Early Memories
I do not normally suffer excessively from writer’s block. That is not to say that all that emerges onto the page is worthwhile, just that it emerges. But as I sat down to write something profound on the day I turned 80, I found myself to be, literarilly speaking, constipated.
So, I will again borrow from the great Thomas Sowell and express some random thoughts.
I was born on 22 January, 1944. Shortly thereafter, my father, who had joined the Navy, (his identical twin joined the Army) was shipped off to an island in the vicinity of New Guinea. I recall him calling it Wendy Island, but I could never find any such place on Google Maps or anywhere else even though I searched every which way I could think of. On a whim, I did a search while writing this piece and, perhaps as a birthday gift, I found it. The issue was orthographic. It is Mios Woehndi Island, presumably pronounced Wendy.
Like JFK, my dad was assigned to PT Boat duty, but obviously, he did not perform any heroics a la the eventual 35th president. Like most combat vets, he did not speak much about his experiences.
The only war story I can partly recall is of him heading for the latrine/head on a pitch black night, hearing a noise in the jungle undergrowth and assuming it was one of the Japanese soldiers rumored to be stranded on the island. He reached for his pistol. In his panic, he dropped the clip while trying to load the gun. He could not see a thing and had to search on hands and knees, feeling for the bullet clip. Unfortunately, I can no longer remember the rest of the story. He did survive. I would like to think he at least fired a shot or two into the air to scare off the varmint, but I cannot confirm.
One of my earliest memories is sitting on the living room floor of our Chicago two flat with my mother, the Chicago Tribune spread out on the carpet. The Trib in those days featured news photos on the entire back page of the paper. My mother would read stories to me, and I loved looking at the pictures.
One day most of the page, perhaps the entire page, featured a photograph of an aircraft carrier, probably the USS Saratoga that brought back more soldiers from the Pacific than any other ship.
“Your father is on that ship and is on his way home,” my mother told me.
Operation Magic Carpet
More than 16 million Americans were in the military, and half that number had been deployed overseas. Within weeks of the surrender of Nazi Germany an impressive sealift was underway.
Operation Magic Carpet, the code name given to the massive effort to bring Allied fighting men and women home from battlefields around the world, began in June 1945. However, by V-E Day it had been in the making for some time. Under the auspices of the War Shipping Administration, the program had been in development since 1943 as planners grasped the enormity of the task that would confront them once victory was won. (Warfare History Network)
Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender on 15 August 1945, and the surrender document was signed on 2 September 1945. The War Department wanted to get as many troops as possible home by Christmas of 1945.
I do not know if my father made it back for Christmas, but based on my sister’s birth in September of 1946, he must have been home sometime early that year.
Regrets, I’ve Had a Few
Unlike one of my favorite singers, the French chanteuse, Edith Piaf, I cannont say Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regrets). I would have to go with another personal favorite, Frank Sinatra:
Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
My biggest regret is coming of age during the 1960s, a legendary time, that in my opinion will live in infamy, that actually took place mostly in the 70s. In hindsight, I deeply regret getting involved in the radical politics of the era. I was semi-radical at most, but the effect on me was disproportionate to my involvement.
One result was that I did not follow my father into the military. Instead, I became a Peace Corps Volunteer. It gives me a nice opportunity to virtue signal at a cocktail party with the progressives with whom I am mostly surrounded, but I can’t say that I accomplished much as a volunteer, and the Peace Corps overall, in my opinion, was a misconceived waste of time and money. Inefficiencies and incompetence were rife. Solid accomplishments were few.
Of course, I did learn a lot through no fault of my own—another language (Spanish) and valuable knowledge of another country and its culture (Ecuador). Overall, however, I believe the Peace Corps was a well-intended failure, just as so many idealistic progressive welfare programs are.
If I had it to do over again, I would join a program such as Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto’s, Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD).
Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, works with developing countries to implement property and business rights reforms that provide the legal tools and institutions required for citizens to participate in the formal national and global economy. ILD works toward a world in which all people have equal access to secure rights to their real property and business assets in order to pull themselves—and their countries—out of poverty.
In theory, the Peace Corps philosophy was to teach a person to fish rather than to give him a fish, but in practice, it never seemed to work out that way. Maybe it’s that cultural aspect of Americans that wants to be charitable, to do good, that often ends up causing more harm than good. The Third World would be better off if young people promoted capitalism instead of advising the poor to wait for the heaven on earth that socialism falsely promises. The poor have to save themselves. Government will not do it for them.
In looking back now, I believe the biggest lesson I learned from my Peace Corps experience—and learned much earlier than most—was that my college degree did not matter very much given the enormous job that had to be done in Ecuador. My colleagues and I learned far more from the poor and uneducated than the poor and uneducated learned from us.
I also realized how lucky we were as Americans and how much higher my standard of living had been than I realized. We were the rich whom we were ritualistically condemning. My life’s goals changed considerably as a result. Success in terms of salary became less important. Free time and opportunities for travel became more important.
Posting Young
In a recent exchange with a group I frequent on Twitter/X, I revealed my advanced age. One member of the group expressed surprise that I was turning 80 and commented that I posted young, presumably meaning that I sounded young for my age. Actually, I feel pretty young compared to what I would have thought I would be feeling at an age that gives me little time remaining. Thus, I feel lucky that I have discovered a passion late in life that virtually totally occupies my mind, and that passion is writing
Around age 60, I returned to school to get an endorsement to teach English as a Second Language (ESL). I spent my early retirement years teaching English Language Learners. (ELLs—I paid good money for my certification, so I want to take advantage of my license to use the learned educationist jargon.) I taught adult ESL/GED for a time, then took a job with a small school district in semi-rural Virginia where there were few ESL students. I was itinerant, covering three elementary, a middle and a high school. I retired at seventy-two after a dozen years.
Because I was teaching writing, I decided to try writing a book, myself, a long suppressed desire. I had always imagined that if I wrote a book, it would be non-fiction. When I tried fiction, however, I found that I enjoyed developing characters and contriving plots. I also found that I had a knack for writing dialogue.
My first effort was based on my teaching experience. Because my students, even in high school, were low-level readers, it was difficult finding appropriate reading material for them. Most hated the stories assigned in other classes because the material was simply too difficult and had little that was relevant to their interests and background knowledge.
I decided to write a story set in our school and county and including some of my students as characters under pseudonyms. I used the nom de plume, Ikas, Saki spelled backwards. Once the students grasped the ruse as I read the story aloud, they were mesmerized and paid closed attention. This was shortly before I retired. I regretted not thinking of the idea earlier.
That short story turned into a novella, Honor Among Thees, that is loosely based on my teaching experiences. One advantage to writing crime fiction is that an author can kill off a few of his enemies without suffering any consequences. Thus, the murder and rape of which the teacher is accused by a father of a Muslim girl did not in the real world involve me.
I did, however, experience problems with a few fathers from cultures that allowed little personal freedom to girls. When, inevitably, the girls started adopting and flourishing under the umbrella of the new freedoms that our culture allows women, there was, on occasion, trouble in Cannon Cliff County.
The predicament became especially touchy if the daughter began dating an American-born boy not of the girl’s culture or religion. That is what occurs in the book. Noor bint al-Sahn’s father believes she is dating not only an American boy, but a football star who is Black and whose father is a high-ranking military officer—an officer of the American military machine that the father believes is the cause of much of the strife that his native Yemen, and the rest of the Middle East, has suffered because of it.
Debut Novel
I finished my first novel during the school summer break in 2014. Fish or Cut Bait: A Fish Story of Sex, Nonviolence, Death and Dismemberment. The book features a disclaimer:
(A warning to the reader—this book contains themes that are not discussed in polite company: religion, politics, sex and what your teenager is actually doing at that expensive, elite college that is costing you your retirement and your hip replacement. The author abuses the most sacred of sacred cows. If sacred cow abuse offends you, this book is not for you. Women, especially fashionably progressive women, should avoid this book; feminists should burn it.)
Every fiction writer must write a book set in Maine. It’s the law. This is mine. A lobsterman allegedly drowns after diving in to very cold water to retrieve his tender that has come loose from its mooring, but local police suspect foul play. A former professor at the local elite, high-priced liberal arts college, the fisherman was forced out (canceled had yet to be coined) because of his divergent political views. A number of his former students and colleagues come under investigation. A young woman dropout from the college who had been one of the fisherman’s students becomes the number one suspect.
Her predicament is harrowing, but what is most frightening is what is considered normal academic and campus life at Snowden College (a thinly disguised Bowdoin College). The seeds of today’s madness were already sprouting and shooting up fast at Snowden/Bowdoin.
For my material, I relied on a report by Peter Wood of the National Association of Scholars, What Does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes Students as well as Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad by Nathan Harden and Christopher Buckley.
Next, I wrote a George Orwell inspired novel New Animal Farm: What Happened? I began writing the book as I followed the primaries preceding the 2016 election. Originally, I had no Trump character but was later forced to add Pato Donaldo, a trumpeter swan who early in life was mistaken for a duckling and an unattractive one, at that. I finished the book a few weeks before the election and actually had picked the winner, albeit a victory that was won somewhat unconventionally.
We The Living
I recall a long ago discussion among my Peace Corps colleagues in which we reached a consensus that our parents, all of whom lived through the Great Depression, were overly influenced by that event and had become unduly cautious and conservative as a result of the experience. Fortunately, we would avoid all that. This, by the way, was the age of never trust anyone over thirty. Age was a liability, not an indication of having gained valuable experience. We seemed to assume that we would never age beyond thirty, at least in mental age and would never repeat our parents’ mistakes. We may not make any mistakes at all!
Strictly playing the devil’s advocate and not really believing what I was saying, I posed the hypothetical question what if our generation is unlucky enough to experience such an event as the Great Depression at the end of our lives, rather than at a time when we still have enough years to experience a recovery. We all laughed at the absurdity of such an eventuality.
Well, here we are, or at least, here I am. I have outlived several of the participants in that long ago conversation. We are not exactly in a depression, great or otherwise, but we certainly are living in interesting times—imaginary genders, illegal immigrants flooding the country and overwhelming our resources, free speech as a societal liability, cancel culture, Deep State corruption and a capricious and predatory system of justice—and much more.
In short, our elite leadership has apparently decided on a return to pre-Enlightenment times. Here are our conclusions. Take them or leave them and don’t trouble us with facts, certainly not contrarian facts. Stop with the math, a’ready.
In a contemporary discussion among like-minded individuals in my hot stove league, we debated whether we as a country were becoming more Marxist or more banana republic. Someone suggested that I read Ayn Rand’s We the Living. I had read Rand but had never heard of the book.
The book is said to be her most autobiographical work. It is set from just after the 1917 Revolution through the end of the Russian Civil War in 1921. It is a time when the Bolsheviks were asserting themselves and consolidating power. It was a time when Russian society was deeply divided—so divided that friendships and family relationships were made and/or broken depending on which side of the divide you were on.
People feared for their jobs if they said the wrong thing or offended the wrong person. Sound familiar? It sounded eerily familiar to me. Reading We the Living was one of the things that prompted me to write my most recent book: Holodomor: What’s the Matter with Green Kansas (Famine Strikes the Great Plains).
For surviving readers who have made it this far, I appreciate your patience. I hereby swear that this will be my last and only playing of the age card. Rambling is a privilege and curse of old age. I plan to continue writing, but in deference to my age, the ouput may be less frequent and less predictable.
I appreciate the opportunity to write on substack and hope the powers that be will allow me to continue my sporadic efforts. After all, it’s free, and if I am a liability, at least I won’t be a decades-long liability.
If the spirit moves you, you could give me a birthday gift by checking out (no obligation) my books at Amazon or my website. Thank you for reading and a belated Happy New Year.
Happy birthday! I didn't realize you were 80 btw. I am surprised!
Thank you for your writing❤️ it is creative and witty.. and interesting. Your uncle probably fired some shots in the air😃
This is great Ross. I wish it had been a longer read. Like your books I get close to the end and wish there were more chapters to read.
Happy birthday my friend and keep having many more. I reach 80 in March and feeling very fortunate to have my health and sense of humor which enables me to enjoy the folly our govt. offers up for unending guffaws.