CRYING THROUGH TEARS

Yesterday morning, I went through a series of emotions which intrigue me to no end. I woke up feeling very tired (turned into a cold which I now have) and embattled. Feeling embattled is a life long state of mind and emotion for me which I uncovered in some counseling I went through sixteen or so years ago. I can first recall feeling embattled when I was four years old and went to live with my grandparents when my folks divorced. The school I went to was in a tough neighborhood and full of bullies, and I started school when I was four because my birthday is in October since I would soon turn five. I was young and tender, so from that day I was embattled, though sometimes I can even imagine that my battle began on the day I was born because my mom and I went through a sixteen hour labor battle. She never had another child so you can imagine how she felt about her one experience of childbirth. I shared that longest day with her. Add to that that I was born in 1937 and some of my earliest memories are of wartime radio broadcasts and of my America being at war with enemies everywhere.

Anyway, yesterday I found myself thinking I would sure like to lie down and sleep and give up the struggle. This is not a suicide wish. It’s just a feeling of exhaustion and wanting rest . . . only eternally. Then I was crying and went to where my wife was getting ready to go to work to share a hug with her. Telling her my tale, I suddenly thought it was all very funny, and so I began laughing while my tears didn’t stop. There I was, laughing and crying together. I don’t think that has ever happened to me before. It’s a new state of mind. Then, in the middle of my epiphany, I realized that this laugh/cry state is a fitting metaphor for the emotional struggle of life and death for everyone: tragicomedy.

Laughing through tears is a very good metaphor for living.

THE SOLDIER IN ME

You think I wasn't aware of soldiering and wartime as a very young child? The top photo is of my dad (kneeling on left) and his three brothers, two of whom went off to serve while the other two stayed behind to build the weaponry that supported the other two. Next photo is me in St. Louis at three, all geared up as a soldier, Sam Browne belt and all. Finally, me at Great Lakes Naval Training Center at graduation, 17 years old, getting into the Navy, between wars so that I never had to fight even though, I thought at the time, I wanted to. Too many WWII movies, you see.

A ROCK WORTH NOTHING

Yesterday, I was listening to public radio and I heard a very interesting thing. Diamonds are really worth nothing. They’re almost as common as rocks. They’re everywhere, and if it wasn’t for the DeBeer’s Company controlling the entire diamond market, the price of diamonds would plummet. They are that damn common. Now, when I look at married women, I look at the big diamonds clunking up their ring fingers, the rocks they’ve come to expect from their fiances, now husbands, and I silently laugh at the gaudy displays of sham wealth on their fingers. I also think a bit about all the crown jewels, those crowns with all those shiny diamonds, really worth nothing. It’s the greatest sham going when you think about it.

NOW HERE’S A REALLY PRECIOUS CARBON-BASED PRODUCT

According to Fareed Zakaria in Newseek, May 22, 2006, p. 41, “Since the mid-1970s the demand for petroleum in Western Europe and Japan has been flat. In the United States it has doubled.”

Can we ask for any more proof that the average American is a lunk-headed idiot than such a fact as that?

The Real Sam Browne Belt

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