I've been memed. Drat and damnation.
Okay, 8 things about me folks don't know but are revealing about my personality.
Look, I've revealed far more about myself here than I have anywhere else. So if you folks already know it, it doesn't count.
1) I do not like confrontations. I do not go looking for a fight or trying to start an argument ( the War on Islam excepted). But if I am cornered, or if you threaten me or someone I care about, it gets very ugly very fast. My daughters call it The Voice. My wife has seen what happens beyond The Voice when you push me too far (not to her). You want me on your side in that dark alley.
2) I am very shy around strangers. I tend to keep to myself in crowds. I don’t like public speaking. When I have to I resort back to the musician, the performer, in me to get through it. That just occurs naturally anymore. I hate talking about myself (“go around the room and introduce yourself and what you do” terrifies me) because I think I am terribly boring and don’t know near as much as I do. I often think I suffer from a bit of clinical depression but have never looked too far into that.
3) My original college major was music/clarinet. My degree is in journalism which I never pursued. A mistake.
4) I would rather be teaching History or Literature as a profession, though at my age it’s a bit late to be changing course that severely. My daughters tell me they wish I would teach English to some of their dunderheaded friends who have received college degrees (and they don’t know how) and that, because of the way I can spin a “fish” story, I ought to write children’s books.
5) My favorite book is The Monkey Wrench Gang by Ed Abbey. Another is A Soldier of the Great War. My favorite author is Jim Harrison. I can’t stand Hemingway. He whines too much. Suck it up and get on with it, dude.
6) I loathe computers. I loathe cellphones. To me they are necessary evils in our modern age. I STILL have one rotary phone among the others in my house. I do not play video games on line. I prefer something like pinball (always!) or Pacman. I have not watched network TeeVee in years or cable TeeVee since the November travesty. Except for some history shows and even more cooking shows. I make a wicked chili and used to roll my own pastry for Dutch Chicken Pot Pie. My wife still lets me make chili but has now reserved the pastry making for herself. Not for taste but for ease of cleanup :)
7) I have read methodically the Bible as a single continuous “work”, cover to cover, twice. That does not include all the other Bible reading I have done. All those begatting chapters are tough. I still have the first Catholic Bible given to me by my parents and the first King James version given to me by a childhood mentor. All that said I think I am a lousy Christian and a terrible Catholic.
8) I keep far too much inside. I don’t talk about things that trouble me personally to anyone, even the death of friends and family. Whether family members or the number of friends that have been very violently murdered ( 4 thus far), I don’t grieve except to myself. A stoicism I got from my father which is both a curse and a blessing. I handle the large crisis far better than the daily day to day petty annoyances. By the way, each of those friends might still be alive IF THEY HAD CARRIED A GUN. AT LEAST THEY WOULD HAVE HAD A CHANCE.
9) I have lived in the same county all my life (except for the first year after I was married, when I lived 4 miles over the county line). Partly because I love it here and partly as a sense of belonging, of duty. My family has lived here since the early 1700’s. We signed the initial petition to erect this county. I know where all my ancestors are buried. My sister, cousins, etc have all moved away. Only my kids (2 of 3), mom and I remain. Someone has to keep our name here, someone has to watch those graves. And, a bit of trivia, though we are now separated by a continent, I live now and grew up within 2 miles of where Pastorius' adopted mom hails from. The borough I grew up in was, until 1900 or so, named after his family. We may have bumped into each other as very young kids (when he was visiting). Come to think of it, I seem to remember this 8 year old railing against the Crayon Book and the Musselmen who followed it.
10) I've been a rabid knife collector for over 30 years, curently have nearly 1,000 different knives of all sorts. I always carry at least four. Three, for utility, you might know about. The fourth not until I have run out of ammo.
11) I’m a counter-jihad blogger. And damn proud of it.
Okay. So I nominate Epaminondas, Carlos Echevarria and Jewel.
Hey, guys, blame Pastorius ;>)
10 comments:
Uh, guys? What's "memed"?
Ooops, scrolled down. Never mind.
Very cool stuff, MR.
Sorry to hear you have had four friends murdered. Was this in town near you? If so, I hadn't realized how bad things were there nowadays. I know Philadelphia can be dangerous, but there? Jeez!
The world needs more History teachers like you. You could still get in a good 20 years of teaching, Maybe you ought to go put in a few years of night school and get that History degree and teaching credential.
I like your impression of Hemingway. Funny though, I have a feeling that a whole generation of men were highly influenced by what they believed was Hemingway's stoicism.
He wrote entire stories which were about the War, and yet the War was not ever mentioned.
But, I do see what you mean. Coudn't the man have found it in himself to take joy in life, rather than an endless cycles of partying, bitterness, broken relationships, and well, a gun in the mouth?
I guess not.
Pasto -- some have been here. One, when I was 18, was a soldier home on leave (he had just joined months earlier) was beaten to death by a gang at the lake. Another was in Hawaii. She was in the Navy, as was her husband. This is early 80's. Husband wasn't home another serviceman forced his way into her apartment raped and strangled her. Third was a woman whose boyfriend shot her point blank with a shotgun before turning it on himself. He was a real piece of work who left a suicide tape behind for the woman's kids (all young adults) including the gun blasts. I've heard that tape. Another was mixed up with the wrong crowd and it didn't end well.
Been a number of suicides,as well. One hung himself. Another, both friend and business associate, walked to his favorite game lands, sat down and put a gun to his head.
Another, just 2 weeks ago. The son of our neighbor 2 doors up. His marriage to a woman he idolized had fallen apart. His relationship with a woman he met after the marriage was falling apart. We had a particularly devasting house fire here 2 weeks ago, in which a 7 year old died trying to rescue his 23 month old cousin. Several firefighters were injured trying to rescue them both but could not get to them. He was one of the firefighters who tried. 2 days later he put a gun to his head in the parking lot of a bar. This was the day our daughter graduated.
I have been to the funerals of far too many young people.
My miscount. 5 murdered. This one was definately a hate crime. He was gay. Couple pieces of shit broke into his apartment and butchered him. Spray painted "Redrum" on his walls. Because he was gay.
MR,
I have lived in the same county all my life (except for the first year after I was married, when I lived 4 miles over the county line).Aha! I've lived in the same county all my life too!
When I put down roots, I put down roots.
However, I want to get out of the D.C. area now. Doesn't feel much like home anymore.
The city's gotten bad here, AoW, but not the county itself. We've got some suburban creep, especially on the Philly side, but otherwise still lots of woods and farmlands to escape to. And good people and Pa. Dutch traditions. And food :)
I've had a few friends commit suicide, but I've never had a friend murdered. My heart goes out to you.
The suicides bother me more than the murders. Not for any deep moral reason. But to me someone has given up and I wasn't able to help them. Harry was the hardest. I'd known him about 12 years and he stopped in the office one day, unannounced, just to say hi. Said he was in the area. Only had about 5 minutes I could give him that day. A week or so later he walked into the game lands and shot himself.
This was a guy who had survived 2 tours infantry in Vietnam and built his own telecom company. None of us had any warning something was wrong, not even his family. Looking back it seems that brief stop was his way of saying goodbye, whether either of us realized it or not.
The commonality in the suicides that I have seen is that there was no warning. In fact, the people seemed never to talk about problems at all.
In one case, a guy who I played music with suddenly killed himself. I had to ask around to find someone who could even speculate. Apparently, he might have been to a Dr. on the quiet in the last weeks of his life, and he might have found out he had AIDS, and his dad was a tough guy who would not have accepted a gay son.
That's the best any of us could come up with.
And, this was a guy we spent a good deal of time with.
Post a Comment