December 15th at the Wall

Today, Washington DC had the last mild day it can expect for many months. It was fifty degrees, overcast but beautifully mild for mid-December. After a couple of other stops near the National Mall, I walked over to the Vietnam Memorial -- "The Wall". This was my first visit, though the expectation was tempered by the many articles and programs I have seen and read over the years.

I found the name and location of the one person I knew personally who had died in the Vietnam war and I walked down the Eastern incline and up halfway West to panel twenty-five and found his name. I was surprised that the memorial did not affect me as I had anticipated. I stood for awhile, you can see your own image reflected in the black polish stone. On a cloudy day like today, the image is a washout, ghost-like. Eventually I drifted back down to the center and deepest part of the memorial. I watched my own reflection blur and fade as the sunlight weakened. My image reflected through the names of those lost over there.

After a time, I looked up the eastern ramp to my right, it was empty all the way to the top. I turned my head to see a couple leaving the western entrance... I was alone at the bottom of the Maya Lin's black monument. There was the moment I had anticipated for many years and yet there was no revelation, we all know the question that still lingers with our generation. What folly, what arrogance, what failing of national character was it that brought us to a black granite wall with fifty-eight thousand names carved upon it?

To question why can be the only responsible reaction, but we have failed to answer that simple question. Shall we begin plans now for the Afghanistan Memorial Wall. How many administrations will be brought low by that war and how many names will be hammered into another cold slab of rock.

And still we have not answered the question -- why?

A Stop Along the Way

There are certain times and places where the only appropriate action is simply to pause. Back in Michigan a few weeks ago I went to my parents graves with one of my brothers. I am not overly sentimental about final resting places or mortal remains. It seems improper to attach so much reverence and import to the material while obscuring the expansive nature of the spiritual, however you define it.

On the other hand, there are events of such life changing import that a commemoration of them seems necessary and of the highest importance; as they say: Less We Forget. For those of my generation such a time and such a place come together at the Vietnam Memorial on the Mall in Washington DC. I am headed there to honor those who died in Vietnam and those who served there and still suffer from the exposure. A black gash in the ground reminds us of the dark wound in our collective souls.

I always add when talking about the Vietnam War, should you not know or perhaps poorly remember, there is a singular book that remarkably captures what happened to us all back then. I cannot recommend another piece of literature more highly: A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan.

Discarded Opening to a Story

I suggested to a writer friend the other day that all of the words his editor had so viciously and heartlessly ripped out of his new book would make several great blog posts. So taking my own advice, here is an opening that never was:

Book publishers want every book to start with a blockbuster opening line that leads off a smashing first paragraph at the beginning of a stunning chapter one that grabs the audience by their collective hearts, minds or other appropriate body parts. It’s just the way things are expected to be done in the publishing business.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." You may never have actually read a Tale of Two Cities, but I’ll bet you recognize that famous opening line.

Then there is that story about a big albino fish. Hundreds of thousands of high school and college students have dashed their heads on the shoals of Moby Dick, never to reach the final chapter. Yes OK, he was not a fish; a big white wet mammal. The point is the story opens with no mention of whale nor ship nor mad ship’s captain. Moby Dick begins with "Call me Ishmael."

Perhaps the most ludicriously infamous opening line: "Twas a dark and stormy night" actually" does begin an 1830 novel. A novel now remembered for those six words and nothing more. This iconic line now stands for every overly dramatic attempt to do exactly what every publisher wants you to do with the opening of every book—write a memorable first line!

Now should your story begin quietly or slowly, you won’t have an exciting opening, well then you use a flash forward; drop the reader into an exciting scene from later in the story. A hot sexual liaison would be a real grabber, a sudden gory murder even better. Seems violence sells better than sex and you don’t loose the moral majority of readers with a murder but you might with a tawdry Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer or Tiger Woods.

The key to the flash forward is, of course, the impending flashback. At the penultimate moment of your over-written flash forward, when the hook is set and the reader is putty in your literary hands, you flash back to the beginning of your story. You know the lines, the one’s that make you cringe and think: Ah shit, now we have to hear about the childhood.

"Bob grew up on a sprawling family dairy farm in the dreary hinterlands of Iowa." Now we have to hear about Bob’s mom and dad and don’t forget Aunt Rachel. Does everyone skip ahead at this point or is it only me? I mean we all know that Bob’s story doesn’t get interesting until he arrives in Singapore, so do we really need the details of the 5 AM milking regime back in Iowa?

"Millie was a quiet, bookish child; who had never ventured beyond the hedge at the end of the crushed limestone drive." Now that’s a bit better, the crushed limestone drive at least gives us the sense that the writer is going to be visually entertaining, but still – inevitably here come Millie’s parents and her dog Sissy too. The fact is that some really great stories are simply really slow starters.

All of this by way of saying that my story does not begin with a bang, a boom or a thump of any kind. This story begins in Las Vegas, just west of the Strip on the other side of Interstate 15, at the Extended Stay Hotel on Valley View Drive.

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credit: fineartamerica.com

Open Post to My Boomer Buddies

On my travels this year I have spent quality time with many friends old and new, family too. I have observed what I believe is a silly and yet serious affliction among many of my friends, all of whom are charter members of the baby boomer generation. I admit I am a member of this club, so I am outing everyone including myself. The one and only trait we all share to qualify for membership is silence.

Silence about our health.

Why is everyone so reluctant to talk about the afflictions of the inevitable aging process? Yes, I know we have all, at one time or another, joked about family gatherings where the "olde folks" sit around and share their latest diagnosis. We aren't "that old" yet, are we?

Maybe this is a manifestation of the cult of individuality which we all grew up in. Perhaps it is just not wanting to inflict our decrepitude on our friends; but quite frankly it's also a potential killer. I may know something about your syndrome, symptom or affliction that you do not. We all run in different circles of health, education and treatment. But we can't share what we don't know exists.

So my friends, speak up. Talk to your friends, your loved ones, your physicians, healers, shamans, herbalist, medicine women, sorcerer, medico and/or witch doctor. If none of them are available, I am.

Please speak up. There are lots of adventures still to be had, stick around and share some of them with me.

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Cartoon by Liza Donnelly in The New Yorker

Apogee in Atlantic City

This week my trip has reached its geographic apogee. I am the furthest I will be from where I began, whether I mark that beginning as Las Vegas or San Francisco. As a dear friend told me, I have begun the arc of return. While its still probably at least seven weeks until this chautauqua ends, I do feel a change in the pulse of my wandering. The hum has become a strum.

For one thing I saw a thermometer yesterday morning that read 19 degrees. That kind of weather I am joyfully leaving behind. There is a big storm moistening California preparing to move across the country. Everywhere I have been thus far is directly in the broad, white path of this first full-fledged winter assault. While I am not ready to run for Florida quite yet, I am going to head south by the end of the week as far as Virginia, but that should be southerly enough to dodge any drifts of white snow or patches of black ice.

The family phase of my journey has ended and now I will be imposing myself on old college friends and recent poker buddies. And yes, I am playing a bit of the old poke' myself. Today I demonstrated clearly that playing tournament poker is not like riding a bicycle. You actually do get rusty and can fall off causing injury to your wallet. Guess I should have tried the tournament with training wheels or perhaps the ladies bike without that damn ball busting middle strut.

Tomorrow a stroll on the Atlantic City boardwalk in what promises to be weather well above freezing and somewhat below Chamber of Commerce mild. Methinks the salt water taffy will be about as brittle as my last blind date.

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Art Credit: Apogee from DeviantArt.com

The Divine Comedy (canto IV): Lust

It seems you can get over the river and through the first ring of hell before you are actually judged. Well that's not completely accurate, clearly you have been ajudged to be a somewhat lacking in virtue humanoid, after all you have been condemned to hell. But as of yet you have not been assigned your rightful place in hell. So if you get as far as the borderline between ring one (limbo) and ring two (lust) you will encounter Minos.

Minos will wrap his tail around his body signifying the appropriate circle of the Inferno for you, somewhere between circle two and ring nine. There are no really good explanations nor any manuals that explain how double-sinners are dealt with. It is unclear if you get dual citizenship to two or more rings of hell. I guess it's the mystery which makes it all the more worse.

But enough of these preliminaries, let us get to some crime and punishment. The second circle of hell is reserved for those who have committed sins of lust. Seen in the medieval mind as a betrayal of reason, those who have sin through lust have allowed themselves to be swayed by desire and have had their lives rules by giving into lust. In the second circle it is always light, no darkness to hide you or your sins, hell you might try it again. But the chief punishment here is a gale force wind that pushes the lustful sinner about constantly. Metaphorically the lust blew you about in life and pushed you off the course of reason and purity; therefore, you will be pummeled for eternity by the wrathful winds of the Inferno. The winds are unquenchable, just as were your unbounded lustful desires. Actually, a fairly tame punishment for lust; but a I guess after an eon or two, even a big wind can get really annoying.

Next, I may need to take a divine break from the Inferno, I am about to begin traveling again and distracting myself with other deadly sins. Best to convert our inspection of Dante to an ongoing project. Besides the cards and letters keep coming in wanting a more light-hearted tenor to the blog. I wonder if these folks don't click on enough of my embedded links.

The Divine Comedy (canto III): Limbo

The picture above pictures Dante and his guide Virgil conversing with Ovid, Homer and Horace before the castle of Limbo. Its seems that the first ring of hell (limbo) is not such a bad place. In the Christian view none of the horrific punishments to be dealt out in the subsequent circles of hell can hold a beeswax candle to not being in the presence of the lord. So the first ring of hell is actually quite a nice place environmentally; lots of green fields and a cool seven-sided castle, just no direct contact with the supreme being.

In Limbo we find virtuous pagans, unbaptized babies and everyone who lived and died before the birth of christ.* This includes the pictured philosophers above as well as Julius Caesar, Socrates, Aristotle, even Virgil himself. Apparently even in the 12th century there was a celebrity culture, but at least back then philosophers were valued more highly than NBA players or movie stars.

As far as the Circles of Hell are concerned, Limbo provides the best example of how historical interpretation determines the "truth" of contemporary doctrine. When I was growing up in a nominally catholic tradition, limbo was the place where unbaptized babies went, never to have the chance to enter heaven. Limbo, in this story, was not part of hell but rather some spiritual cul-de-sac. However, as we see in The Divine Comedy, Limbo is clearly in The Inferno but in a very balmy neighborhood, who knew? A few years back the catholic church decided that limbo didn't really exist because it was an "unduly restrictive view of salvation." Apparently the infallible teachings of about thirty or so popes was not exactly spot on and now the whole notion of limbo has been banished to ... well, limbo.

So just to be clear. There is an antechamber (wasps and hornets) to hell, which is not a waiting room because you never get in and the first ring of hell may not actually exist. Does this mean that unwitting new arrivals, jangled by the boat ride with an apparently argumentative Charon, might these newly condemned souls step into the void that once was limbo and plummet out of The Inferno into? Where exactly do you go when you are cast out of hell? Ponder that one until tomorrow.

Next time some real punishment in the Second Ring of Hell - Lust.

*Pondering the statement: everyone who lived and died before the birth of christ. I wondered just how crowded Limbo would be and tried to google an answer to the question: "Approximately how many people lived before Anno Domini?" Not surprisingly this depends on whether you are a old time religion person or an evolutionist. The numbers changed based on how many children families had in 2500 BCE and whether Noah lived to be 900 years old; and then there is the matter of the great flood, the drowning of nine billion and the near extinguishment of the human race. Anyways, Limbo is crowded but I hear they are adding an eighth side to the castle with condos overlooking the second circle of hell (lust), which actually might be a selling point; either that or they are moving the whole thing to Las Vegas and changing its name to City Center basically the same view.

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photo credit: worldofdante.org