Tuesday, May 29, 2007

What we thought we heard

The other morning I was piled up on my sofa, eating my breakfast with TVland playing (I'm still lost, lost, lost in the mornings without Imus-alas, that's another post). Anyway, a commercial for a snack food came up and I swannee, I heard them say 'Jesus sticks'.

Now, I'm as up for a tasteful, well-done sacriligious joke as the next one, but I gotta say, I believe I have a problem with 'Jesus sticks'.

Turns out they were advertizing Cheezit Cheese Sticks. Which, all right then.

Monday, May 28, 2007

On this Memorial Day

Donald W. Swoyer
May 28th, 1938-January 29th, 2006
US Navy
Service on the USS Forrestal
From today's State Newspaper:
The Friday ceremony
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY - McClatchy Newspapers

Memorial Day weekend is the beginning of summer fun for most Americans, and as I’ve done before, I want to pause to take note of the real reason there is a Memorial Day.
It’s meant to honor and pay our respects to those Americans who’ve given their lives in service to our nation, who stand in an unbroken line from Lexington’s rude bridge to Cemetery Ridge to the Argonne Forest to the beaches of Normandy to the frozen Chosin Reservoir to the Ia Drang Valley to the sands of Kuwait to the streets of Baghdad.

Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.
This week, I’m turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here’s Lt. Col. Bateman’s account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Web-log of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Web site.

“It is 110 yards from the “E” ring to the “A” ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.
“This hallway, more than any other, is the ‘Army’ hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew. Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area. The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares.

“10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

“A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.

“Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden... yet.

“Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier’s chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

“Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

“11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. ‘My hands hurt.’ Christ. Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway — 20, 25, 30. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.
“They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

“There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war bride pushing her 19-year-old husband’s wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son’s behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.
“These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.” (Copyright 2007 by Robert Bateman; reprinted here by permission.)
Thanks, Bob, for this Memorial Day gift.

Mr. Galloway is the former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

This whole 'dating' thing

And what I mean by that is this whole 'not dating' thing. The funny thing is, the expectation that I be dating, or 'have a friend' (this is a new one--must be some new middle-aged single parlance) comes from most of my circle of co-workers, close neighbors and friends.

It's not a question of ready/not ready because let's be honest. Who is ever ready to date? Name a system that is more awkward, miserable and emotionally scary than dating. Go ahead, I've got time. Yep, me neither.

I'm mystified by their expectation. They're lovely people who care about me, but they are also, apparently, blind. I believe in being pragmatic, realistic. I see me for what I am--and I see myself the way men see me. Plain, fat and middle-aged. And based on my perusal of men's profiles on a couple of the dating sites, guys want 'average, athletic, toned'. There are a few who say 'curvy' but what they mean by that is skinny with big boobs*. The other (decidedly amusing) hallmark of their profiles is the age range of women they're looking for. Almost to a man it's 25-40. I'm talking about guys who are 45+ years old. Yes, they want to date 25 year-olds. And they do. Because they can.

I'm finally getting to the point where I'm re-finding my own rhythm in turns of living & being alone again. All those years of my twenties when I didn't date, I found contentment in doing things by myelf. It was all I knew. It's been harder this time around because I know the difference between being alone & not being alone. The trick to being alone this time around is to learn how not to compare it to what I had with my late husband.

My point, and I do have one, is that I know my friends mean well, and they ask because they care about me and don't want me to be lonely; they want me to be out, having fun, enjoying some companionship. I wish I could find the way to gently tell them how much it hurts when they ask me about dating, because all it does is reinforce how lonely I am and how unrealistic 'dating' is, for me anyway.

*Big boobs I got. Skinny, not so much.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

I sort of

imploded the original randomsoutherner. Don't ask how. I'm not teknerlogiklee inklind. Case in point: the still-unassembled tabletop charcoal grill here in my front room that I had hoped to cook my Memorial Day t-bone on tomorrow.

But the itch to get back on this blogging thing has been at me for the past week or so and here I am.

My old blog talked a lot about, well, mostly blather. There were some nice posts on there about my life with my late husband. And a few nifty little fiction pieces I wrote. There were three or four folks who found it amusing. Hopefully they'll come back.