daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t despise your mother when she is old. (Proverbs 23:22)

Two things I was thinking about that are kind of related, sort of.

1969. I walked into my parents’ house after work about July 12th or so. I worked for the Telephone Company taking money out of pay phones. Great job. I loved it.

They lived in Texas City and I had that city as a route and then went back to Houston to the shop. I always stopped in for a minute when I went to Texas City and had a glass of tea or something.

I walked in the kitchen and my mother and father were looking at me with these strange smile/grimace things. My mother handed me an envelope that was labeled Department of Defense. Inside was a draft notice. In a month I was to go into the army.

I didn’t want to, but I did and two years later came out.

I was thinking about that since it is Memorial Day tomorrow and it is in everybody’s minds. I had friends who died in Vietnam and I had friends that lived. I went to Germany and came back a year later, got married and took Ella back over for six more months of my service.

But I will never forget the look on my mother’s face that day in 1969 when she handed to me what many considered a death warrant: my draft notice. I was scared and she was scared. I would go in the army, go over to Vietnam and get shot getting  off the plane and be dead.

But of course, obviously I didn’t die. I lived and it has been over four decades since that time.

I still think of Ella like she was when we got married, and I still see my mother as she was when I was younger. But neither are. Both are considerably older. And I know for a fact that since my beard (which I am growing out as you might or might not have noticed) is almost totally white. That indicates a lot of time passed.

The second thing I was thinking about is my mother. She is spending some time with us and we are having good conversations. It has been a little more than a year since my father passed away and she is at loose ends a bit with life.

They were married for 63 years and celebrated their anniversary the day before he died last February.

Writing about her is hard as when I think about her so many things go through my head. Her warmth when I was little and sick. Her coming to all of the choir concerts and otherwise that I did all through school. The look on her face when I got my draft notice. Her pride in her sons and her joy in finally getting a daughter when they thought they would not be able to.

And I am glad she is here. It will probably be the last trip she will make. This one was hard with airplane mix-ups and falling on my rug and tearing her arm open.

I love her and am glad she is here. I just wish she could stay longer or lived closer.

daily java

Daily Java:

But I will give repeated thanks to the Lord,
      praising him to everyone.
For he stands beside the needy,
      ready to save them from those who condemn them. (Psalm 109:30-31)

I still remember the first night I was in the army. All day long, people had hollered at us. We had flown to El Paso from Houston and gotten off the plane to what seemed like never-ending abuse. No suggestions, no comments – all orders, screamed it seemed at the top of well-exercised lungs.

One of the first orders of business was to get out heads shaved. The guys all were standing around with what was probably the most interesting assortment of tans I had ever seen. There were indications of sideburns and longer hair, mustaches, whatever. If it was hair on the head, it was gone.

Then we got uniforms, olive green cotton sateen shirts and pants, along with black boots, belts, caps, etc. also our dress greens, the dress up suit we wore for special stuff.

We went to our barracks and were assigned bunks.

As we were sitting, a guy came by that some of our group knew. He was wearing a full leg cast, having evidently broken his leg. He was proud. They were going to let him out. They figured that his recovery time would be so long, he would never get a chance to do anything so they discharged him.

In my fear, I suddenly saw an opening. If I could break my leg, I could get out of the horror. Because horror it was. I had never experienced anything remotely like this. It was as if we were prisoners and were treated abominably.

That night, I lie on my top bunk thinking now if I could just fall off, land on my knee, break it, I could go home.

Finally, in disgust for myself, I turned over and went to sleep.

Two years later, I got out.

When it comes down to it, we can do what we need to do. I needed to be a soldier, so I became one. I never was that good at it, since I do not meld into the group mind that well. But I did it. And I came out alright.

I could run, fast, and could do situps and pushups and walk with my hands hanging from something. I could shoot. In fact, I found out I was an expert marksman. I could crawl fast, I could go long periods of time without water (our basic was in the desert outside of El Paso). I could function fine.

And most of all, I could listen to idiots scream at me and take it, even though I knew they were inferior human beings. I could obey inane orders given by a guy who got stone drunk every night.

Once, an assistant drill instructor made me stand on my knees so I would know what it was like to be short. In my mind, however, I knew I wasn’t short. Rather I was standing on my knees in front of one who would never know what it was like to be tall in any way, who would hide behind assumed authority all his life and would probably never amount to anything.

It was a good experienced over all. Every young man needs to know, at some point in his life, that he is not the center of the universe. It makes him better as a person to know that he can subsume his personality into something else without dying.

I am glad I did it.