Time to brake for a break & other thoughts

 

I was not thinking of Memorial Day when I wrote the posts about the Third Army tank crew or about George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry a few days ago. As I mentioned at the time of publication, I came across the photographs of the tankers while rummaging through boxes of possessions looking for something else, and decided to use two of them in a post. As I mentioned at the time of publication, my thoughts always turn to Custer and the Seventh in May because that is the time those troopers began their ill-fated march from Fort Abraham Lincoln in North Dakota to the Little Bighorn River in Montana. And, I was not thinking of it when I began putting this post together. It abruptly occurred to me sometime later while searching my mind for a possible illustration for this post that another Memorial Day will arrive soon -- this year on Monday, May 25 -- and, since this will be my last post for a while, I decided to include two photographs appropriate to Memorial Day. They were taken at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer in France during June 2004 while on a trek through England, France and Italy. Eleven years ago .... uffff .... it makes me near-speechless to think it was so long ago. In addition to Memorial Day, the photographs are fitting reminders to the approach of the anniversary of D-Day troop landings in Normandy by Allied forces -- June 6, 1944. So, I hope each of you will pause on Memorial Day and on the D-Day anniversary to pay homage in memory of those who died in military service so that you might live your life as you choose today. By the way, Memorial day originally was always on May 30, but, to satisfy the holiday crowd / business community, it was changed to the last Monday in May so it could be a three-day weekend. I am a traditionalist, and think it should be returned to May 30.

The last verse of

"Sailing to Byzantium"

by William Butler Yeats

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Sometimes I wonder .... or one, two, six, nine

Sometimes I wonder what I would wish to change in the life I have lived to this point in time.

Would I wish I could have attended a thousand rock concerts?

Would I wish I could have been present at a thousand critical, historic moments in the march of life since the advent of mankind? You know .... my own time machine to witness all, to know all ....

Would I wish I could have fallen in love with a thousand women?

Would I wish I could have run the rapids in a thousand rivers?

Would I wish I could have actually contributed something meaningful toward the betterment of mankind?

Well, no matter. None of these things are or ever were mine to choose from. I have read a thousand books, probably times ten, and tested myself in a thousand ways -- frequently in ways simply to dare fate and to laugh at it -- but, now, I am beginning to believe no experience of or in life means anything beyond the moment it exists. Nothing = nothing. A philosophy professor once told me when I was a college boy that he thought I was an existential nihilist. I know I certainly cross the border into that zone from time to time, but, so far, have not become a permanent resident there.

This is another unfinished post. Rather, it was written to completion, but I am not including all of it here now. Possibly, I will publish the rest of it at some point in the future. For now, this portion is enough. I have other things on my mind.

I have a busy few weeks ahead and the blogs seem to be moving slowly, for whatever reason, at least for me. So .... I take leave of you now and will not return until around mid-June or a bit later -- certainly before the arrival of the next Blue Moon -- with the possible exception of a brief tease or two should some fascination in the form of a person, place or thing pass within reach of me.

To close out, here are two songs by Don Dokken, from my perspective one of the best half-dozen voices of the rock era. His voice no longer has the power or range or strength it once did; emotion still remains, but it is of the lost sort, like a memory more than a reality. None of us are forever on this earth, not even rock stars. Watching Dokken sing here is like watching the approaching fulfillment of the only promise life ever makes to each and every one of us.

Using the term "existential" correctly and not as television reporters and politicians faddishly seem to insist on using it fallaciously these days, in the "existential context" of my sometimes-belief regarding the concept that "in my end is my beginning," I might also mention the first lines of Yeats's poem. They are these:

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song ....