Eleven Eleven

I don't feel moved to add my noise to the prevailing sentiments about Veterans Day. I am in line with them. I just have some odd thoughts to share.

In Fussbook, a friend thanked another friend for his service. I had no idea the latter had served. I thought he was in college at thirty for the same reason I was: slow starter, other things to do, etc. It then occurred to me that I didn't go to college early on because I thought of it as a lazy way to get established. When I was twenty-ish, I had this idea that a man should forge his own path and that college was a cop-out. I felt the same way about joining the military. I wanted to do it my way with nobody's help. In time I grew up and went to school anyway, and in hindsight could see that meanwhile I hadn't done shit.

Anyway, my odd thought is that for a lot of people, joining the military really was a cop-out. They honestly had nothing else to do. It was their one and only ticket out of the old neighborhood. But this isn't a popular thing to notice on Veterans Day, so I didn't say anything. Not there. Here instead.

Part of me has always regretted I didn't sign up. I understand why I didn't: I grew up in anti-war, anti-establishment, anti-military 1960s/70s Berkeley, and at eighteen had a vision for my life that centered around city life and writing weird fiction. It could be interesting to speculate what I would have done had I stayed in that mindset. I'm not sorry, however, that I soon discovered rock music, hot rods, and shapely women, and discovered that school represented access to a decent job hence access to that life. Of course I continued to grow, dropped the hot rods, picked up a wife, ya da ya. So life goes, from one developing inspiration to another and never truly settling in. But I would still like to have managed to place military experience in the story.

Also on Fussbook, a friend we have to call Ned used a picture of poppies in a field for his background today. Of course it is a reference (probably a picture of) Flanders Fields, and so of course I spent a little while looking for a good picture of Ned Flanders to drop into comments. But then I decided that was just not appropriate and let it go. Except I didn't let it go, obv, so here.

I also spent a little time trying to find pictures that were appropriate. I thought I had a small box of old pictures but I couldn't find it. I wanted to find one of my grandfather in his WWI uniform. I have a lot of such things but they are away in a storage unit and not readily accessible. Maybe some other year.

* * *

Last night's post was kind of moody. I am now in public semi-repudiation thereof mode.

* * *

"... a job hence access to that life."

It's funny now to see that as a guy in his early 20s I saw fast cars and sexy women as accessible to me only if I had a decent steady income. Of course there is no shortage of young men who know there is no such requirement. It says a lot about the person I somehow became, and possibly still am, that I saw it that way. Intuitively I know there's a connection between that outlook then and my concern I remain steadily employed today, something ill-confident and conservative that fears that letting go of the big responsibilities would close doors I can't reopen. This is probably genetic in some way, as my father and grandfathers were steady working men all their lives and never really did anything risky. Something in me wants, and has always wanted, to jump over the chasm into some sort of free, wild, creative lifestyle, but it appears I can't really leap. Instead I have to use the bridge ... and keep one foot on it.

Analogies are fun, apt or not. And I think this subject is one that's been covered in private conversations but not in public so my meaning or its relevance might not be entirely clear. That's okay. It's a blog. This is what you get.