The old life fades

 I dropped by a little town, population 400 according to the "Welcome to Shelbyville" sign, to mail a letter at the post office, the only operating business on the main street. The town, which had survived the Great Depression intact, was staggered by the 2008 economic crisis and was only just beginning to recover when the Covid thing hit.  That killed it.  
Anyway, as I was walking by an empty store that I had noticed was being renovated, which piqued my curiosity, a light-brown-skinned man in a huge turban stepped out the door.  I smiled and said good morning, expecting to exchange a few friendly words and maybe learn what was going on.  But he looked over my head and past me, not deigning to acknowledge my existence.  My greeting lingered on the silent air and died forlorn. 

I went with my mother to visit relatives in the next county and on the way back we stopped at a non-franchise, old-fashioned burger joint.  The roadside sign advertising it said, "Open every day since 1942.  Try our garlic fries!"  We placed our order at the window and then sat at one of the picnic tables out back under a shade tree waiting for our meal to be brought to us.  There was a mosquito coil on the table and a book of matches, so we lit it and watched the smoke curl up in the still air.  A woodpecker hammered away nearby, but we couldn't spot him. 
While we were waiting, we saw the girl who had taken our order dash out the back door to a vegetable patch, pick a head of lettuce and a couple of tomatoes and dash back inside.  A few minutes later she brought us our burgers, served with the freshest lettuce and tomato toppings anyone every got.  And she apologized for having taken so long.  I felt like asking her to sit down and join us, but other customers arrived and she headed back inside, wiping her hands on her apron.  The garlic fries were good, and, noticing potato plants in the garden, knew they were made from the freshest potatoes.

While visiting the relatives that morning, my mother's aunts, still spry though they would never see 90 again, and a cousin, I sat quietly in an ancient overstuffed horsehair chair and listened to them talk, once in a while taking a sip of my Jackson's English Breakfast Tea and nibbling on a homemade English muffin served with Frank Cooper's-brand marmalade.  I looked around for Paddington Bear.  You would think these folks were FOB Limeys, but their most recent ancestor to have lived in Albion would have been born in the middle of the 17th century, a Quaker who took up William Penn's invitation to escape the C of E thugs and make a home in Pennsylvania.

A lot of the conversation consisted of mentioning where someone lived, or had lived and necessitated directions to explain where that was.  But to me most of the descriptions meant nothing, nor did the names of the people. 
"She was a Bright and she married that Schoonover fellow who came up from Scott County to work for the Parker ranch.  That was before old man Parker got throwed busting broncs and kicked in the head.  They built that house up on Gregg's Hill just past the old Dodge place.  To get there you'd have to drive the road out of town that goes past Hixenbaugh's store -- oh, that's right it burned down...when was that? My land, that would have been the spring after the flood that washed out the riverside park...I think that was 1988.  Anyway, you take that road and when you come to where the Sinclair Gas station that the Frasers had used to be, slow down and look for a side road on the left that goes down into a hollow and crosses the creek.  There used to be a bridge...no, the bridge I'm thinking of went to the old Tussing ranch. But the bridge is long gone and nobody lives at Tussing's anymore.  Jack Currance's youngest bought the grazing rights and ran cattle on it until he got run over by that Jane Wiles.  She said a bee flew in the window and she was swatting it away and never saw him.  Then the bridge washed out the winter the A&P closed.
"What was I saying?  Oh, yes. There was never a bridge where I'm talking about, you just have to hope the water is low enough to get across.  You'll know you've driven past the turn-off if you come to where the old roadhouse used to be at Parson's Corners.  You know the one, where your Aunt Amelia, home from the state normal school for a visit, met Arthur and he told her he was going to marry her and she said he was the freshest man the Lord every made.  But he did marry her.  It burned down the day my father bought the Hudson.  Grandmother hated that car.  She could never get in or out of it without help. So he traded it for the Studebaker convertible that your great uncle Oliver taught me to drive in.  He  froze to death along with the rest of the crew that winter when the locomotive he was driving got stuck and the rescue engine did, too.
They all froze when they burned up all their coal.  They found Jim Hazlett's body four miles from the tracks, trying to make it to Somerfeld's ranch, they figured. It got down to 60 below zero that month and it didn't rise about 30 below for more than a week and never above zero for the whole month. Jim was John Hazlett's only son and he took it hard and turned to drink and wrecked his car down by where...."
And on and on.  It was hard for me to keep awake, the voices fading into the sound of bees and hummingbirds buzzing around the roses planted all about the house, their scent wafting through the open windows, an uncertain light breeze fluttering the curtains now and again.  Half asleep, I heard a cow lowing and a dog barking in the distance.I must have dozed off for a few minutes because I had a vivid dream about a swarthy man in a turban bursting into the room and ordering us all to get out, the house now was his, as was all the land and we no longer belonged there.  I asked where we should go and he said nowhere, we belonged nowhere and no one wanted us anywhere.

On the drive back, I asked which was the relative who had been shot and never knew it. I had a vague memory of such a person that our visit to the old gals had dredged up.  "Oh, you must mean great-great Aunt Louise," my mother said, and I wasn't sure if the "great-great" referred to her relationship or mine, but I didn't interrupt her to ask as she told the old story to me again.  It seems that in the early 1900s -- my mother thought it was 1909 but wasn't sure -- multiple-great Aunt Margaret, who was heavily pregnant with Louise, was alone at her ranch house just before fly season, a time when all the men would go off to cut and brand the new calves, when the dogs began barking and she heard the horses in the corral kicking up a fuss. Fetching the .44-40 Winchester from above the fireplace, she stepped out onto the porch to see what was going on.  Three men were dragging tack out of the stable and saddling the horses, who were not cooperating with these strangers.  Margaret shouted at them to get away from her horses.  Instead of doing so, at least one of the men drew his pistol.  Who fired first is lost, but a gunfight ensued in which Margaret shot and killed all three men, while taking a bullet in her abdomen.  Rifle against pistol at about 70 paces.  No contest, especially when the woman wielding the rifle was used to dropping running coyotes at greater distances than that.
Fast forward, as they say, many decades into the future and the baby in mommy's tummy that savage day is an old lady who tripped and fell heavily and was taken to the hospital emergency room, where she was X-rayed to see if she had broken any bones.  Fortunately she had not, but the X-ray technician discovered something curious in her hip bone, called in her doctor, who examined the X-ray with some puzzlement.  Then, as required by law, he notified the police, for on the X-ray, clearly visible, was what appeared to be a .32 caliber bullet embedded in her hip bone.  Louise swore she had never been shot in her life, the idea was absurd, and her relatives backed her up.  But the bullet was real and it was there, although clearly she had been shot some time ago.  Thinking and thinking, she finally recalled having vaguely heard about her mother being shot by horse thieves before she was born.  It was the only possible time Louise could herself have been shot, when her mother was still carrying her.
I remembered being shown the newspaper clipping about the incident, the writer treating it as amusing proof that those of pioneer stock were too tough to be killed, and visiting the old ranch on a trip home when I was 10, only an old man caretaker living there, a former cowhand, too busted up from a life of hard work to make a living anymore, allowed to finish out his days there, sitting and rocking on the front porch, refilling his pipe with Prince Albert tobacco from time to time, smoking thoughtfully and telling the occasional visitor about how things were in the old days when there was nothing but wind and tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes and coyotes, thunderstorms and wild horses, and a determination to make something of the land, tame it and make it useful, just as you did the mustangs and the few abandoned feral cattle that dotted the gullies and hillsides, reminders of a past failed attempt to gentle a hostile and unforgiving Mother Nature.
He recalled the incident, hearing the distant gunshots out there on the branding grounds, faint but unmistakable in all that silence, and the men leaping to their horses and racing for the ranch house.  As he told us of that day, he led us over a rise and down into a small coulee, walking slowly, favoring his left leg.  He pointed to some water-worn rocks, barely protruding from the soil.  Three graves.  Unmarked.  "Lost souls," he said.  "God knew who they were but no one else ever did."

 

The day

 There's been a change in the feel of the air, autumn is coming.  The misty mornings, the afternoon breeze, the color of the sky, the chill in the shadows, the red tinge to the leaves of the maples all proclaim it.  It makes me sad to see another summer go.  How very many I've let pass without notice.  How many more will I have?  For all I know, this could be my last.  Or I might have another 50.  But even 50 is such a small number.  I tell myself I should make each day count, accomplish something, enjoy, be aware, be thankful for life.  I try.  But inevitably each day is consumed by routine, by the usual demands that take up time and attention and suddenly I notice the shadows stretching toward the east, and glancing at the time, I am dismayed to see it is already past 5 o'clock.  Where did the time go?  And I still have so much to do.  Well, that's life, too, isn't it?  At least at this time of year there are still hours of daylight left at five; it's only late afternoon. 

Often, I don't eat lunch -- no time -- but I've come to appreciate the ancient advice to eat a hearty breakfast.  It will take you through the day.  And so I do.  And so if I miss lunch I don't really notice, and may not eat until sunset, often dining after everyone else has, bathed in the red rays of the setting sun, supper finished, the dishes washed and put away, the leftovers in the fridge awaiting midnight snackers.

When El Jefe eats alone, he stands in the kitchen beside the sink and often doesn't even bother to take his food out of the pans, but I set a place at the dining room table and eat just as if others were present.  

I like to help make breakfast for the working men of the ranch and I like serving them and bantering with them as they stoke up on energy to manhandle the day.  And can they eat!  A typical breakfast consists of corncakes or buckwheat cakes served with butter, maple syrup on the side, topped with however many eggs requested. There are serve-yourself plates piled high with biscuits, hashbrowns, refried beans, grits, fried steak, spam, ham, link- and patty sausages, bacon and fried tomatoes, as well as tureens of gravy, pitchers of orange and grapefruit juice and whole milk.  There are also servings of peach and rhubarb cobbler, apple and cherry pie, as well as cinnamon rolls, cake and raised donuts, strudel, bear claws and other pastries, all homemade, of course. And, also of course gallons of coffee.

For the men who won't be able to get back to the cookhouse for lunch, we prepare sandwiches and sides and thermoses of coffee.  The men request what sandwiches they want as well as what else they'd like to have, and it's a pleasure to make it for them, taking care with each item to insure it will be fresh and tasty, as well as filling.

While I'm serving the men, they call me darling or honey or sweetie.  "How about some more coffee, honey, and can you reach me that plate of hashbrowns?  Thank you, sweeheart!"  The sexism is just horrible, horrible, I tell you!

This is all over and done, the men gone, the tables cleared and the dishes washed and put away, before sunrise.  Then I go back to the house and see to things there, rousting the rug rats and house apes, seeing to their wants and needs, seeing they eat a healthy breakfast, typically oatmeal with raisins and walnuts with a dusting of nutmeg, whole-wheat toast with preserves, and dishes of fresh strawberries, blueberries or blackberries. peaches, pears or apples, depending on what's ripe.  Then they are off to a half-day of summer school at the ranch school -- yes, it's painted red and, yes, it's just one room, and it was built when Grover Cleveland was president.

Then it's time for my work day to begin....  If I get to bed before 2am, it's a miracle. I do get tired.  But I always find a little time to enjoy myself, tinkle out a tune on the piano, dance to some old records, read, or just doze off wherever I am, like a cat in a cozy spot.

Good times

 I'm not much of a bar-goer because I'm not much of a drinker, but I like the ambience of some bars -- those with a personality and a history and a dedicated clientele. 

The Horse and Cow on Marine Corps Drive in Tamuning, Guam, is one of my select-few favorites.  I used to live within walking distance and often dropped by of an evening just to imbibe the ambience and chat with the bubbleheads. I had a good friend from the Frank Cable (AS-40) who I would hang out with there, nibbling bar snacks and watching the slow-motion riot taking place all around us.  Sometimes civilians or tourists who had heard of the joint would come in, then later complain of the poor service they received. But the bar is not really for them, it's for the Navy and sailors get first priority.

Everything is not

 

 "Have you ever felt depressed?  What a foolish question -- who has not?  But the depression we are concerned with is an unhappiness that seems to descend from nowhere, enshroud us for no apparent reason, and plunge us into a despair as to who we are and what we are doing here and why we are doing it, even whether we are alive and awake or simply asleep and dreaming the whole strange and sorry affair.

"Have you ever felt that there is a beautiful life that you are not leading, a wondrous world you cannot see, a peace and contentment that have somehow eluded you, and have you wondered where the fault lies?  Is it with you or is there no such life, no such world, no such state of being, no such peace or contentment anywhere at all?"   

 "That's what I want: the absence of everything, a place where there's nothing."

"Waking and Sleeping," first broadcast by the CBS Radio Mystery Theater on June 29, 1981.

Candy girl

 “Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.”
― Martin Luther 

Now this is advice I can follow, my man Martin.  No problemo.  Okay, okay, I drink root beer and just sip a little bit of the happy juice to avoid taking the off-ramp to Barf City, but the "sport, recreate and even sin a little" (a little? #Clears throat# You want to define "a little"? -- our definitions may vary)  I can definitely go for. Anyway,  it's always something.  God didn't give us life just so we could mope, look down at the floor and sigh.  We should be like pixies dancing on a leaf in a ray of sunshine and enjoy our flash of light between the two great darks.

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall."
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 “A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clodhopper indeed."
― Martin Luther 

"I want to be pure in heart, but I like to wear my purple dress."
―Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 This may seem like a frivolous post, but reality is tough and often disappointing, sometimes bitterly so, so from time to time you need to break out of your harness, kick down the stall door and make a dash for freedom, exulting in living, simply being alive.  You'll be back under the yoke soon enough.  There's no escaping that.

 

A raw gray, stormy day, the wind driving the rain at a steep angle into the thrashing trees. What happened to summer? Stuck in the house, wearing a sweater and crossing my arms against the cold curling around the windows and seeping under the doors, I have plenty of time to think, time to grow melancholy, to remember, regret and wish.
 
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change...
~ Matthew Arnold 

Life is first boredom, then fear.

Whether or not we use it, it goes,

And leaves what something hidden from us chose.
~ Philip Larkin 

I often give way to self-pity.

“Do I deserve this? I suppose I must.

I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Was there   

a moment when I actually chose this?

I don’t remember, but there could have been.”   

What’s wrong about self-pity, anyway?
~ Elizabeth Bishop

Who would want to be a stay-at-home mom?

 Or as they used to say, a homemaker.  You are not supposed to want this.  I don't know why.  It used to be considered the happiest life. 

"The most disturbing picture since the Mona Lisa"

 

Les mecs...

 

Happy Anniversary

 

My grandparents were married for 68 years before my grandfather passed away.  They were fruitful and multiplied, producing children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  And isn't that what it's all about?  Everything else is just static.

My baby-boomer parents got married years later in life than did my grandparents so my grandparents had years more of life together than it is likely that my parents will.  I've often wondered whether it is better to spend your early adult years checking out the world, having various adventures, trying different things, experiencing the hedonistic life, the ascetic life, the gregarious life, the contemplative life, and so on, or whether it is more rewarding to find a good person that you have deep affection for as early a you can and just make your own little universe together, creating and raising a family and letting the rest of the world go by.  I've never been able to decide.

Just ask!

 

I took my uncle, the handsy one skilled in making up colorful lyrics to old pop ditties, to see his ophthalmologist the other day.  I didn't have to, someone else could have, but I wanted to put certain events firmly in the past and make it clear there were no lingering ill feelings.  I also had a reason of my own:  I'd read that a nightclub was having a big band night, featuring a locally famous band and I wanted to go.  I love big band music and the dances that go along with it.  El Jefe is overseas or he could have taken me.  But I knew my uncle loved dancing. Most men these days don't, and if they are willing they aren't skilled.  But my uncle loves to cut a rug.  He taught me swing dancing and foxtrot when I was knee high to Ginger Rogers.  He could also do the stroll and the twist and other later-era dances, right into the disco and house music of his own youth.  I can do all sorts of dances thanks to him.
So anyway, I told him I would drive him to his doctor's appointment if he made it for late in the afternoon and that after we would have a light dinner or something, marking time till the club opened and then go and dance, dance, dance! 
He was a bit surprised and seemed a little abashed, looking down and away for an instant before looking back at me and asking if I really wanted to go dancing with him.  I said, "I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to."  He looked earnestly at me, scanning my face.  I stuck my tongue out at him and he burst into a big grin, saying, "You scamp!" and started to hug me then stopped himself and pulled back.  So I hugged him.  He didn't respond until I called him the world's biggest goofball and then he hugged me too and we stood for a minute.
The day before his appointment, I asked him to pack a bag with a nice suit and accouterments and good dancing shoes and I would also put together an ensemble suitable for tripping the light fantastic.  I reserved a hotel room for us to change in and refresh after he had seen the doctor, and the next day off we went, both of us in a happy, anticipatory mood.  His visit with the eye doc produced better news than expected, so we had that to celebrate. 
I thought we could eat at an inexpensive chain restaurant, but my uncle asked the hotel concierge to recommend a first-class dining establishment and made reservations for us and treated me to a swell feed, as they would have said back in the Forties.  Then we took a walk through a nearby park that had a small lake where boats could be rented and enjoyed the sunset and a cool evening zephyr after the heat of the day.  Then it was back to the hotel to get into our dancing duds and we were off to the club, which was within walking distance.
The band did not disappoint, but the number of other dancers did.  Only a few couples ventured onto the dance floor.  But that gave us room to strut our stuff, which we certainly did. I had no idea my uncle could be so energetic.  But he had led an active life asea and ashore and he was not ready to

slow down. At one point, we did the Big Apple, incorporating into it the Charleston Swing, Truckin' and the Suzy Q moves. Other dancers paused to watch us and applauded. When we sat down to catch our breath, the waiter brought us a bottle of champagne, compliments of the band leader.  We toasted him and his players and when the band took five he came over and chatted with us, sharing a glass.
The evening ended with a series of slow dances that saw us the only couple on the floor.  After the last number, we went up to the band and thanked them all for providing such a wonderful evening.  My uncle bought them all drinks and when they finished them I was surprised to realize it was 2am and the club was closing.
It was too late to drive home and neither of us were really in any condition to do so, being both exhausted and a little tipsy.  So we walked back to the hotel along the deserted boulevard, stopping to look in a few shop windows, greeted the doorman, who had been dozing on a baggage cart in the lobby, got our room key from the sleepy front desk man, who also handed me a message from home, so I called and left a voice mail explaining all was well and we'd be home the next day.
Then we went to bed*

 

*

Oh, please.  Unc was on his best behavior and besides was so beat by the exertions of the evening that he was asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.  So was I.

XyWrite!

One of my relatives was what he called "a newsman" for a career spanning decades.  I have written about him before, recounting his adventures as a draftee army clerk in Viet Nam -- no Rambo he! -- where he got his start in journalism writing for a division newspaper, his only qualification being that he could type.

Anyway, after he retired he wanted to convert all his notes and article files from the obsolete format they were originally composed in to a modern word processor and I helped him with that, giving me a chance to listen to his stories of the long, long ago, which I absorbed with intense interest.

Anyway the second, the format his copy was originally written in was Xywrite.  I quote from Wikipedia: "XyWrite is a word processor for MS-DOS and Windows modeled on the mainframe-based ATEX typesetting system. Popular with writers and editors for its speed and degree of customization, XyWrite was in its heyday [1989~93] the house word processor in many editorial offices." 
After he passed away, I inherited a lot of his stuff that nobody else wanted and was headed for the dumpster.  This included his old boxes of notes, the original Xywrite floppy disks, big ones and small ones, and the converted files he and I had worked on, saved on thumb drives.  It pained me to see how little any of his close family cared for his life's work and as I picked through the remnants of his career I couldn't help hearing his voice in my head telling me of his early days as a police beat reporter covering bank robberies, warehouse heists and car chases, jewelry store shootouts....  Then on to politics and business as he matured in his profession.

Anyway the third, among things I found was this Xywrite instruction manual. It's no mere pamphlet but about 300 pages -- no lie!  It looks practically new but it has post-it notes scattered through it, and some lines of instruction highlighted here and there.  It looks like he needed to know how to do a certain few thing and a lot of the rest didn't concern him, so when he couldn't figure out how to do one of those things he would look it up in the manual, a case of, "When all else fails, read the instructions," I guess.

Anyway the fourth, I got a kind of uncanny feeling looking up what he had once looked up all those years ago, reading his margin notes, noting a 30-year-old coffee stain splotching a page, some cookie crumbs of the same vintage.  I felt as if he were right beside me looking at the pages with me, recalling how he figured out this newfangled computer stuff.  "Why can't I just use my old Royal Standard and hand in the copy like before?" I could almost hear him wondering.  And I wondered why his own children didn't have any interest in experiencing this one last opportunity to be close to him, to get a sense of his life before it all dissolved into the ever-receding past.

Blah blah

No dating apps in his day.  He had to say, "Hey, good-looking!" in person.

I was reading some comments men made about on-line dating services, naturally bad-mouthing them because that's what everybody does about everything on-line.  I don't have much experience with those apps, but one time I did start to fill out a profile on OKStupid or whatever it's called, but I got stymied by the personal profile.  What did I like to do? Hmm.  What should I write?  Geez, I dunno.  There are all sorts of things that I like doing, but when faced with writing a few of them down, I couldn't think of anything.  I guess because there are too many contingencies involved.  Do I like to read?  Depends on what it is, and what my mood is, and what else there is to do.  Ditto just about everything else. Plus everybody writes the same dumb things -- long walks on a moonlit beach, dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant.  Blah. Blah.  So I never bothered to finish.  I guess if I had been serious about it I might have, but I was just curious. The thing is, in meat space as they used to call it, you never talk about stuff like that, you just interact, chat about this and that as you get to know and either like or not like a person.  Would you go for a walk on the beach or go out for dinner with someone you didn't like?  It would be unpleasant and you'd just want to get it over with.  But being stuck in rush-hour traffic with someone you are crazy about might live in fond memory forever.  But you would never write on one of these dating apps that you love being stuck in rush-hour traffic.

Up until the Tailhook blowup in 1991, the Navy and all the armed forces are supposed to have been take-no-prisoners sexist.  But my grandmother was a Navy nurse and my mother was an Army nurse and they never had any problems with sexism, at least that I have ever heard about.  And both married naval

aviators.  And stayed married to them.   In retrospect, from what I have learned, that episode was really an attack by the black-shoe surface Navy against the brown-shoe Navy, which, along with the bubbleheads and SEALs, always got the glory and headlines -- and funding.  Still true.

Anybody who has been in the service has gotten a boatload of inoculations.  When it is time to do medical evaluation the first week of boot camp, recruits line up with their sleeves rolled up. The injections are given in both arms and are often done simultaneously.
You take a step, receive your first round of injections before stepping to the next round of shots. Often, recruits hold a gauze pad in each hand to press over the injections sites before sitting down on the floor in case they pass out.
What shots do you get? Measles, mumps, rubella, flu in season, and, of course, tetanus. Plus, depending on service and assignment, yellow fever, adenovirus, meningococcal, diptheria, varicella, polio, hepatitis-A and hepatitis-B. 
Oh, right, and the infamous bicillin shot in your rump which is injected with a monster needle and is so thick that it seems like forever to all go in, and then it leaves a painful lump that lasts for days.  Many recruits pass out when they get this shot. So many, in fact, that the room where the shot is given has padded floors.  And also these days the shot and boosters for Covid.  So all the armed forces must be dead or dying, right?  All those vaccinations.  All at once.  Has to be.  Right?*  (I've had them all and then some and I'm still here, stomping at the Savoy -- figuratively speaking!)

I was listening to a cache of news broadcasts from WOR New York aired in 1976 and found out that there had been an outbreak of swine flu (influenza A virus subtype H1N1) at an army base and in response the Ford Administration decided to rush a vaccine into production with a plan to immunize the entire population of the country.  But not long after people began getting the vaccine reports began to appear of those inoculated coming down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which is associated with paralysis, respiratory arrest and death.  People began refusing to be inoculated despite assurances from the powers that be that the vaccine was safe.  Nobody bought the assurances, saying to Uncle Sam, "Tell it to the Marines, pal!" and in response the government said, "Okay fine, we'll end the mass immunization program.  If you want to get the stupid shot, feel free, if you don't, whatever, man."  About a quarter of the population got the shot, but nobody else bothered, and life went on and no disasters occurred.  Democracy in action:  the government proposed and the people disposed.  What a contrast with today.  Now the government tells the population to stop complaining and do what it is told.  Or else.  No disagreement, no objection, no refusal allowed.  The government is right and the people are wrong.  Period.  What happened in 50 years?  Where did democracy go?  How and why did the government become so arrogant and unresponsive to the will of the people?

I make my own tonkatsu sauce.  I like Bulldog brand, but I usually can't find it.  That's why I started making my own.  The secret is to use mirin, a type of Japanese rice wine.  Mirin is harder to find than Bulldog tonkatsu sauce, but once you have a bottle, it lasts a long time.  Anyway, I found some Bulldog sauce in a Chinese grocery the other day and used it on a croquette dinner I prepared, only to realize that my own tonkatsu sauce was far better.  Others agreed.  When they wondered why my sauce was so good, I said it was because the secret ingredient I put in every drop was love, but actually it's mirin.

 

 

 

*Vaccines typically administered to US military personnel (plus Covid)

Population segment	Vaccine	Vaccine type	Routine schedule for troops*
Trainees	Diphtheria	Toxoid	Single dose
	Hepatitis A	Inactivated	Two doses
	Hepatitis B	Subunit	Three doses
	Influenza	Live or subunit	Annual, seasonal
	Measles	Live	Single dose
	Meningococcal disease	Subunit, conjugate	Single dose
	Mumps	Live	Single dose
	Pertussis, acellular	Subunit	Single dose
	Poliovirus	Inactivated	Single dose
	Rubella	Live	Single dose
	Tetanus	Toxoid	Single dose
	Varicella†	Live	Two doses
	Yellow fever†	Live	Single dose
Routine during career (both active-duty and reserve components)	Diphtheria	Toxoid	Every 10 years
	Hepatitis A	Inactivated	Two doses
	Influenza	Live or subunit	Annual, seasonal
	Pertussis, acellular	Subunit	With Td‡
	Tetanus	Toxoid	Every 10 years
Individualized on the basis of deployment or travel to high-risk areas (both active and reserve components), various alert forces	Anthrax	Subunit	Multidose series
	Hepatitis B	Subunit	Three doses
	Japanese encephalitis	Inactivated	Three doses, boosters
	Meningococcal disease	Subunit, conjugate	Single dose, boosters
	Smallpox	Live	Single, every 10 years
	Typhoid	Subunit or live	Dosage varies
	Yellow fever	Live	Single, every 10 years
Individualized on the basis of occupational or personal needs	Haemophilus influenzae type b	Subunit, conjugate	Single dose
	Hepatitis B	Subunit	Three doses
	Meningococcal disease	Subunit, conjugate	Single dose
	Pneumococcal disease	Subunit	Single dose
	Rabies	Inactivated	Three doses, boosters
	Varicella	Live	Two doses

*

Assumes that the basic immunizing series was received earlier in life. Booster doses may be required at appropriate intervals to sustain immunity. Derived primarily from references 8 and 9.

†

Immunization policy varies among military services on the basis of specific needs.

‡

Td, tetanus-diphtheria toxoids (adult strength).

Kindred soul

It was a vigorous drawing of a Wren firing an Oerlikon at an aeroplane flying very low towards her. The drawing was in sepia crayon. The Wren was a broad-shouldered, dark-haired girl, hatless, leaning back upon the strap that held her in the shoulder rings, tense, unsmiling, intent upon the sights.  ...
As she fired the wheels came down; she knew that something had happened but it meant nothing to her. She went on firing and the glass and perspex nose of the cabin shattered, and three bright stars appeared inside the cabin quickly in succession. It reared up suddenly and passed right over the L.C.T.s in a steep climb towards Mastodon; she scrambled round with the gun to get it on a reverse bearing, but now her own ship blanked her fire.
~ Nevil Shute, Requiem for a Wren 

This book is one of my favorites.  I couldn't say exactly why, but when I first read it, I was swept away.  I understood it completely.  I understood her as if she were me.  Kindred souls.  No doubt.  But how can you be a kindred soul with a fictional character?  I don't know, but it is nevertheless true. 
I have dry-fired (or pretend-fired, I suppose) an Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft gun -- an example on the Jeremiah O'Brien, a World War II Victory ship, and one on the Pompanito, a World War II fleet submarine.
I have live-fired a .50 cal. heavy machine gun and the Mk 19 belt-fed grenade launcher, so I can understand the technical details and sensations of firing such a heavy weapon, though, of course, I haven't shot down an airplane and killed the crew.
But I think that I could do it, both from a weapons skill point of view and from an emotional point of view.  I don't think I would freeze up and be unable to fire.  But who knows?  It would depend on the circumstances and my mental state.  By nature, I'm a lover not a fighter and most of the time I was in AFG I was miserable.  Or at least I thought I was.  In retrospect, my time there may have been the high point of

Sighting up the 20 mikemike Oerlikon on the O'Brien.

my life. I know you are not supposed to say something like that -- that falling in love, getting married, having a baby, etc., etc., is supposed to be the high point of your life, but, trust me, none of it compares.

APA President Adams under air attack

In the novel Away All Boats by Adm. Kenneth Dodson, another novel I liked very much and actually learned about how to serve effectively in the Navy from, there is a powerful description of being on-board an APA, troop-carrying attack transport, when it becomes the target of kamikazes. The desperate attempts to shoot down pilots who fight to die by sailors who fight to live was powerfully conveyed.
  I had no trouble imagining myself in the harness of an Oerlikon facing down a dive-bomber that has no intention of pulling up and I have got to shoot it out of the sky.  There is no other option.  Light him up and blow him up.  Or die in the attempt.

 

Better the devil you know?

We chatted outside on the porch after dinner about how things would change if there was a nuclear war and Washington, D.C. and the state capital got destroyed. Would we even know it was my first thought, but then others chimed in with more practical opinions:
No more taxes!
No more expensive and nonsensical requirements and regulations!  If we wanted to open a business, we could just do it.  We could hire whomever we wanted.  Families would have to stick together to take care of the aged and ill, educate and protect children, defend against intruders.
We could enforce our own rights!  (Not sure what that meant, but I think it would be like if you caught a rustler -- yes, they exist! -- you could handle him the way they did 150 years ago, and with no delay).
Then there were more thoughtful considerations:

Would paper money still have value, or would we have to barter or transact with specie?  If a gang of thieves and murderers arose to pillage the countryside, how would we deal with it?  (That one was easy:  we'd form posses or militias and hunt them down and exterminate them.)  But what if an army of raiders swept over the land, like Comanches, Vikings or Huns?  We'd have to build walls and forts, let no strangers who might be spies come near.

And so on. No one thought it would be a disaster.  But some women did worry about life in a lawless world.  The men dismissed that fear.  It was more important that finally we could be left alone to live our lives without being pestered and plagued by politicians and bureaucrats.    I said but the raiders who would prefer to pillage than work would be professional warriors, skilled in warfare and weaponry, violent and cruel.  How could we herdsmen and farmers successfully fend them off?  We'd have to develop our own warrior caste, who would inevitably rule over us, extracting tribute, taxes if you will.  So we'd be back where we started, only without the benefits of an advanced civilization.  No one had an answer to that and the subject was changed.