nose art on Army Air Force combat planes in the coming war. Silk stockings were giving way to less expensive nylons and bust-enhancing bras were becoming popular, especially when worn under a tight-fitting sweater. This combination was so popular, in fact, that it caused the coining of the phrase "sweater girl" to denote a sexy college co-ed.
Oh, and, um, they did have condoms back in those days. Latex condoms were mass produced and inexpensive, regulated by the Food and Drug administration. The makers of Trojans used automatic testing equipment to ensure each one was defect-free. The Roosevelt administration's surgeon general urged their use and figuring that boys and girls will do what comes naturally no matter what, opened hundreds of outlets that gave away condoms for free.
To my eye, men's fashions seem even less dated. I suppose things like tie width and pattern, as well as lapel width, have changed, such things do, but I think a man today could wear a 1940-era suit and take the same city walk as above and attract no attention. Aside from the shoes, the dress style of a late 1930s Princeton man, looks quite contemporary to me. A guy from today could show up in in 1940 and hit a men's clothing store, glance around, and know what to buy to look well dressed. But in 1910? How about 1870? Oh, and about those white shoes the Princeton boy wears, we still speak of white-shoe law firms, don't we?
By 1940, ordinary middle-class people had enough leisure time and income to enjoy recreation that cost money to do. You had to go someplace like a bowling alley, tennis court, ski resort or golf course, pay to do it, even pay for special training, buy or rent equipment, maybe even pay for overnight lodgings. All of those things are as we do them today and we could enjoy them then, just as today. Of course, gear is better now, but still, if, for example, you're a skier and were to find yourself in Sun Valley in 1940 you would recognize what the equipment was and be able to use it to hit the slopes.
Aside from movies, many of which you can still watch and enjoy today, the radio provided the most popular form of personal entertainment, offering the same sorts of programs as we enjoy today -- detective dramas, cop shows, situation comedies, variety shows, murder mysteries, costume dramas, soaps, cooking and home-improvement shows, news and commentary, etc. Live broadcasts from famous ball rooms featuring the latest singers and bands were popular. And television was just ready to go when the war stopped everything for some years. Of course, you could buy your own records and listen to whatever you liked in your own home. Books were popular and everyone read the latest novels, much as today they watch the latest cable series, and there were book-of-the-month clubs that would mail you inexpensive editions of all the latest titles. There were tons of magazines, many still with us today. Many homes had pianos and sheet music sales were still considerable, so if you can play, you would find the era most congenial to your talents.
Interior of a TWA Boeing 307 Stratoliner.
Look, I know all of this is subjective, based on my own tastes and views of what's historically important, but I've thought about this a lot over the years and often wondered how far back in time I realistically could go and hope to have a life I would enjoy, based on my abilities and proclivities. How about you? Do you know how to handle a team of horses? Would you like to sit on a stool and add and subtract figures by hand, writing them down in a careful Spencerian hand, at an accounting firm? Do you want to cook meals over a hot wood stove that needs constant careful attention? If you have to go to the bathroom at night do you want to pull a chamber pot out from under the bed and do your business in it, then have to carry it outside to the outhouse to dump it, then clean it, the next morning? Do you like the smell of kerosene, refilling lamp reservoirs, carefully cleaning the delicate glass chimneys of soot, replacing wicks? Oh, and how about accidentally brushing past a kerosene lamp some night and knocking it over and having it shatter, showering you with flaming fuel, not only brutally burning you but burning your house down as well, and maybe the whole block? Do you...? Can you...? Would you...? Not me! My time machine's wayback dial enters the red no-go zone at about 1935 and stops dead at 1930.
Why do I imagine moving back to the past, and think about it in such detail? Do you like the present? Are you okay with all the...the...the...you know-- you do know -- ? Haven't you thought of escape, maybe emigrating? But to where? It's all everywhere. So, in reverie at least, I turn to the past. Sure, I know that those years were full of their own problems but compared to today, I'll take theirs. I'm speaking as an American, of course, and traveling back to an earlier America. I don't care about Europe or Asia, then or now. I'm just your typical parochial Doofus americanus and I'm quite happy to be one. Now excuse me while I climb into my time machine, shaped like a 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster, and skeedaddle.
B'bye!
C'mon, hop in! Let's all go for a drive back to 1940!
People can live in so much emotional pain that it expresses itself in physical pain, often unbearably so. But merely caring, merely listening -- no, not merely...sincerely -- touching a shoulder or forearm, holding hands, can take the pain away. Very much of my off-duty professional life involves this. It may seem trivial, but it's not. It's the most important thing. I take their pain upon myself. Sometimes it takes its toll on me. Sometimes it's very hard.
In Touch, first broadcast October 29, 1981, over the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
Not to make light of a grim situation, but I do get some satisfaction from the less than impressive Russian armed forces performance in the Ukraine, considering all the crap I've read on-line about how American armed forces may be able to handle a bunch of Iraqi camel jockeys and Afghan goat fuckers, but just wait till they have to deal with a serious military like Russia's. Uh huh.
Oh, for the record, I'm a non-interventionist and don't consider it any of our business what Russia and Ukraine do to each other. Or China and Taiwan. If I did go back in my time machine to c.1940, one thing I would do for sure is join the America First movement. And if I went back to 1917 I would be singing, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." And if I just went back to 1975 I would be a strong supporter of Jimmy Carter. Yes, that much-ridiculed Jimmy Carter. He made it one of his campaign promises to withdraw American troops from South Korea and was skeptical about all our overseas commitments. After he was elected and tried to carry out the troop withdrawal and wasn't able to do it, thanks to what today we would call the deep state, Carter, in response to an inquiry about the origin of his views, replied
that they arose from his "basic
inclination to question the stationing of American troops overseas."
He said that keeping troops abroad "is something you
need a good reason to do" and that he "has yet to see a convincing
argument keeping those troops in Korea in perpetuity." He also wanted to withdraw the Marines from Okinawa and reduce our military presence in Japan. I imagine Carter's views were formed by his Naval Academy education and his career as a naval officer. The stationing of ground forces in exposed
and static positions abroad is counter to traditional naval thinking.
Air and sea power operating from offshore, augmented by mobile landing
forces if needed, are the preferred solutions of naval doctrine. Seems pretty sensible to me. I've often wondered if the enmity of the powers that be that Carter incurred by trying to draw down our military footprint overseas is one of the reasons he is so ridiculed to this day. Looking at his presidency, and the world situation as he inherited it, it doesn't seem all that bad.
The men I know are always giving each other the razz, calling each other names like duck butt and pencil dick not in a hostile way, but in a friendly, comradely way. They all have I guess what could be called seriously masculine jobs, although these days, saying that out loud would get you defenestrated from the top of the World Trade Center's ghost. But the males whose comments I read on-line take great offense at being referred to by a name that they consider belittling. They seem to have a great deal of respect and admiration for themselves and are also very thin-skinned. I guess that's why they are always getting into purse fights with each other and hurling Wikipedia quotes and YouTube videos at each other like Molotov cocktails and hand grenades. I think they're funny.
Another difference between the men I know and the males who spend a lot of time posting comments on-line is that the on-liners are really hostile to women and never miss an opportunity to attack them. But the men I know really like women and seek them out relentlessly. Yes, of course, a lot of that is raw sex drive, but there is much more to it than that. They seek female companionship. They need to have a haven away from the brutal competitiveness of the macho-man world. They need someone who cares about them, someone waiting for them at home, someone they can write or Skype to, message and call. And also someone to protect and defend. And, of course, someone to give them children so that they can have a son to teach how to throw a fast ball and pass on the lessons they've learned about life and a daughter to be daddy's little angel and intimidate her high school dates.
One time back in the States I went off-base with some marines wearing my cammies -- combat utility uniform, to give it its formal name, basically desert camouflage overalls. As we were passing through an outdoor food court I accidentally bumped into a table where some guys were having beers. One of them looked up at me as I said, "Sorry!" and said in a loud voice, "Well, well, a girl marine ( I was navy). I feel really safe knowing you're out there fighting for me. I bet you terrify the enemy!" At this, one of the marines grabbed the guy by his shirt, lifted him out of his chair and slammed him against a wall and asked him to repeat what he had just said. When he didn't, but just stared in stunned fear, the marine threw him against a trash can, where he just lay. Then we continued on our way, me thinking oh, Lord, we're going to get arrested and.... But as we walked away, another guy at the same table said in a loud voice, "Guess who's going to get his dick sucked!" All the marines stopped and headed back toward the table. The guy got up so fast he knocked over the table and scattered chairs as he rocketed out of there. But he was not necessarily wrong.
I've only known four Jews that I associated with and knew were Jews in my whole life. I suppose I have associated with some more, especially at university, but I didn't know they were Jews. The subject never came up. Why would it? One of the Jews, who I mentioned briefly in another post, was my good friend. We had similar service brat backgrounds, she Air Force, me Navy. We were both stationed on Guam at the same time and had lots of fun together. She was a natural blonde, quite attractive, with a gregarious personality, and had lots of boyfriends buzzing about her. I only found out that she was Jewish when we were invited to a Christmas dinner and she off-handedly mentioned it while accepting the invitation. Another of the Jews was a woman a few years older than me that I met while working a temp job in college. She sort of glommed on to me and was always inviting me to lunch, dinner, concerts, exhibitions and whatnot. She made no secret of being Jewish but didn't make a big deal of it. It was more like she would bring some Jewish dish, or maybe just Eastern European, I don't know (I was totally ignorant of ethnic white lifestyles) to work and urge me to try it, saying it was her mother's special recipe or whatever. Thinking back, she looked sort of Jewish or maybe Greek or southern Italian, dark hair and eyes, olive skin, although at the time I never really gave that much thought to it. She kept asking me to call her Bambi, which was not going to happen. We kept in touch after she moved back to her home town of New York City, or rather she kept in touch with me, and when I mentioned I had an opportunity to visit that city, she offered to be my guide and a splendid one she proved to be, giving me a Cook's tour of all sorts of things I'd never have known about on my own and taking me to fabulous little restaurants only a local would know about. She loved New York and wanted me to love it, too. I considered the fact that she was Jewish the same way I would have an Irishman showing me around Dublin. The only odd part of the experience was the last night of my visit at a night club where Tierney Sutton was singing she asked me to dance and while we were she stroked my rump and kissed me, then invited me back to her apartment. I declined, saying I had an early flight the next morning (true) and all my stuff was at my hotel and I had to pack.... She didn't push it. I'd noticed she was slamming Johnny Walker Black Label in amounts that would have put me in a coma and was slurring her words a little bit. So I put down her action to being drunk, and considered it yet another lesson in why you shouldn't drink in public unless your goal is to make an ass of yourself. Go ahead, ask me how I know this. I won't tell you.
The third Jew I knew was a JAP I made a post about earlier. The less said about her the better. Ugh. Make that ugh squared. And the final Jew I knew was a guy I met at college. I don't know why I knew he was Jewish, maybe he took off a Jewish holiday or something. He didn't look in any way "ethnic" to me, just a regular person. I dated him a few times but I found him rather dull and totally not my type at all. During the third date he put the moves on me, assuming apparently that was the established protocol. I told him to rein in Trigger to his baffled disappointment. To his credit...I suppose...he did so. The guys I usually dated would have brushed aside my objection and I would have had to knee them in the nuts to get them to settle down. Every date would end in a wrestling match. It was kind of fun.
For the record, I only have known one Seventh Day Adventist. She was a spectacularly beautiful, sloe-eyed Spanishesque Guatemalan-American who married a Japanese national and moved to Japan. They have the most gorgeous children. She tried to convert me to Adventism but I declined, saying that I was a confirmed Zen Holy Roller. I don't know what a Holy Roller is, but I like the name. I should know what Zen is. I even spent some time studying at the Zen temple 永平寺 (Eihei-ji) in Fukui, but I really couldn't get into it. It was just too alien. Intellectually, I grasped it...I think. But emotionally, spiritually? No. I have also only been friends with one Catholic, although, doubtless, I have known more than that but the subject of their religion never came up. Anyway, this guy was a Mexican (from Monterrey) who I liked a lot and he liked me a lot, too. But he was the least ambitious person I ever knew. He dropped out of college before completing even one semester, got a customer service job with some internet/cable company and that was it. He spent all of his paycheck every week, not saving even a penny. When he got an unsolicited credit card in the mail, he maxed it out and never made even one payment. As a result, his credit is ruined. Although he always said he was a proud Catholic, he admitted he'd never been to church, not even once. He always had lots of girlfriends. I know for a fact that at one time he was was having sex with four different women at the same time. Uh...not simultaneously. As far as I know. I could go on.... Oh, right. One time he asked me to have sex with his friend, whom he said was between girlfriends. I got the feeling that he had gotten some kind of favor from his friend and in return his friend wanted the favor of having sex with me. That tells you a lot about the way women are treated in Mexico. I told him to take a long walk off a short pier, as my aunt used to say. Adios, Pancho. So why did I like a character like that? I dunno. I just did. The last I heard from him, he had gotten married to a woman "of the blood" -- his phrase -- so I assume a fellow Mexican. Hey, señor gringo, you better not say you have married a woman of your blood. You just better not!
We finally got the auxiliary generator for our cattle well, delivered by a big tractor-trailer rig (we had some other equipment delivered, too) whose driver demonstrated phenomenal maneuvering and backing-up skills. Those watching actually broke out into applause it was so amazing. When he dismounted, a middle-aged white guy, he said to the nearest man, "Now, you try it!" Everyone laughed and cheered.
One of the unsung casualties of the Covid craziness was the almost total collapse of restaurant demand for beef. Business has picked up since the darkest days but, still, this year if we clear $70 per cowbrute after expenses, but before taxes, we'll be lucky. If the government offers us some kind of greenhouse gas abatement subsidy or tax credit for not raising cattle, we'll take it and get out of the business. And you muttering in the peanut gallery can just shut up and eat your soyburger, the soy, of course, coming from Brazilian farmlands created by clear-cutting rainforests and burning the slash. Petrochemical fertilizers will keep the land productive for a while until the soil becomes salinized and hard-panned; what hasn't been eroded and washed away, that is.
I read that the Ukrainians are firing a lot of Javelins at Russian armor. I also read people referring to them as "cheap." I guess cheap is relative. In Afghanistan, the joke was that the Javelin, which was said to cost $70,000 each, was fired by a marine who didn't make that much in a year to kill a haji who wouldn't make that much in his entire life if he lived to be a hundred.
Speaking of Afghanistan, this was copied from a handwritten notice at a patrol base in Helmand's Gereshk Valley. I thought it was funny. Now it's kind of nostalgic. Ya know?
1. No smoking at night. 2. Red lens -- You were doing this in boot camp, so why are you fucking this up in combat? 3. Clean your area. If trash is full take it to the burn pit nasty. 4. Stop peeing on post! Honestly, what the fuck! 5. Pass all word to the next sentry. It's part of your general orders, stop fucking it up. 6. No horse play over the radio. If you wanted to tell jokes you should have been a comedian. 7. Keep area organized and wear your fucking PPE, what the fuck Marine. 8.
If any stupid shit or graffiti ends up on this sign or post,
the marine currently standing it will clean that shit up. Police
yourselves! 9. No sleeping on watch. I don't even know why you have to be told this. 10. Stop jerking off. I don't care if you are thinking about your mom.
When I was in AFG sometimes I would find myself humming and singing
the Mickey Mouse song. It's from the old 1950s-era Mickey Mouse Club
television program, which I've never seen. It was apparently a variety
show, with cartoons, skits, continuing serials, songs and so forth, with
a cast of child actors. My mother says she never watched it because it
came on at the same time as American Bandstand, which she never
missed. My dad liked it and still remembers his favorite serial, Spin
and Marty. I thought maybe my humming its theme song came from
remembering him doing so, but try as I might, I could not recall that.
Then one time I saw the movie Full Metal Jacket in the
company of a couple of crayon eaters. We all thought it was kind of
lame, although there are a few good scenes. This was the best one, we all
agreed, as we sang along and got the tune stuck in our heads.
To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by all things. To be actualized by all things is to let the body and mind of the self and the body and mind of others drop off.
~ Shōbōgenzō, Genjō-Kōan
Dedicated to all the guys who look for and find that special girl that they need in their lives --
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