So Hostess came upon the idea to resurrect one of the crowning achievements of the twentieth century, their original fruit pie. When first I came across the stack of them sitting quietly in the pantry, I was elated beyond words. Could it really be? As I picked one up, immediately the distinct sound and texture of the wrapper caused my heart to skip a beat. It was just as I remembered. A certain lightness and crispness bordering on crunchy--even the way the wrapper stuck fast to the front of the pie was perfect! But the real test was yet to come.
As soon as I tore open the edge of the wrapper I had the first inkling that something was not right. I swatted down those misgivings immediately. The corrugated paper tray that made the pies slide out so effortlessly was missing. I racked that one up to fears of Obamacare looming on the horizon. But no sooner had I gotten the pie free than I realized my uneasiness was founded. The glaze. There wasn't one. How could that be? The flaky, sticky-sweet glaze that I had to lick off my fingers before the first bite? That most exquisite manifestation of what joy awaited me? How could it be gone? How could it simply not be there? I set aside my bafflement and continued onward.
The first bite.
Had I any self respect I would have tossed the charlatan in the trash straight away. The first bite, notorious for having been just crust and a puff of sweet pastry air was a disaster. Banal. Ho-hum. Entirely forgettable. Those are some of the words that came to mind. And then I beheld the filling. This particular pie was lemon. The lemon was unique in that it was filled with a lip-puckering tanginess and tartness that invariably lead to an involuntary twitch. It was a horrifyingly artificial shade of yellow and opaque as tar. Or it should have been. What I beheld was a citrusy, translucent shade of disappointment. And ne'er a twitch in sight. I even waited for it, thinking it might have been delayed. I'm still waiting for it.
All of this begs the question: Why? Why would they do that? Have they no idea of what those pies represented to generations of children? One of which I had the profound good fortune to belong? My first girlfriend and I bonded over many a Hostess apple pie. Her mother packed one in her lunch every day. And every day she shared that puffy piece of Heaven on Earth with me. If that does not bear testimony to the depths of third-grade love, I cannot imagine what could. But just like puppy love, there can be no substitute for the original Hostess fruit pie. Any marketing department worth its salt would have known that. Instead of using the opportunity to introduce new generations to that three ounce crinkly package of glory, I think all that really came of it was to reinforce the idea that mediocrity is the soup de jour. I could only hang my head and sigh as I polished off that pie and reached for another.
What? Hey, they may have been the embodiment of dashed hopes but they were still chocked full of sugar and preservatives; just what I sought at 2:00 a.m.
Disclaimer: The above are the opinions of myself alone. I do not intend to deter anyone from purchasing and/or possibly ingesting any product marketed or produced by the Hostess brand. And the next time I purchase the above mentioned pies, it will be with my expectations firmly and finely calibrated.
Semper Fi
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Lawn Tractors, Yuppy Coffee and Reliving My Childhood
I cut the grass today. My new John Deere riding mower complete with cupholder...complete with a salted caramel mocha frappuccino. (Let me say that I only yielded to the riding mower out of necessity. How was I to know the new house Allie and I fell in love with would come with a FREAKIN' ACRE OF UNINTERRUPTED GRASS? But I still keep my old push mower for reasons of self-respect.) That said, it is a lot of fun. But I have observed that my neighbors, taming their own private savannas, seem so hurried and aggressive out there on their mowers. Heads down, high gear, hard banking and haul ass back to the garage as fast as possible. I can't understand that approach. I love the monotony; the relaxed concentration that comes over me while keeping an eye on my cutting path. I never imagined a lawn tractor could be so enjoyable.
And that's the magic word: tractor. As soon as I set out on my first pass through the yard, I am taken back to a golden time of my childhood. A time when the grumbling beast upon which I perched was much more deserving of the label "tractor". When the ground over which I crawled was a field being readied for planting or the dirt road home after a day of the same. Often times I was settled on the fender while my father piloted the machine. Now there's something that would have DFACS reaching for their pitchforks and torches these days. But, being on a farm and being practical, my father taught me how to operate the tractor by myself. We never knew when an accident may have befallen him and I was the only one who could get us to help. That was the same reason I learned how to drive a truck when I was eleven. Did I mention it was a golden time of my childhood?
Back to the present for a moment. I was aware of myself assuming the same posture and experiencing a hint of the same joy puttering along on my mower, ( I just can't use the words "lawn tractor" with a straight face. The previous mention was merely for introductory purposes.) as I used to when piloting that enormous Ford; bright blue and shiny, with a vertical exhaust, that bad boy meant business! I have never forgotten the feeling of driving that beast. I've never forgotten the feeling of being a kid on that farm.
I cannot say, by any means, that I was raised in the country. On the contrary, I grew up in the Virginia Tidewater, a coastal industrial area dominated by the presence of the U.S. Navy. There were not many tractors as I recall.
My father retired from the Navy to find himself away from his family almost as much as he was while on active duty. He consulted for the companies that produced the nuclear reactor propulsion systems for the Navy, as he had been such an engineer himself. I don't know the particulars, but I think it was safe to say that he saw his family as more important than atomic energy.
And with that, we headed south. Way south. All the way to the homeplace of his step father. An area that the word "rural" does not even begin to convey the depths of isolation we experienced. Our nearest neighbor was over a mile up the dirt road. And "neighborly" is not a word I'd use to describe him. (Although "inbred hilljack SOB" fits the bill nicely). This was the land where men still gathered on a saturday morning in the back of the local general store to shoot the shit. Where Camouflage was always in style and a gunrack in your pickup truck window was considered standard equipment. In short: it was a ten year old boy's vision of Heaven.
It was a learning experience of the highest order. I learned to chew tobacco, shoot a gun, clean a fish, field dress a deer and that bears are much more frightening up close and personal than you can possibly imagine from watching Animal Planet. But what I learned the most about was my father. Every minute that I wasn't in school, I spent as his shadow. I never asked where we were going, I just hopped in and away we went. After having spent almost all of my life up to then at sea, I felt like I was getting to know him for the first time in some ways. And I wanted to be just like him.
Even now, thirty years later, I can still say some of the best times I recall were spent riding in that huge truck of his, with the squeaky guard on the front, talking his ear off or listening to some bit of wisdom. I loved discussing reactor theory and the elegant design of nuclear propulsion systems as much as I did driving down the road with a .22 pistol between us on the seat. The objective was to locate a bottle in the ditch and, whomever found one would get the pistol and shoot it. Then we'd drive on to the next one and pass the gun over. We could do that for miles. It never got old.
As all things do, our time in the country came to an end for one reason or another. But though I may have left the farm, the farm hasn't entirely left me. It still manifests itself in the posture and attitude I fall into when I crank my lawn mower. I could just as easily be heading out to plow under the north forty as maintaining the pleasingly manicured appearance of my suburban lawn. Although the frappuccino does decidedly anchor me in the present. Real tractors didn't have cupholders anyway. And if they did, it would have held Gatorade or just ice water-something quintessentially blue-collar like that. I should be ashamed of myself and my frilly suburbanized ways to which I've succumbed. But did I mention it was a salted caramel mocha? That's got to count for something, right?
Semper Fi
And that's the magic word: tractor. As soon as I set out on my first pass through the yard, I am taken back to a golden time of my childhood. A time when the grumbling beast upon which I perched was much more deserving of the label "tractor". When the ground over which I crawled was a field being readied for planting or the dirt road home after a day of the same. Often times I was settled on the fender while my father piloted the machine. Now there's something that would have DFACS reaching for their pitchforks and torches these days. But, being on a farm and being practical, my father taught me how to operate the tractor by myself. We never knew when an accident may have befallen him and I was the only one who could get us to help. That was the same reason I learned how to drive a truck when I was eleven. Did I mention it was a golden time of my childhood?
Back to the present for a moment. I was aware of myself assuming the same posture and experiencing a hint of the same joy puttering along on my mower, ( I just can't use the words "lawn tractor" with a straight face. The previous mention was merely for introductory purposes.) as I used to when piloting that enormous Ford; bright blue and shiny, with a vertical exhaust, that bad boy meant business! I have never forgotten the feeling of driving that beast. I've never forgotten the feeling of being a kid on that farm.
I cannot say, by any means, that I was raised in the country. On the contrary, I grew up in the Virginia Tidewater, a coastal industrial area dominated by the presence of the U.S. Navy. There were not many tractors as I recall.
My father retired from the Navy to find himself away from his family almost as much as he was while on active duty. He consulted for the companies that produced the nuclear reactor propulsion systems for the Navy, as he had been such an engineer himself. I don't know the particulars, but I think it was safe to say that he saw his family as more important than atomic energy.
And with that, we headed south. Way south. All the way to the homeplace of his step father. An area that the word "rural" does not even begin to convey the depths of isolation we experienced. Our nearest neighbor was over a mile up the dirt road. And "neighborly" is not a word I'd use to describe him. (Although "inbred hilljack SOB" fits the bill nicely). This was the land where men still gathered on a saturday morning in the back of the local general store to shoot the shit. Where Camouflage was always in style and a gunrack in your pickup truck window was considered standard equipment. In short: it was a ten year old boy's vision of Heaven.
It was a learning experience of the highest order. I learned to chew tobacco, shoot a gun, clean a fish, field dress a deer and that bears are much more frightening up close and personal than you can possibly imagine from watching Animal Planet. But what I learned the most about was my father. Every minute that I wasn't in school, I spent as his shadow. I never asked where we were going, I just hopped in and away we went. After having spent almost all of my life up to then at sea, I felt like I was getting to know him for the first time in some ways. And I wanted to be just like him.
Even now, thirty years later, I can still say some of the best times I recall were spent riding in that huge truck of his, with the squeaky guard on the front, talking his ear off or listening to some bit of wisdom. I loved discussing reactor theory and the elegant design of nuclear propulsion systems as much as I did driving down the road with a .22 pistol between us on the seat. The objective was to locate a bottle in the ditch and, whomever found one would get the pistol and shoot it. Then we'd drive on to the next one and pass the gun over. We could do that for miles. It never got old.
As all things do, our time in the country came to an end for one reason or another. But though I may have left the farm, the farm hasn't entirely left me. It still manifests itself in the posture and attitude I fall into when I crank my lawn mower. I could just as easily be heading out to plow under the north forty as maintaining the pleasingly manicured appearance of my suburban lawn. Although the frappuccino does decidedly anchor me in the present. Real tractors didn't have cupholders anyway. And if they did, it would have held Gatorade or just ice water-something quintessentially blue-collar like that. I should be ashamed of myself and my frilly suburbanized ways to which I've succumbed. But did I mention it was a salted caramel mocha? That's got to count for something, right?
Semper Fi
Friday, October 19, 2012
A Call to Action Leads to a Reflection on Parenting
My daughter woke me from a sound sleep last night. Her incessant slapping of my forehead could have meant anything from, "I'm thirsty" to "aliens have taken my brother". So, erring on the side of caution, I got up, felt her soft little hand grip my finger and let her lead me to the epicenter of the latest drama.
It was worse than I'd feared. Her stuffed puppy was MIA. ( That's 'missing in action' but that doesn't convey the sense of heightened drama I'm going for here.) I'm used to late-night scavenger hunts for the missing passy or thirst-quenching operation. This was a first. Never before had a dear stuffed animal gone missing on my watch. It was unacceptable. It was time to act. I began by going over a mental inventory of her room. The endless expanse of pink, fluffy cuteness that comprised her bed was the most obvious choice to begin conducting operations. But also the most daunting. A puppy could get lost in all that quilted, flowery sweetness. I went in.
The mission was met with a high degree of success and in short order, harmony was restored to her world. I tucked her in and snuggled beside her for a few minutes until she fell asleep. I must have dozed off as well. When I woke up, it was much later and everything hurt from sleeping in a position that was not meant to be maintained by someone of my size on a bed of that size. I opened my eyes to see the most beautiful sight. Her button nose was but a few inches from my own honker. I could hear her gentle, regular breathing. The constant slight motion of the passy in her mouth. And those tremendous, bright eyes I fall in love with every time she looks at me were closed so lightly. I don't know how long I lay there just watching her sleep. My face did start to hurt more than a little from all the smiling I'd been doing in the interim. I knew even then that I was in the midst of those moments I'd remember forever. Not even strapped to a chair, slinging poop at unsuspecting nursing students engaged in their clinicals, forty years hence, could have changed one detail of the memory being made right then. And I was so grateful.
Children are the greatest gift we could ever know. They are also the greatest cause of hair loss, ulcers, drinking to excess and nervous breakdowns, I imagine. But after the toothpaste is scraped off the ceiling; the peanut butter cookie vacuumed from the DVD player and the million other sundry happenings that make up the day-to-day excitement of being a parent, little moments like watching your child sleep, make it all worthwhile. This is not to be confused with "making it all better." Not by any means. Do you know how long it takes to get AIM toothpaste our of the bathroom rug and lid fuzzy? That shit has staying power! And the whole minty-fresh bubble gum smell? What cretin came up with that one, I ask?
So the next time your son clogs the toilet with an entire roll of toilet paper and the shower curtain for good measure, just remember the time he told you that seeing you was the best part of his day. THEN you can proceed to lose your nut and threaten to make him crap in the woods until he's twenty-five. No, there is nothing so fulfilling as being a parent. Nothing I know can has ever brought such satisfaction and meaning to my life. I am forever grateful for my amazing children. Dylan and Piper, daddy loves you so much. Now get that crayon out of your nose and stop wiping your little bare hiney on the sofa arm and get in the bathtub this instant!
Semper Fi
It was worse than I'd feared. Her stuffed puppy was MIA. ( That's 'missing in action' but that doesn't convey the sense of heightened drama I'm going for here.) I'm used to late-night scavenger hunts for the missing passy or thirst-quenching operation. This was a first. Never before had a dear stuffed animal gone missing on my watch. It was unacceptable. It was time to act. I began by going over a mental inventory of her room. The endless expanse of pink, fluffy cuteness that comprised her bed was the most obvious choice to begin conducting operations. But also the most daunting. A puppy could get lost in all that quilted, flowery sweetness. I went in.
The mission was met with a high degree of success and in short order, harmony was restored to her world. I tucked her in and snuggled beside her for a few minutes until she fell asleep. I must have dozed off as well. When I woke up, it was much later and everything hurt from sleeping in a position that was not meant to be maintained by someone of my size on a bed of that size. I opened my eyes to see the most beautiful sight. Her button nose was but a few inches from my own honker. I could hear her gentle, regular breathing. The constant slight motion of the passy in her mouth. And those tremendous, bright eyes I fall in love with every time she looks at me were closed so lightly. I don't know how long I lay there just watching her sleep. My face did start to hurt more than a little from all the smiling I'd been doing in the interim. I knew even then that I was in the midst of those moments I'd remember forever. Not even strapped to a chair, slinging poop at unsuspecting nursing students engaged in their clinicals, forty years hence, could have changed one detail of the memory being made right then. And I was so grateful.
Children are the greatest gift we could ever know. They are also the greatest cause of hair loss, ulcers, drinking to excess and nervous breakdowns, I imagine. But after the toothpaste is scraped off the ceiling; the peanut butter cookie vacuumed from the DVD player and the million other sundry happenings that make up the day-to-day excitement of being a parent, little moments like watching your child sleep, make it all worthwhile. This is not to be confused with "making it all better." Not by any means. Do you know how long it takes to get AIM toothpaste our of the bathroom rug and lid fuzzy? That shit has staying power! And the whole minty-fresh bubble gum smell? What cretin came up with that one, I ask?
So the next time your son clogs the toilet with an entire roll of toilet paper and the shower curtain for good measure, just remember the time he told you that seeing you was the best part of his day. THEN you can proceed to lose your nut and threaten to make him crap in the woods until he's twenty-five. No, there is nothing so fulfilling as being a parent. Nothing I know can has ever brought such satisfaction and meaning to my life. I am forever grateful for my amazing children. Dylan and Piper, daddy loves you so much. Now get that crayon out of your nose and stop wiping your little bare hiney on the sofa arm and get in the bathtub this instant!
Semper Fi
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Jackasses and fruit baskets.
I am a jackass. I have witnesses. They will corroborate my testimony. They thought they were going to be shot at, too.
No one likes to be wrong. But what is worse than being wrong is having to admit it. And apologize. I found myself in exactly those circumstances today. It still pains me to think of the grievous errors in judgement I made. They were legion. And they were all my own.
I own some land in a neighboring county. I was up there earlier in the day to show a potential buyer the property. A couple of other men were meeting us there to discuss matters of preparing the land for a homesite. Firstly, let me say there have been some errors and assumptions made by myself and others as to exactly where the easement allowing access onto my property lies. Just trust me, it is confusing for a couple of reasons not worth going into at the moment. But let it suffice to say that a lot of people have been driving and parking in a nice old lady's front yard thinking it was said easement. Including myself.
Today was no exception. Well, today, she was exceptionally vocal about making it known that we should not have been there. I generally do not respond well to being yelled at by an old woman flapping her arms and threatening to call the sheriff on me. Especially when I am confident that I am on a legal road and visiting my own land. I tried to be direct, succinct and a bit rude as well as I informed her that I was not parking in her yard. Clearly I was on a graded section of road. And proceeded to escort my companions to the property to discuss the business at hand.
Well, in the course of our dealings, new pins were discovered. New insights were gained. The old woman was indeed correct. We were parking in her front yard. Land plats and surveyors are fallible, (and/or lazy). And I realized that I was a jackass. Of prodigious proportions. I owed a tremendous apology to her. And I would have...if it were not for the enormous quantity of righteous indignation stuffed into a XXXXL track suit leaning against my truck. How such a tiny old lady could have spawned such a gigantic son is still beyond me. Though he turned out to be as pleasant and agreeable as he was large, there was no question of his intolerance of what he believed was a disrespecting of his mama. The situation was resolved without any violence nor brandishing of weapons as had been feared by concerned parties. Though I was unable to directly apologize to his mama, as her nerves were already wrecked, she did relay, via cell phone from in the house twenty feet behind us, exactly what she thought of the whole matter.
As I drove home, I couldn't help but think of all little errors and miscommunications that compounded to form an avalanche of inexcusable rudeness. I believe I should present her with a fruit basket and a personal apology very soon.
I can say that, though it was painful to experience, when confronted with my glaring error, accepting that I was indeed in the wrong felt good. I still felt like a total and utter jackass. But I knew that I had won an important victory: the one over my pride. I think if we could rise to the defense of the truly injured party rather that to that of our ego and pride, we would be better for it. Maybe the world would be just that much better, too.
But I still owe her a fruit basket. My wife has made it crystal clear that I'm not getting out of that one.
Don't be a jackass.
Semper Fi
No one likes to be wrong. But what is worse than being wrong is having to admit it. And apologize. I found myself in exactly those circumstances today. It still pains me to think of the grievous errors in judgement I made. They were legion. And they were all my own.
I own some land in a neighboring county. I was up there earlier in the day to show a potential buyer the property. A couple of other men were meeting us there to discuss matters of preparing the land for a homesite. Firstly, let me say there have been some errors and assumptions made by myself and others as to exactly where the easement allowing access onto my property lies. Just trust me, it is confusing for a couple of reasons not worth going into at the moment. But let it suffice to say that a lot of people have been driving and parking in a nice old lady's front yard thinking it was said easement. Including myself.
Today was no exception. Well, today, she was exceptionally vocal about making it known that we should not have been there. I generally do not respond well to being yelled at by an old woman flapping her arms and threatening to call the sheriff on me. Especially when I am confident that I am on a legal road and visiting my own land. I tried to be direct, succinct and a bit rude as well as I informed her that I was not parking in her yard. Clearly I was on a graded section of road. And proceeded to escort my companions to the property to discuss the business at hand.
Well, in the course of our dealings, new pins were discovered. New insights were gained. The old woman was indeed correct. We were parking in her front yard. Land plats and surveyors are fallible, (and/or lazy). And I realized that I was a jackass. Of prodigious proportions. I owed a tremendous apology to her. And I would have...if it were not for the enormous quantity of righteous indignation stuffed into a XXXXL track suit leaning against my truck. How such a tiny old lady could have spawned such a gigantic son is still beyond me. Though he turned out to be as pleasant and agreeable as he was large, there was no question of his intolerance of what he believed was a disrespecting of his mama. The situation was resolved without any violence nor brandishing of weapons as had been feared by concerned parties. Though I was unable to directly apologize to his mama, as her nerves were already wrecked, she did relay, via cell phone from in the house twenty feet behind us, exactly what she thought of the whole matter.
As I drove home, I couldn't help but think of all little errors and miscommunications that compounded to form an avalanche of inexcusable rudeness. I believe I should present her with a fruit basket and a personal apology very soon.
I can say that, though it was painful to experience, when confronted with my glaring error, accepting that I was indeed in the wrong felt good. I still felt like a total and utter jackass. But I knew that I had won an important victory: the one over my pride. I think if we could rise to the defense of the truly injured party rather that to that of our ego and pride, we would be better for it. Maybe the world would be just that much better, too.
But I still owe her a fruit basket. My wife has made it crystal clear that I'm not getting out of that one.
Don't be a jackass.
Semper Fi
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Patriotism: Sooo 18th century
Isn't it funny how one off-hand comment can have much larger impact? Here's a case in point. Last week at work my iPhone was laying out on the desk. A staff member from another department, of whom I think well, noticed the case. It is the American flag. This person glanced at it and commented along the lines of, "Is that your phone? Hm. It's so...what am I looking for? Patriotic." Though the word that I heard was "patronizing". I cannot convey the amused contempt in her voice. I was busy at the time and thought no more about it.
Later that day I replayed the event in my mind. Here was an educated and intelligent woman- easily in her thirties, so I can't pass it off to the idiocy of youth. She enjoys the freedom to choose her residence, career, frozen pizza or East West Bistro for dinner tonight. I am quite certain she is a registered voter and participates in the democratic process of government with relish. Yet the idea of taking pride in the very country that has bestowed such freedoms on her simply because she had the fortune to be born on this soil was something to be held in contempt.
The popular pass time of griping and bitching about our government and its leaders, (I use the term loosely) is not only a tradition in America, it is at the heart of our way of life. It is, in a sense, a right. Voting is just a more formalized and binding version of that. If you do not approve of how our elected officials are doing, or not doing, their job, kick them to the curb when the opportunity presents itself.
Personally, I love to grumble and gripe about government indecision making. But the idea of criticizing and scorning the very institution that allows for such discourse and disagreements is beyond me.
International opinion of America has dropped over the years. I agree that elements of our foreign policy need to be thoughtfully reexamined. Our domestic policies could use some revamping as well. I could spend all day rattling on about what's wrong with this country of ours. I can sum up what makes this nation great. What makes this nation worth fighting for--in the press, the picket lines and the fox holes, is participation. The freedom to choose how we want our nation to be.
I believe our country is in the state of affairs it is because we have decided--however uninformed, that such is how we want it to be. Well, at least the majority of the voting public has made that decision. I am not implying that voters consciously decided that we should be lagging in education, fiscal responsibility, etc. But the choices that were made in elected officials and the decisions those bodies have made are responsible for just such concerns. And if we either continue to give incompetent men and women the power to make these bad decisions, or simply do not oppose them, we are getting exactly what we want. Ignorance is not an excuse for bad decision making on our part. Remember the adage, 'Be careful what you wish for'. Well, there's some truth to that observation.
Forgive me, I digress. Soapboxes are so intoxicating.
Yes, well, the idea that holding our nation and its principles up as objects of scorn is enough to turn my stomach. The idea that such is a matter of fashion is worse. And I think that is what it is: fashionable. National pride is something our grandparents held dear. That is so not in the Now. It belongs in history books, country songs and on redneck bumper stickers. And that in itself is not a bad thing. History books endure. Country music stations are everywhere, for better or worse. And rednecks? They're even in Hawaii.
But these are not the last bastions of nationalism to be found. This country is chocked full of veterans of the armed forces. Every last one of us, at one time in our lives wrote a blank check to Uncle Sam for the amount up to and including our very lives. Most of us never gave that idea a second thought. It doesn't do well to dwell upon such concerns. But there have been many who have paid that amount in full and many more who have yet to do so if this nation is to endure. I don't think the idea of money for college or something better than working fast food are sufficient to cause someone to make such a decision. And I have a suspicion that the more in vogue element to whom such ideals as national pride, honor and sacrifice are objects of ridicule have never spent a single day in any branch of the military.
Imagine that.
Let me wrap this up, the kids are starting to lay siege to the pantry. It could get ugly in short order.
So, if you are of the mindset that patriotism, pride in your nation and the boundless opportunities that this great nation of ours presents to us, are hokey, contemptuous and antiquated, just remember that those values are exactly why you can voice so loudly and frequently, said opinions. And after you've pondered that one for a bit, please shuffle off to Hell.
A special note of thanks to all who serve or have ever served. Who believe that some things for which fighting and even dying are not too much to ask. You have the gratitude of a larger share of this nation and its people than you may suspect.
Semper Fi
Later that day I replayed the event in my mind. Here was an educated and intelligent woman- easily in her thirties, so I can't pass it off to the idiocy of youth. She enjoys the freedom to choose her residence, career, frozen pizza or East West Bistro for dinner tonight. I am quite certain she is a registered voter and participates in the democratic process of government with relish. Yet the idea of taking pride in the very country that has bestowed such freedoms on her simply because she had the fortune to be born on this soil was something to be held in contempt.
The popular pass time of griping and bitching about our government and its leaders, (I use the term loosely) is not only a tradition in America, it is at the heart of our way of life. It is, in a sense, a right. Voting is just a more formalized and binding version of that. If you do not approve of how our elected officials are doing, or not doing, their job, kick them to the curb when the opportunity presents itself.
Personally, I love to grumble and gripe about government indecision making. But the idea of criticizing and scorning the very institution that allows for such discourse and disagreements is beyond me.
International opinion of America has dropped over the years. I agree that elements of our foreign policy need to be thoughtfully reexamined. Our domestic policies could use some revamping as well. I could spend all day rattling on about what's wrong with this country of ours. I can sum up what makes this nation great. What makes this nation worth fighting for--in the press, the picket lines and the fox holes, is participation. The freedom to choose how we want our nation to be.
I believe our country is in the state of affairs it is because we have decided--however uninformed, that such is how we want it to be. Well, at least the majority of the voting public has made that decision. I am not implying that voters consciously decided that we should be lagging in education, fiscal responsibility, etc. But the choices that were made in elected officials and the decisions those bodies have made are responsible for just such concerns. And if we either continue to give incompetent men and women the power to make these bad decisions, or simply do not oppose them, we are getting exactly what we want. Ignorance is not an excuse for bad decision making on our part. Remember the adage, 'Be careful what you wish for'. Well, there's some truth to that observation.
Forgive me, I digress. Soapboxes are so intoxicating.
Yes, well, the idea that holding our nation and its principles up as objects of scorn is enough to turn my stomach. The idea that such is a matter of fashion is worse. And I think that is what it is: fashionable. National pride is something our grandparents held dear. That is so not in the Now. It belongs in history books, country songs and on redneck bumper stickers. And that in itself is not a bad thing. History books endure. Country music stations are everywhere, for better or worse. And rednecks? They're even in Hawaii.
But these are not the last bastions of nationalism to be found. This country is chocked full of veterans of the armed forces. Every last one of us, at one time in our lives wrote a blank check to Uncle Sam for the amount up to and including our very lives. Most of us never gave that idea a second thought. It doesn't do well to dwell upon such concerns. But there have been many who have paid that amount in full and many more who have yet to do so if this nation is to endure. I don't think the idea of money for college or something better than working fast food are sufficient to cause someone to make such a decision. And I have a suspicion that the more in vogue element to whom such ideals as national pride, honor and sacrifice are objects of ridicule have never spent a single day in any branch of the military.
Imagine that.
Let me wrap this up, the kids are starting to lay siege to the pantry. It could get ugly in short order.
So, if you are of the mindset that patriotism, pride in your nation and the boundless opportunities that this great nation of ours presents to us, are hokey, contemptuous and antiquated, just remember that those values are exactly why you can voice so loudly and frequently, said opinions. And after you've pondered that one for a bit, please shuffle off to Hell.
A special note of thanks to all who serve or have ever served. Who believe that some things for which fighting and even dying are not too much to ask. You have the gratitude of a larger share of this nation and its people than you may suspect.
Semper Fi
Friday, October 12, 2012
Is this thing on?
Ahem...Did anyone else feel a sense of crippling gravity when you saw that little block that asked for your name? Several ideas went though my head. Swanky the Abomination was a real contender. But I decided on one that was more relevant overall. I still have a certain attachment to Swanky....
I grew up in the days of journals in spiral notebooks. That was the tried and true method of expression. And letters. The ones on paper. But I think I like the idea of the blog. In time, many of you hapless innocents, who wandered in here unsuspectingly may disagree-vehemently. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I'm going to give you a break today. The cat's in the garage. I think she's trapped under the lawnmower. Or she may just be a pain in the ass. She's not responding to the bag of treats. I'm leaning towards the latter. But duty calls. Hope to be back soon.
No, that was not a thinly-veiled threat.
Semper Fi
I grew up in the days of journals in spiral notebooks. That was the tried and true method of expression. And letters. The ones on paper. But I think I like the idea of the blog. In time, many of you hapless innocents, who wandered in here unsuspectingly may disagree-vehemently. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I'm going to give you a break today. The cat's in the garage. I think she's trapped under the lawnmower. Or she may just be a pain in the ass. She's not responding to the bag of treats. I'm leaning towards the latter. But duty calls. Hope to be back soon.
No, that was not a thinly-veiled threat.
Semper Fi
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