I am aware that people who read one of my blogs do not, as a rule, read the others. Not a problem. I wanted to divide things so that people who liked, let us say, music, would not have to suffer through political polemics. But sometimes, there is a thought or event that sneaks up on me and smites most aspects of my thought processes. Thus, I am going to post this in the three blogs in the hope of getting some of the good advice that several musings have generated.
As always, more background than I probably need to provide.
Back in the middle 1960's, I was part of the Great Folk Music Scare. Lacking the talent to go out as a solo act, I had accepted the help of my "cousin" (no real relationship, I had just moved in with his family so I could go to school in that area, and the bogus family titles helped explain things) as possibly the least talented sideman available. This helped me deal with my insecurity while ensuring I wasn't going to be accused of being the source of the worst of the off-notes. Granted, this was Folk, and we could always claim we were going for a more "ethnic" sound, but that was difficult to claim with a straight face. Michael, for such was his name, decided the whole music gig was a great way to meet girls, so he kept trying to recruit girl singers. At the same time, we added a part-time singer/guitarist who was far more talented that he knew, so I was able to get through rehearsals and performances without what had become the obligatory indigestion. It also didn't hurt that his sister sang as good as she looked, so I was able to keep that side of the dynamics steadier.
Throughout this time, there was a girl who had a voice like an angel, a killingly sharp wit, and a beauty that could make you start believing in Higher Powers. We were friends. We never made the leap into any deeper relationship, other than one night after I had returned from overseas planning to marry a girl who said she loved me beyond all reason. Problem was, she had found a reason, and had been dating him since two days after I left to go overseas. My friend and I spent the rest of my leave time together, and it became obvious (at least to me), that there was, and of a right ought to be, more to the relationship. When I got back to my duty station, I found a letter from a mutual friend suggesting I stay away from this young lady, since she was in a relationship with a good guy, and didn't want to tell me. I wouldn't have minded, I suppose. I knew the guy, he was a great person, and he had survived a major motorcycle accident a year or so before .... which in my social circle was only slightly less impressive than getting clobbered by a bull at Pamplona. So I let her alone, told the friend I only wanted her to be happy, and generally spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.
Between 18 months and two years after that, my pseudo-cousin told my parents that my friend had died, in a car accident, with her new husband (the guy mentioned above). They didn't tell me for some months, since my wife was having major trouble adjusting to life in the States, and had developed a massive case of retroactive jealousy.
So here's part one of what I'm having trouble with. Not long before I had the news of her passing, I was sure I had spent an afternoon talking with her after classes at Spokane Falls Community College, Spokane, WA. At the time, it felt as we were playing roles that started with "if we pretend to be strangers, we can avoid the hurts of the past." Given that I felt (and feel) that I was a total jerk in letting a good relationship go, that seemed to be reasonable. But since I doubt I spent a cold afternoon standing in a wind-swept parking lot talking to a ghost, there must be another explanation. Reverting to a habit I hope I've left behind, I came up with a few reasons to put it out of my mind, and let the whole thing stay buried.
So part two is equally perplexing. Roughly three weeks ago, I saw the lady's name on a new alumni site. She's apparently married, happy, and living at the far side of the country. I made a token effort at sending her a Facebook "friend request," which was ignored. Now that makes sense. She's probably forgotten the whole episode. But the memory of that afternoon in Spokane still haunts me. Was it she? Was I letting my admittedly depressed mind hang a major experience on a chance resemblance of appearance, voice, and mannerism?
The smart part of my head says to let it all drop into the Great Well of Lost Chances (AKA the Slough of Denial), and keep it all in balance that way. The stupid, jerk-like portion of my head says I should come up with some witty way to ask "if you did not, indeed, die, what is the story behind the apparition I witnessed in Spokane?" And then there is The Middle Way. A very long time ago, on multiple occasions, I was unintentionally cruel to a person who deserved much better. Just about anything I do at this point runs the risk of causing further hurt. Given that, my path would seem to stay out of her life, while making the assumption that our conversation was some sort of necessary moment of closure. Any thoughts? Replies here or by e-mail would be good.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Reflections on a changing world (started WAY too long ago)
Reflections on a changing world??? Egad, that IS pretentious. But what the heck, it's my blog, and I'll bloviate if I want to (cue the Leslie Gore intro; fade out). I'll try and keep it in line henceforth (within this entry, at least). Or possibly not. We shall observe.
In this series of occasional items, I am trying to hold on to the memory of events before they slip into that interesting cloud of names, dates, and impressions that lives just out of reach. I was informed all this is normal: something to do with chronological enhancement.
The other day, I had a note on Facebook from my friend, Steve Login. We just recently reconnected, but I go back farther with him than with any non-relative. We're talking grade school. That may not be a big deal for some of you. In my case, it's monster. I was in something like eight schools between Kindergarten and Grade Four. Add in the detail that I was born in New Hampshire, and these schools were in California, and you get the picture. You don't pick up a lot of social skills when you spend the first quarter of your school years being the new kid a couple times per year. It also doesn't help when you get told you talk funny. Anyway, Steve and I go a long way back, and he is a fascinating person who has done all kinds of neat stuff.
So the other day, I had a letter from Steve asking an interesting question. I'll reprint it here, rather than trust my memory (which is, after all, part of the purpose here):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike -
I haven't been on FB for awhile, so I've taken some time catching up on past posts from people.
I wonder, given your views, how did you survive social/politically in the Air Force? Views like yours are rare among the military, closer to the typical artistic type that I worked with (which, you really are). You must have had some heated, but well-argued, conversations; or kept your views completely off the base.
Take care, Steve
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've spent the last few weks going over what I remember of my military days, and comparing those times to what I have observed as a quasi-outsider since my retirement. I come to the conclusion that I would have had far more difficulty in being successful (to a given value, the which I shall rise to explain later) had my service started in 1992 instead of having ended there.
For those whose memories are no better than mine, I enlisted in 1966, was commissioned in 1978, and retired in 1992.
Actually, I think the Air Force and I came out of our relationship at about level pegging. I had the opportunity to live in a number of interesting places, meet a lot of good people, have a family, and advance my academic credentials from a handful of Community College Credits and a High School Diploma I truly believe they gave me so I wouldn't come back to an Undergrad degree in Administration, a Grad degree in Management, and a wall-full of specialist certs. In return, I did the best job I could, ensured my replacement could do more with less than my predecessor, mentored a number of subordinates (several of whom went on to accomplish far more than I did -- I'm particularly proud of that), volunteered for a number of programs, got shot at a couple of times, wrote a number of articles for various professional journals, and taught a whole bunch of people.
I didn't get promoted beyond Major, which bothered other people more than it did me. I didn't think I'd make it beyond Captain. Heck, getting selected as Master Sergeant just about floored me.
The military reflected the surrounding society when I enlisted. Nothing new, it usually does (to a variable extent). This was during a period of Selective Service, where military service was (albeit to a lesser extent than during WWII and Korea) a universally-shared experience among males. To be sure, there were people who had deferments from the Draft for any number of good reasons, and there were people who, as a matter of principle, did not participate, and there were even some who lied like rugs (and got their parents and friendly doctors to swear to it) to keep from having to go to the Draft Physicals they knew they would pass, then bragged about being too smart to get caught, then finished up as Tea Party stalwarts. The first two groups, I have respect for; the third, not so much.
When I got to Basic Training (and Technical Training right after that) at Amarillo AFB, TX, I was among a relatively diverse group. Roughly 95% of us arrived by way of the Draft, and the Army's "join with a buddy" thing was not part of the Air Force system. A preponderance of trainees, as now, came from the Southeastern and Midwestern regions. In my training flight (52 trainees), there were five of us who had enlisted in California, six or seven guys from the Northeast, and the rest from everywhere else. Eight, maybe ten African Americans, possibly four or five Hispanics. The trainers had a vast repertoire of racist "jokes" and ethnicity-based "wit" they were happy to share. Most of them had enlisted in the Korean War era, and had the "manly insensitivity" of the time. Within the trainees, there was a small but vocal anti-Semitic group, and a slightly larger (equally vocal) bunch of self-described Rednecks from Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, etc. who described anyone who wasn't in their group as "sleeps with snakes, barks at the moon, and don't love Jesus."
Those two groups did manage to convince several people to depart in the first couple weeks of training, but then they decided to target the African-Americans, and that didn't work out so well. This was right after the Coromantee Brothers Council had held a demonstration over in the tech school protesting institutionalized racism, and the people who ran Basic were already sensitized to the problem when a multiracial group of trainees approached the training staff with complaints. Never quite shut the idiots up, but the trainers did work to keep it down as much as possible. People still sat in ethnically and regionally defined groups at the how hall and the Airmen's Club, but the edges got less sharp, and there was a growing area that was just people.
When I was in Tech School, some guys in one of the barracks got permission to converted the Day Room/Lounge into a Saturday Night Coffee House, and there was a very diverse crown. Open mike (just without the mike) nights and jam nights (jazz, pop, rock, folk, it all depended) alternated, and it seems to me that every night ended with a sort of song circle. My folks shipped me my 6-string banjo, and I was able to sit in most Saturday nights.
After Basic and Tech School, I went to Wiesbaden, Germany for four years. Other than one trip back home in 1967 (so that my fiancee could tell me she was marrying a guy who bragged about lying his way out of service, and he and his dad could spend the next week or so telling me what a chump I was not to take his dad 's offer of a "friendly doctor" signature in the first place), I spent my off time traveling Europe, and hanging out with a mixed group of Yanks (civilian and G.I.), Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, and Germans. Mostly my age, give or take a year or two, with the sense that we were part of a world that was growing closer together. I played guitar and 6-string banjo with a couple of amazingly talented guys, worked with a bunch of other people who took a sort of traveling folk music review to a number of the U.S. bases and posts, did several gigs with Pat Murphy and his All-Star Jug Band, and gained a lot of insight into different ways off seeing the world.
It was fascinating how the German young people had a striking effect on their American counterparts. This was a generation in Germany that fiercely rejected the racism of their past, and any Americans who weren't able to deal with that could jolly well stay on the base. A lot of G.I.s took the latter course, living on the installation, staying there for recreation and socialization, going off base very seldom, and burning their annual leave time to spend maximum time "back in the World." Others, not particularly wanting to hang out with the same people they worked with, pretty much learned to interact. The rest of us, regardless origin, who never did have a problem with externals, got along just fine.
For some reason, the Air Force tended to have fewer intercultural or interracial problems than the Army (at least in those times; certainly hope things have changed). Even so, there was a lot of class time spent on what was variously called "Intercultural Relations," "Intercultural Sensitivity," and similar titles. By the time the name became "Affirmative Action," I was teaching the courses as part of a team.
Backing up slightly: a couple of years after my former fiancee dumped me, I did, indeed, get married. She was an Irish girl I met as part of the various musical activities. We were married in Ireland, and, while we were stationed in Europe, we spent most of our leave time with her parents, cousins, and friends. That would take us up to 1995, a good enough place to stop. More at a later date.
In this series of occasional items, I am trying to hold on to the memory of events before they slip into that interesting cloud of names, dates, and impressions that lives just out of reach. I was informed all this is normal: something to do with chronological enhancement.
The other day, I had a note on Facebook from my friend, Steve Login. We just recently reconnected, but I go back farther with him than with any non-relative. We're talking grade school. That may not be a big deal for some of you. In my case, it's monster. I was in something like eight schools between Kindergarten and Grade Four. Add in the detail that I was born in New Hampshire, and these schools were in California, and you get the picture. You don't pick up a lot of social skills when you spend the first quarter of your school years being the new kid a couple times per year. It also doesn't help when you get told you talk funny. Anyway, Steve and I go a long way back, and he is a fascinating person who has done all kinds of neat stuff.
So the other day, I had a letter from Steve asking an interesting question. I'll reprint it here, rather than trust my memory (which is, after all, part of the purpose here):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike -
I haven't been on FB for awhile, so I've taken some time catching up on past posts from people.
I wonder, given your views, how did you survive social/politically in the Air Force? Views like yours are rare among the military, closer to the typical artistic type that I worked with (which, you really are). You must have had some heated, but well-argued, conversations; or kept your views completely off the base.
Take care, Steve
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've spent the last few weks going over what I remember of my military days, and comparing those times to what I have observed as a quasi-outsider since my retirement. I come to the conclusion that I would have had far more difficulty in being successful (to a given value, the which I shall rise to explain later) had my service started in 1992 instead of having ended there.
For those whose memories are no better than mine, I enlisted in 1966, was commissioned in 1978, and retired in 1992.
Actually, I think the Air Force and I came out of our relationship at about level pegging. I had the opportunity to live in a number of interesting places, meet a lot of good people, have a family, and advance my academic credentials from a handful of Community College Credits and a High School Diploma I truly believe they gave me so I wouldn't come back to an Undergrad degree in Administration, a Grad degree in Management, and a wall-full of specialist certs. In return, I did the best job I could, ensured my replacement could do more with less than my predecessor, mentored a number of subordinates (several of whom went on to accomplish far more than I did -- I'm particularly proud of that), volunteered for a number of programs, got shot at a couple of times, wrote a number of articles for various professional journals, and taught a whole bunch of people.
I didn't get promoted beyond Major, which bothered other people more than it did me. I didn't think I'd make it beyond Captain. Heck, getting selected as Master Sergeant just about floored me.
The military reflected the surrounding society when I enlisted. Nothing new, it usually does (to a variable extent). This was during a period of Selective Service, where military service was (albeit to a lesser extent than during WWII and Korea) a universally-shared experience among males. To be sure, there were people who had deferments from the Draft for any number of good reasons, and there were people who, as a matter of principle, did not participate, and there were even some who lied like rugs (and got their parents and friendly doctors to swear to it) to keep from having to go to the Draft Physicals they knew they would pass, then bragged about being too smart to get caught, then finished up as Tea Party stalwarts. The first two groups, I have respect for; the third, not so much.
When I got to Basic Training (and Technical Training right after that) at Amarillo AFB, TX, I was among a relatively diverse group. Roughly 95% of us arrived by way of the Draft, and the Army's "join with a buddy" thing was not part of the Air Force system. A preponderance of trainees, as now, came from the Southeastern and Midwestern regions. In my training flight (52 trainees), there were five of us who had enlisted in California, six or seven guys from the Northeast, and the rest from everywhere else. Eight, maybe ten African Americans, possibly four or five Hispanics. The trainers had a vast repertoire of racist "jokes" and ethnicity-based "wit" they were happy to share. Most of them had enlisted in the Korean War era, and had the "manly insensitivity" of the time. Within the trainees, there was a small but vocal anti-Semitic group, and a slightly larger (equally vocal) bunch of self-described Rednecks from Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, etc. who described anyone who wasn't in their group as "sleeps with snakes, barks at the moon, and don't love Jesus."
Those two groups did manage to convince several people to depart in the first couple weeks of training, but then they decided to target the African-Americans, and that didn't work out so well. This was right after the Coromantee Brothers Council had held a demonstration over in the tech school protesting institutionalized racism, and the people who ran Basic were already sensitized to the problem when a multiracial group of trainees approached the training staff with complaints. Never quite shut the idiots up, but the trainers did work to keep it down as much as possible. People still sat in ethnically and regionally defined groups at the how hall and the Airmen's Club, but the edges got less sharp, and there was a growing area that was just people.
When I was in Tech School, some guys in one of the barracks got permission to converted the Day Room/Lounge into a Saturday Night Coffee House, and there was a very diverse crown. Open mike (just without the mike) nights and jam nights (jazz, pop, rock, folk, it all depended) alternated, and it seems to me that every night ended with a sort of song circle. My folks shipped me my 6-string banjo, and I was able to sit in most Saturday nights.
After Basic and Tech School, I went to Wiesbaden, Germany for four years. Other than one trip back home in 1967 (so that my fiancee could tell me she was marrying a guy who bragged about lying his way out of service, and he and his dad could spend the next week or so telling me what a chump I was not to take his dad 's offer of a "friendly doctor" signature in the first place), I spent my off time traveling Europe, and hanging out with a mixed group of Yanks (civilian and G.I.), Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, and Germans. Mostly my age, give or take a year or two, with the sense that we were part of a world that was growing closer together. I played guitar and 6-string banjo with a couple of amazingly talented guys, worked with a bunch of other people who took a sort of traveling folk music review to a number of the U.S. bases and posts, did several gigs with Pat Murphy and his All-Star Jug Band, and gained a lot of insight into different ways off seeing the world.
It was fascinating how the German young people had a striking effect on their American counterparts. This was a generation in Germany that fiercely rejected the racism of their past, and any Americans who weren't able to deal with that could jolly well stay on the base. A lot of G.I.s took the latter course, living on the installation, staying there for recreation and socialization, going off base very seldom, and burning their annual leave time to spend maximum time "back in the World." Others, not particularly wanting to hang out with the same people they worked with, pretty much learned to interact. The rest of us, regardless origin, who never did have a problem with externals, got along just fine.
For some reason, the Air Force tended to have fewer intercultural or interracial problems than the Army (at least in those times; certainly hope things have changed). Even so, there was a lot of class time spent on what was variously called "Intercultural Relations," "Intercultural Sensitivity," and similar titles. By the time the name became "Affirmative Action," I was teaching the courses as part of a team.
Backing up slightly: a couple of years after my former fiancee dumped me, I did, indeed, get married. She was an Irish girl I met as part of the various musical activities. We were married in Ireland, and, while we were stationed in Europe, we spent most of our leave time with her parents, cousins, and friends. That would take us up to 1995, a good enough place to stop. More at a later date.
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