The Tyranny Of The Disabled

My recent ride from the airport with my former van company brought back a flood of memories about the two years I spent driving airport shuttles, this one among them, and yes, it's an update of an earlier version:

The baggage compartment of my airporter van was already heaped to the ceiling with luggage when an elderly woman in an electric wheelchair rolled out of the hotel doors and steered for the van.

"Are you going to the airport?" she asked, and mentioned her airline and flight number.

I was, but I would have to radio for a special van to accommodate her and her wheelchair. Should take about half an hour.

"But I’ll miss my flight," she cried.

No, she wouldn't. I knew her flight would not depart for another four hours. We could pick her up in 30 minutes for the ten minute ride to the airport. She would have plenty of time to be hassled by Transportation Security Administration and be personally wheeled aboard her flight ahead of the other passengers by an airport employee.

A good Samaritan among my other passengers decided to be helpful. "Why can‘t you take her?" he asked.

Because the Americans With Disabilities Act and the van company’s insurance policy says I can‘t, that’s why. That answer did not faze the Samaritan. "Oh bullshit," he said. He and another Samaritan got out and began rearranging luggage to accommodate the electric wheelchair, which I knew from experience weighed about 150 pounds. No way I could heft that thing by myself anyway. I radioed the dispatcher.

"The ADA van is in the shop," the dispatcher said. "Do what you can."

Ooookay. While the Samaritans rearranged baggage, I rearranged passengers, making room for the woman in the right front seat where she could grip an overhead hand rail to ease getting in and out, and off we went to the airport, where my first stop was the wheelchair lady’s destination airline. The Samaritans and I unloaded the wheelchair and the wheelchair owner, who started to roll away without paying her fare.

I asked her if she had forgotten something.

"Oh no, I’m fine thank you."

I told her she owed me $17.

"I thought this was a free service," she said. "The hotel said it was."

It is for the hotel van, I explained. This was not the hotel van, and a large sign at the hotel's front desk specified that fact.

"Well, I never heard of such a thing!"

She was hearing it now.

"Does your mother know this is how you treat senior citizens in wheelchairs?"

I said my mother is a senior citizen and meaner than I am. She would have collected the fare up front. The other passengers began grumbling about being late. "Let’s get moving," one of the Samaritans snapped. I bet he gave waiters a bad time to impress a date with his awesome powers of command, which is not a smart thing to do with food servers, or, for that matter, with easily rattled airport shuttle drivers who may suddenly lose all sense of direction and the ability to tell time.

"I want the name of your supervisor," the wheelchair lady said, "and you can be sure he will hear about this!"

Another day in paradise. I sighed and allowed that the woman was free to do as she wished, even roll away without paying, as long as she didn’t mind having some sheriff’s deputies from the airport detail intervene, even if it meant holding up her flight and hauling her and her wheelchair off the airplane to settle the issue. I did not like myself for having to be officious and threatening. A little man with a little power. What a prick.

"Your employer will hear about this!"

It would not be the first time. I gave her my boss’s name and an 800 number she could call to register a complaint. She peeled off a twenty from a roll of them in her purse.

"I hope you weren’t expecting a tip," she huffed when I gave her three dollars back. No, I was expecting her to just roll away and be a pest somewhere else, but I kept professionally silent.

While the elderly woman in a wheelchair was just a garden variety con artist, which is exactly what she was, I had a bigger challenge from a fussy young man with a bristling sense of entitlement carrying a fistful of documents and accompanied by a service dog.

The service dog was the more personable of the two; a Golden Retriever with all the rights, privileges and perks of a seeing eye canine, only the owner was not blind or otherwise physically impaired. He was just clinically insecure and the dog had been prescribed by some licensed quack for emotional support. He even had some official looking papers that said so, which he waved at me when he and dog boarded the van, taking up two seats.

"This says he can ride with me," the man said in a chip-on-the-shoulder tone, shoving the papers in my face in case my eyesight was failing.

Fine, I said.  But the dog rides on the floor, unless the owner wanted to pay a double fare. Also, getting dog hair off the seat is a chore. It sticks to upholstery like iron filings to a magnet, not to mention the next passenger's clothes.

"You can’t discriminate against me and my dog!"

No, but I can charge for the dog occupying a seat unless the dog is on the floor. His call.  He motioned the dog to the floor where it curled up under a seat, which it probably preferred. More room down there.

"I am going to file a discrimination suit against this company!" he said. Swell, in the meantime I wished he would kindly shut up. I wondered if he made his living by collecting out-of-court settlements. I guessed that the dog was his only friend as well as his partner in litigation.

Years ago the preferred breed of service dogs in America was the German Sheperd, but the Golden Retriever proved to have a more tractable disposition and was less prone to hip ailments than the shepherd.  I read somewhere that Golden Retrievers in Russia are trained to nudge people out of seats marked for the use of the disabled on subways and buses if the such people are not accompanied by another Golden Retriever.

Made sense to me, only I sometimes wished I could nudge people with disabilities and attitudes to match off my public transportation; people like the disabled litigant who made a good living suing restaurant owners whose premises did not fully comply with ADA-approved curb and bathroom access until a judge started throwing out his cases. Then there was the wheelchaired guy in Sacramento who was arrested for keying the hoods of cars stopping over the white line in crosswalks, and I'm especially irked by grim Vietnam vets who still dress in cammies and whose Vietnam service was the cardinal event of their lives.

But one vet whose Vietnam tour was a cardinal event was also a hero of mine.  He was the late Brien Thomas Collins, named for the O'Brien side of his family, and better known as B.T.  He was a former Green Beret who'd left an arm and a leg in Vietnam.  He put himself through law school after his army service, became the governor's chief of staff, and saved the then troubled California Conservation Corps from being disbanded by the state legislature in the late 1970s.

B.T. promised only three things when recuiting 17 to 25-year-olds to the CCC: "Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions," which became the official motto of the organization.  In his introductory letter to new recruits, he wrote: "You will be at your job at 8:00 a.m. after you have run five miles, prepared breakfast, and cleaned up your area.  If you are male and are 18 years of age or older, you will register for the draft and you will register to vote, and all of you will donate blood. You will do it my way or hit the highway, and the bus leaves every morning." 

That Corps' motto of hard work, low pay and miserable conditions was the working answer to a question B.T. posed to himself as well as to others:  "Is the world a better place because you were in it?" 

Upshot:  He gave those kids, many of them minorities from the slums, something they did not have:  Pride in themselves and pride in citizenship. The kids loved the guy because they knew he loved them back despite his hardass Captain Bligh noises. They planted millions of trees around the state, cleared public parks, cleaned up urban areas and could always be counted on to help during natural disasters. 

But it was not all sunshine and flowers for the CCCs.  When a news article was published about a female corpsmember being raped in a training center, B.T. made sure the governor and leglislature heard about it first from him personally, thereby defusing a lot of potential criticism resulting from inaccurate third and fourth hand accounts. The Conservation Corps B.T. Collins built survived that crisis and flourishes to this day as a model for similar organizations nationwide.

B.T. had his own problem with the press.  During late night drinking sessions with reporters at his favorite Sacramento dive, he was often critical of Jerry Brown for not having the common touch, for being "out on Uranus" instead down here on the ground, giving credence to Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko's branding of Jerry Brown as "Governor Moonbeam." 

Veteran capitol reporters would no more quote B.T.'s ex cathedra comments about Jerry Brown than White House correspondents would photograph FDR in a wheelchair during his three terms as president.  So the Los Angeles Times dispatched an outsider named Della Stambo to Sacramento to tag along with B.T. after hours.  She accurately quoted every snarky thing he said about Brown.  The resulting story caused B.T. to hide in his office, ashamed to face the staff and his boss.  But the governor proved to be a bigger man than anyone had imagined.  He and the staff prodded B.T. out of hiding and presented him with sheet cake decorated with a likeness of himself with a prosthetic foot in his mouth.

B.T. was a study in contrasts.  One of his former parochial school teachers, a nun, decribed him as "the ornriest son of a bitch I ever loved."  Of himself, he said, "I am not a professional veteran" and was critical of disabled anti-war vets who expected special treatment, especially Ron Kovic, whose story was made into the movie "Born On The Fourth Of July."  While claiming not to be "a professional veteran," he lobbied the legislature and shook down donors to build the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Sacramento's Capitol Park. 

More contrasts:  He was a rock-ribbed Republican running an administration full of Democrats; a tireless advocate for the cause of battered women who occasionally pinched a female bottom with his prosthetic hook;  a political conservative who practiced affirmative action in government;  and a self-proclaimed male chauvinist who was relentlessly ruled by his tiny firecracker of a chief of staff, Nora Romero.  

B.T.'s personal credo was to stop whining and start living, which he did  with zest -- learning to skydive and to swerve down slopes on a one legged ski -- until a heart attack ended his life at age 52 in 1993.  Over 5,000 people including two former governors attended his memorial service on the on the grounds of the state capitol.

So, cammie-clad vets still mentally stuck in the Vietnam war do not bring to a boil any Post Traumatic Stress Disorder simmering in my soul, but they do affect my Present Day Distress Disorder, which I would have developed with or without my military service.  Anyway, the only thing fired at me in anger during the Vietnam war was a bottle of San Miguel beer hurled by a barmaid in the Philippines over some imagined insult.  I wonder if I can get a Golden Retriever service dog as a result of that trauma?

Oh, and hey, if you have time for a very funny, very insightful and very worthwhile book, see if your library has a copy of Outrageous Hero - The B.T. Collins Story by Maureen Collins Baker, his sister, published by Bryce Hill Publishing.  http://www.brycehillpublishing.com/.
 
And yes, B.T., the world is a better place because you were in it.

Comments & Critiques:

There are a lot of NICE disabled people....just sayin'....I always enjoy the Tomatoman Times and am glad you send it to me!  Happy holidays! -- Eve

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Awsome story.  Love you, Mike. Merry Christmas to you. Sending you blessings -- Jeanie

Good.  I needs 'em.  Could you include some cash with those? -- MB
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Another wonderful one -- Julisari
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YOU need to get published!!!! Great writing in so many ways. Funny, insightful, touching. Thanks for sharing. --  Mimi

Nag nag nag.  MB
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Mike: I enjoyed this essay. My wife works at a call center for the Humane Society. She makes appointments at their veterinarian clinics and has some interesting stories to tell about rude,whining customers. She has to tell some of them that the clinics do not treat pets for free, and they do not provide rides for pets. The clinics make a lot of money that is used to rescue abused and suffering animals. The Humane Society also offers animals for adoption as you may know. -- Ken
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Inspired, as always. I continually look forward to mail form TomatoMike. It's like Mrs. Gump's box of chocolates. You truly never know what you're gonna get! -- Beaty
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My dad was one of those tyrannical assholes. and when he didn’t get his way, he would conveniently have chest pains and require hospitalization. which almost always were anxiety attacks, and when someone didnt fall for it all, he would claim a suit and the whole nine yards. Oh I know ALL about it. I loved him, but dayum, I was never so glad to see someone get on a plane. -- Dove
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Great piece...as ALWAYS...thanks Mike....you are so talented!! -- Soy

IthinkIloveyou -- MB
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Beautifully written, as always. Some of my favorite writings of yours include your inner conflict with a-holes. Silencing yours, and suffering theirs. -- Tracy

IthinkIloveyoutoo -- MB
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I have no patience for disabled who use their disability to win favor, win awards and win contests with the pity votes. Case in point DWTS. The guy was a disabled hero. Great. Thanks for your sacrifice, but you weren't the best and most improved dancer. Deaf Lady who acts in movies: You irritate the hell out of me. You aren't that good of an actress. You do a respectable job of acting like a deaf lady who has to use hand signals to communicate...oh wait... Shouldn't be winning awards! Paraplegic client who is working full time, yet collecting Medicaid: You are earning more per week than I am, and you have a hissy fit because I don't have time to do your claim first?

I know, I'm just evil, but I've lost patience with the "helpless" who are less helpless than I am, earning ten times what I am, and treating me bad because I make them wait their turn. Crippled client in wheelchair who has waited three years to file for divorce demanding I stop everything I'm doing to file her paperwork (not yet prepared) today (and it's 3:00 p.m.) already, and doesn't even say thank you when I accomplish it! -- Jana
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Yer doin' a fine job, Brownie!

By the way, I'm currently disabled. Can't walk due to seriously real, severe and painful back condition. I haven't left my apartment since the beginning of summer. I've been unemployed for three years, have gone through unemployment, sold a lot of belongings (like 6 guitars, a mandolin, three amps), and stock and savings gone. I'm currently on SS Disability, for which I am thankful (and for which I paid into over a career of 35+ years) ...

My Medicare kicks in this coming Friday. I plan to head immediately to a neurologist, neurosurgeon, orthopedist ... after years of physical therapy and acupuncuture (which I paid for myself) nothing has improved my situation, which over the last year has seriously declined. That's my disability story and I agree with yours.

By the way, are you syndicated or do you appear in any newspaper or that sort of outlet?
You should be! Is your blog monetized? Margie Summers has been trying to talk me into my own blog to monetize, for years now. I don't want to ... although I made my living until my involuntary and enforced retirement recently, as a writer.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, troop. -- ML

Thank you, Mr. President. I’ve got my nose buried in the VA and Medicare public troughs too, although my little trubbles are not as severe as your back pain, and I hope you will receive prompt and effective treatment, sir.

I haven’t been published in the print medium in years, but I’ve been rewriting my limo stuff with an eye to finding a hotshot agent who can advocate my screeds to a mainstream publisher. Like you, I’ve been dragging ass. Also, Margie is smarter than we are. -- MB
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Julian In Jail On Black Friars Day

I was stunned when Julian called collect from the county hospital prison ward yesterday. He was being held under police guard for inciting a riot. This was not the stamp collecting, chamber music loving, retired professor of comparative religions I had come to know over the years, a person whose awe of authority figures extends to school crossing guards. And now here he was, manacled to a jailhouse hospital bed with a phone on his pillow and facing criminal indictment. He didn’t know any lawyers. Mine was the only phone number he had committed to memory. Of course I wanted to know how he had wound up in this fix.

“I don’t remember much about it,” he sniffled. “Everything was so confusing. I just don’t know where to begin.”

I suggested he begin at the beginning.

“Well, first I got up and poached an egg and then I…”

Julian is nothing if not thorough in his explanations. I nudged him toward discussing the riot.

“Oh, yes. That. Well, you know how you’re always commenting about how dated my wardrobe is, and ..”

Oh, so now this was all my fault.

“Well, you did criticize the way I dress. So, well, I just thought I would buy a new bow tie in honor of Black Friars Day to bring out my fashionable side. You do recall the Black Friars from my lecture on Anglo-Saxon-Celtic beliefs, don’t you? The Black Friars of Dominican order?”

Not really. I was probably hungover, but I nodded loudly.

Julian continued in his lecture mode: “They were founded in Cambridge during the Middle Ages. I thought it was very nice that the Conservative Media announced that the Black Friars had a special day. And I wanted to celebrate that day with a nice little symbol, a black bow tie with some festive but understated pinpoint polka dots, so…”

I put the phone down and made a pot of coffee while Julian rattled on. This was going to be a long call. Worse, I was paying for it. I returned several minutes later while the coffeemaker grumbled and hissed with demonic hostility. I think that coffeemaker is possessed. Some day I’ll ask Julian if he knows any unfrocked priests or snake handling evangelicals who perform exorcisms on small kitchen appliances. He was mid-sentence when I picked up the phone again.

"…there was this crowd lined up at Macy’s when I arrived. A very long line indeed, Michael…”

I hate being called Michael, but Julian, shrinking violet that he is, finds the name Mike too intimidating to utter, much too blue collar and fraught with memories of red headed kids who beat him up for his lunch money in grade school.  He continued:

“…and three hours elapsed before I reached the entrance. I must say the other shoppers were in an ill humor by then, especially a rather large woman with a somewhat artfully done unicorn tattooed on her shoulder who suddenly and without apology cut in front of me. Personally, I really didn’t care for the flowing Viennese art noveau rendering of her tattoo. Perhaps if she and the artisan had selected a…”

I cleared my throat in a manner intended to convey impatience. Julian ignored the hint.

“…different motíf, a Matisse etching or something from Picasso’s blue period, I might not have been prompted into near incivility. I tapped her on her tattooed shoulder and suggested that she may have failed to notice the line behind us. Heavens! You would’ve thought I had offered to remove her ovaries with a spoon, she was so angry!”

I sighed. This time Julian took the hint and cut to climactic scene.

"So then, when the police arrived, I was flat on my back on the pavement being kicked by women wearing an assortment cross training shoes in pastel colors. Even worse were the women wearing those appropriately blood colored Doc Marten boots. These women shrieked as though I was some sort of sexist Unabomber and accused me every crime from the horrors of 9/11 to wading on the high seas. But what they were really doing was fighting each other over my vacated space in line. The police, perhaps sensing a tactical withdrawal would be prudent, but unwilling to leave without a culprit to show for their effort, took me with them. So here I am. Can you help me?”

I said I would be present for his arraignment, if any, and could probably hock my ‘85 Volvo to make his bail if need be. I also tried to explain that Black Friday was a secular marketing ploy, not a religious occasion at all, and certainly had nothing to so with the monastic order of Black Friars.

Julian would have none of it. “Pfft. You and your facts, oh ye of little faith. No less than the great Cervantes himself observed, in Don Quixote, the “Facts are the enemy of truth.”

I knew better than to argue. I also know better than to go shopping for anything, even auto parts for my beat-up Volvo, on that accursed annual day of violent anarchy known as Black Friday.

Comments & Indictments:

Mike:  I enjoyed this essay.  My boss told me to name my salary, so I said that I would call it Fred. -- Ken

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I love unicorns, especially on velour. Great missive. -- Doc

Do they complement the Elvis On Velvet wall hangings of your interior decor?  -- MB
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I love the way you can turn any mundane situation into a disaster waiting to happen and put a humorous twist on it -- Sandy

Story of my life, Sandy. One mundane twisted disaster after another. -- MB
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Loved your Julian story. As for the Thanksgiving comments, all I have to say is my ancestors didn't do a very good job at Homeland Security. They let just anybody come ashore. Should have shot the lot of them! My new desk sign: “I have PMS, a GPS, and a 45. That means I have an attitude and know how to find you.” -- Wish Lady
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Yikes -- there was also a stabbing outside that Macy's about the same time. I don't go nowhere nohow on Black Friday ... even if it now starts on Thursday -- Tim
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Loved this one! Your writing is wonderful … Michael. -- Julisari

Arrgh!
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Adorable... we all know a "Julian"... But I wanted to hear the end of the story. Like, what happened next? Did Julian make bail? -- Sum

Not yet. He was so appalled by the prison ward couture that he refused bail so he could stick around and offer fashion tips to the other detainees. MB
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Why does this Julian seem familiar to me? Because I know someone like him - without a doubt intelligent, but somehow a little off-kilter, and definitely one foot on another planet. My Julian is Gordon - not altogether like Julian, but with similarities. Infinitely interesting chap and yet, a bit OCD I think about explanations.

And, damn it, I do so like "Michael", but I have a friend here named Michael already, not to mention my best friend's son, plus two Mikes as well. As I think about it, you don't seem like a Michael to me. Not even sure you seem like a Mike. Hm...maybe I'll just continue to think of you as The Writer In My Midst. Funny word, midst.

Fun article, as all of yours are, and thought-provoking or just plain thoughtful on occasion. One thing I know - never boring.

Are you recovered from the awkward gluttony of Thanksgiving? -- Zoey

Not really. I could use another. -- MB
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You made this up!!!!! : )  Didn't you? -- Tab

Ahem. To reiterate “Julian’s” quote from Cervantes, “Facts are the enemy of truth.” -- MB
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Another winner. You write too good and I'm starting to resent it.  Was this like yesterday or was it an earlier Black Friday? -- Sunne

It could have been any of them. -- MB

Do they complement an Elvis On Velvet wall hanging? -- MB __________

A Revisionist's Thanksgiving

A friend writes:

Being inundated by allusions to the original Thanksgiving meal of the religious settlers with the Indians, I thought I'd send an inspiring excerpt from a book by Tony Horowitz on real U.S. history, A Voyage Long And Strange: Rediscovering The New World:

"By the time the first English settled, other Europeans had already reached half of the forty-eight states that today make up the continental United States. One of the earliest arrivals was Giovanni da Verrazzano, who toured the eastern seaboard in 1524, almost a full century before the Pilgrims arrived. Even less remembered are the Portuguese pilots who steered Spanish ships along both coasts of the continent in the sixteenth century, probing upriver to Bangor, Maine, and all the way to Oregon. In 1542 Spanish conquistadors completed a reconnaissance of the continent's interior: scaling the Appalachians, rafting the Mississippi, seeing the Grand Canyon and galloping as far inland as central Kansas.

"The Spanish didn't just explore: they settled from the Rio Grande to the Atlantic. Upon founding St. Augustine, the first European city on U.S. soil, the Spanish gave thanks and dined with Indians, 56 years before the Pilgrim Thanksgiving at Plymouth.

"Plymouth, it turned out, wasn't even the first English colony in New England. That distinction belonged to Fort St. George in Popham, Maine. Nor were the Pilgrims the first to settle Massachusetts. In 1602 a band of English built a fort on the island of Cuttyhunk. They came not for religious freedom but to get rich from digging sassafras, a commodity prized in Europe as a cure for the clap.

"The Pilgrims and later the Americans who pushed west from the Atlantic didn't pioneer a virgin wilderness. They occupied a land long since transformed by European contact.
Samoset, the first Indian the Pilgrims met at Plymouth, greeted the settlers in English. The first thing he asked for was beer."


Comments & Critiques:

Mike:  What absolute tripe! I don't believe a word of this any more than I believe the world is round. -- X98
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Damn, Mike. If you tell me there isn't really a Santa Claus, I'll blow my brains out -- Zoey

There is a Santa, only he outsourced his North Pole operation to China when the elves wanted to unionize, the little Socialists. Also, the Tea Party patriots were uneasy about Santa’s commie red suit. So this year your presents will come wrapped in rice paper. -- MB
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Speaking as a European, albeit with extensive ties to the United States, I can only remark upon the sadness reading something like this makes me. Yes, these are all historical facts...it is also a fact that one could make a case that the day could be viewed as "Happy Sorry We Took Your Land and Killed Your People Day", but that would throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water. In a time of such polarised conflict and childish bickering and one-up-manship based on ideology as opposed to actual caring...Americans need Thanksgiving more than ever. Thanksgiving is a day about family and traditions and extending a hand in friendship or aid to a less fortunate neighbour...it is also...at its base...a day for remembering how fortunate one is...this cynical man should be ashamed. -- LS
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The English just had better press -- Canids
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We could be having southwest Indian tamales or any number of Creole dishes for Thanksgiving! Whatever it is I'm thankful for it all, and even though my daughter, my favorite houseguest and BFF these days, could not make it home, I am thankful for my high school friend PJ and her college friend Patricia who will be joining us. And I'm thankful that my daughter will be here for a couple of weeks at Christmas. I'll think of you while I'm scarfing down my smoked Cornish game hen and sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecans. Have a great day, Mike! -- Barb

And I'll think of you when scarfing down my microwaved turkey pot pie.  Smarty.  -- MB
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Thanks Mike! Turkey is for everyone?  Stay wonderfilled!! -- Kent & Barbara
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Lest we forget, it was Squanto who saved the Pilgrims’ asses that first awful winter from starving to death when he showed them how to stick a fish head in with each grain of corn when they planted, and then had them tie up one leg of all the dogs in the settlement -- Sky Pilot
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Still think the Homeland Security and Border Patrol of my ancestors sucked. They didn't do a very good job of keeping the riffraff out. They were too darn civilized if you ask me.-- WishLady

Well, there was no Transportation Security Administration  groping immigrants in those days.  -- MB
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Been meaning to drop a note; thanks for your stories Mike. Somehow they make me feel safe in this very manic crazy world. Thanks a million; they mean a lot.
Be blessed tomorrow and throughout this coming year -- Jan

Safe?  Jan, I'm contributor to the manic and crazy. -- MB
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" In 1602 a band of English built a fort on the island of Cuttyhunk. They came not for religious freedom but to get rich from digging sassafras, a commodity prized in Europe as a cure for the clap."

Well thank GOD for the greedy English... this accomplishment is something to be thankful for! Happy Turkey, Turkey -- Web
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Happy thanksgiving to you. Point of interest: I think the Indians discovered of America. -- MaryPat

Not according to the Chinese, who were seeking a new market for noodles and running shoes and claimed to have landed on California's shores centuries before the Europeans. -- MB
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You know, this really doesn't impress me. I'm Canadian born and we have Thanksgiving too, in October. It's a time of families coming together, of reflection and also a time for noticing the changing of the seasons. It's a reward for a harvest, good, fair or stretched.
This friend of yours doesn't seem to be real connected emotionally to this holiday and I feel sorry for him for that. But since attitude is also a personal choice, it's like, "Oh come on, dude. What difference does this historical shyte make? It's a cool holiday with some nice thoughts behind it. Get a life!" -- Rusty

Or a microwaved turkey pot pie.  -- MB
　
　

The King And I

The little dog appeared as nervous I was on the subway ride between boarding areas at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The dog and I differed only in specie, size, the amount of fur on its head, and in its being accompanied by a young couple I assumed to be childless, considering how they doted on their pet. The dog was in the arms of the apparent husband, being given a break from confinement in a plastic travel crate and reassured that all was well despite being surrounded by unfamiliar sights, scents, noises and people. But all was not lost for the pooch.  I was pretty sure it would not be spread-eagled to be wanded for explosives and box cutters by employees of the Transportation Security Administration. All it had to do was turn on its I’m Adorable act and be waved through a gate to the special first class lounge reserved for pets.

Still, the dog, a Cavalier King Charles Cocker Spaniel like the one shown above,  was jumpy.

So was I.

Flying does not make me nervous. I’m an ex-pilot, second generation, but big airports give me the jimjams. I just don’t like airport crowds trundling luggage here and there, and overpriced fast food joints with tiny hurry-up-and-eat tables placed in hellishly neutral gray environs. I’m not all warm and fuzzy about what seems to be an arrest and booking process inflicted by the Transportation Security Administration either.

As for flying itself, even though I’ve spent half my life around airplanes, there is still something scary about being a passenger dependent on the skills of others while sardined in a metal tube with an outer covering less than an eighth of an inch thick, elbow to elbow with other potential accident victims, and hurled through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour. This gives me pause for reflection on the number of friends and acquaintances who’ve flown into clouds with rocks in them (that’s pilot talk for cloud covered mountains) or who have otherwise had their allotted three-score-and-ten cut short because of inattention and overconfidence at the controls of an aircraft. 

Some of them took trusting passengers with them, and therein lies the real sin. If there is a special judgment for such pilots, I imagine them being shoeless and wanded for all eternity by demons and devils wearing the uniform of the Transportation Security Administration at the celestial gates between heaven and hell.

Otherwise I had a fine time in the Seattle area during a very special occasion, a large family reunion spread over several days with relatives I had not seen in years, and some of whom I was meeting for the first time. Good memories were recalled and maybe embellished a little, old hatchets remained buried, there were no knife fights or, worse yet, long testimonial speeches, although anyone who cared to regaled the rest with laundered anecdotes and was courteously heard by all. We laughed a lot. It was an understated but wondrous event and the stuff of permanently matted and framed memories. One of life’s mileposts: “Remember the time we all...”

I was sad to leave, knowing that this had been my last chance at my age to attend a gathering of that side of my clan, which is why I felt like how the dog in the airport subway looked. The dog looked loved, but essentially alone.

I would like to have such a pet myself. People who keep affectionate pets seem to live longer and be happier than people who don‘t, but no furry or feathered pets are allowed where I live. Maybe I can buy a smart goldfish. Goldfish don’t eat a lot, don’t have to be walked, don’t run up vet bills, and don’t have to take off their shoes at airports when flying to and from goldfish reunions.
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Comments, Critiques & Indictments:

I enjoyed reading your essay. My wife works for the Humane Society in the call center, and we are committed to treating pets with care.  I am glad that the family reunion went well. We are spending a lot of money helping my daughter to put on a very large, expensive wedding in Boston next May. There will be about 125 guests, and I will only know about twenty of them. -- Ken

Congratulations and condolences, Ken. For some reason, the father of the bride gets stuck with the all expenses but is otherwise expected to play the role of a potted plant during the ceremony, and maybe that's a good thing. Me, I tend to get hysterical and cry during a wedding, any wedding, even if I'm part of the wedding paraphernalia as the limousine chauffeur, my heart and sympathies going out to whichever side of the of the family has given me the biggest tip. Maybe I can moonlight as a professional mourner at funerals. -- MB
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Mike, it sounds like you had a very acceptable time with family. Interesting how they seem to become important as we age. I often wonder if it is childhood memories or maturity. -- Kent

Childhood memories tend to improve with the wistfulness or maybe wishful thinking of age, no? -- MB
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God willing you'll come back as a dog at my house. Or Rita's. They're notoriously spoiled rotten -- BT

Not likely. With my karma, I’ll probably be reincarnated as a cockroach or a baggage and body checker for the Transportation Security Administration. -- MB
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When I passed my private pilot exam, the examiner, an old timer, said, "before you leave and fly back to Hazard (KY, the state not the jelly) I want to tell you one last thing: "Weather will kill you.”  All our family stories are told by my children and they all begin, "Remember the time that Dad…”

Enjoyed the missive!

Best wishes,
Doc
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That was charming. I always love the stuff you send along to me, you're a terrific writer, Mike. -- Amanda
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Surprisingly, goldfish have more brain than expected. Some of mine are even more clever than my mother in law, and have a wider memory span. -- Gerard
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Adorable puppy. -- Brat

You’re kinda cute yourself. -- MB

Veterans Day - A Second Look

First of all,  I'm a vet so I can get away with writing this.  Second, for my fellow and fellowette vets:  welcome home.  For those still in uniform: thank you for your service. So, that being said, please forgive a little history lesson:

Veterans Day was not always Veterans Day. Before President Eisenhower proclaimed November 11 as Veteran’s Day in 1954, it was observed as Armistice Day, named for eleventh day of November, 1918. At eleven o’clock that morning the guns of the allied and German forces fell silent across Europe. That did not mean the war was over. It just meant the shooting had stopped. Officially, The War To End All Wars, as it was known, was brought to a close the following year when President Wilson signed the Treaty Of Versailles.

Armistice Day was not established as a national holiday by congress until 1938. I first learned about Armistice Day in 1953 when I was a nine-year-old cadet in military school where I learned to shoot a rifle, march in formation, and be an insufferable little prick who asked his father to not come on visiting day unless his shoes were shined and his car was washed. That request accelerated my return to public schools.

Armistice Day at military school entailed a special formation. We cadets were lined up in ranks to hear one of the adult officers read something patriotic. I don't remember what was read, but I'm pretty sure the reading was not the following prayer written by an anti-war troublemaker following America’s 1898 land grab of Cuba; Puerto Rico; the Panama Canal Zone; the Philippines; Guam and the Marianas, known as the Spanish American War, which was started under mysterious circumstances with an unexplained explosion aboard the battleship Maine in Havana harbor. The author of the prayer was Mark Twain.

The War Prayer

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came.  Next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation “God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory -- must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

After a pause he said: "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

# # #

Also, novelist, vet and sterling fellow Ken Babbs offers a Veterans Day perspective on his swell web site:  http://skypilotclub.com/ .  The site includes a link to his semi-autobiographical novel, Who Shot The Water Buffalo, about a Marine helicopter pilot in Viet Nam during the early 60s, and a tribute to his late friend and neighbor Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion. 
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Comments and Indictments:

War. I have most often looked at our violent nature from the biggest perspective - that humans are flawed and cannot seem to find answers to conflicts without hands-on barely newsworthy retaliations in unmonitored hallways of my own apartment building, or with thousands as witnesses on our world's blood-splattered battlefields, accounts immortalized in history books, winners and losers lifted up or maligned. "I won" is always the mentality.

My brother was my hippie soulmate in the sixties, and yet he marched off to Viet Nam not once, but twice, and came home even more fucked up than any amount of bipolar alcoholism could have done. I sobbed when he left, I cheered when he came home, and I respected what he had to do and still do. I love him, and know without a doubt that he's an honorable, amazing human being in so many ways.

We have discussed war, he and I, and how proud I am of his convictions, that he did what his country asked, and we've also shared how sad we are that this is what man comes to in the face of disagreement. It's not an easy discussion, but we are drawn to have it, perhaps just wanting our past decisions to somehow be good and clean and right in a world of hatred. He and I have always been lovers of nature and humanity and brotherhood, hippies in the best way, we always thought. Yet, he is a Vet, and I want him respected by all for his bravery and that he wanted to do right when right is often so cloudy.

I don't pretend to know his heart in this entirely. I was not there and did not see. I only know that I'll always defend his actions no matter how sad I am for the flaws of man. It's a dilemma, I realize, but like so many things in life, we find our way through maniacal struggle at times, through deep and completely silent thought, too, speechless in the awe. We pick up guns, and we put them down and embrace just as fiercely.

War. Perhaps we should always remember the raw and horrific scenes and bravery in battle, and too, just as vividly the hands and hearts and faces of those who pray for peace. -- Zoey
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Thank your dear Mike.  --  Fay
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Extremely well done! I was bracing myself for the part where the Messenger of God added that the man's enemies had prayed for the same thing on their side, and that their prayers would also be heard and granted. But that might have been going too far. And thanks for the great links! -- Trog
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Now you have made me cry ...thanks for sending and writing this. Very important message indeed. -- Tammy
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STOP SENDING THIS TO ME I ALREADY ASKED YOU ONCE TO STOP SENDING ME THIS JESUS FUCKING CHRIST HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO ASK YOU TO STOP SENDING ME THIS -- ECHO

Okay.  I can take a hint. MB
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As always, an eminently readable and worthwhile message, Mike.
Thanks for sending it. -- Ann

Thank you for reading it. MB
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Thanks, Mike. Another great T-Man Times... made even greater by the fact that it introduced me to a bit of Twain I'd never read. A most excellent post all around. -- Sum
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Yes, perfect response to those who claim religious approval for acts of war. -- Tab
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Yep, the Spanish American was the product of William Randolph Hearst, actually, due to his 'yellow' journalism. My dad who taught at Marymount High School and College noted to us (and he never forgot) that he was told by one of the Willy Randolph Hearst grand daughters who was in one of his classes, quote: "You know it was my grandfather that started that war, don't you?”
 -- Peggy

Peggy’s dad is in his 90s and is still in excellent health. He even has a full head of hair and the appearance of a matinee idol. He was a vaudevillian who shared billing with an up-and-coming troupe known as the Marx Brothers.

William Randolph Hearst is attributed to have told a news photographer regarding the sinking of the Maine in Havana: “You supply the pictures and I’ll supply the war.” But Hearst never said that. It was said by Orson Welles’ character of Charles Foster Kane in “Citizen Kane,” which was loosely based on Hearst’s life, and which Hearst tried to suppress. Hearst did (forgive the pun) foster the term “yellow journalism,“ which has come to mean reporting based more on sensationalism than fact, but which originally referred to the cheap yellow newsprint favored by tabloid newspapers at one time. MB
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Nice stuff...perky little stewerdesses, huh?  Tell us more. -- Gambatay.
No.
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I talked to my best buddy from Vietnam today. We are hoping to meet up in NYC this December. He tries to meet me there every year. My daughter and I have been going since 2002 and my son and wife joined us last year and will again this year -- Doc Holliday

Doc’s son, Ryan, is an Air Force captain who was designated Rescue Officer Of The Year by the Pentagon last month. MB
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What's all this brouhaha about Veterans Day?  Why should animal doctors have a day for saving cats? We don't have too many cats as it is? Do people doctors have a day? No. Before animal doctors get a day, we shoud honor people doctors, and nurses, and physical therapists. But who gets a day? Animal doctors, and they get the one that used to be Pharmacists Day. Okay, pill pushers should come before animal docs but not before all those other medical guys, including occupational therapists and technicians. This is how silly we get by not demanding a Lawyers Day.  But great piece. I'm just disappointed reading Mark Twain instead of you. -- Sunne

Just for that, I'm gonna write my congressperson and suggest she introduce a bill to establish Starving Poets Day in your honor, sir. MB