But Not in Despair

La gloire, la gloire, c’est de la merde

I was sure for so many years I was going to marry Susan, although most of the time she wouldn't even speak to me. I finally gave up on her, but later found out that if I had hung in a little longer and tried a few more times it might have happened. When Liz came along I wanted her and gave up on Susan. Susan gave up on me when I married Liz. Then I remained married to Liz. through hell on earth until finally I was enticed by Sandra and I set down the road to divorce, meanwhile Sandra disappeared off the face of the earth. Now I wonder if there will ever be anyone suited for me; Liz certainly wasn't, probably not Sandra, although she did not stick around long enough for me to find out, maybe Susan, but she's happily married now. It has been a lifetime of waiting for the right woman and always, always, always without one. I don’t know of anyone else who waits so long before giving up on someone and yet it seems I never wait long enough. God help me! Although I am sure he has a hand in all this.

Sheng Dan Kuai Le

Christ climbed down
From His bare Tree
This year
And softly stole away
Into some anonymous Mary’s womb again

Last night, Christmas Eve Scott and I went to the service at the church. There was a small group there mostly old and good friends celebrating Christ. It was for me the best part of Christmas. When we went home we finished decorating the tree and wrapping the presents for the next day.

Today, after opening the presents under the tree, Scott, John and I went to the Cannata’s for our traditional Christmas breakfast with Becky, Eddie, Emily and Nathan. Emily had a new dance machine that she danced on in coordination with the tv display. After breakfast, Scott and I headed up to Watertown to visit with my Dad. My sister Cynthia came over with her kids Caty and Jeff and my sister Judy came with her son Rick. We visited until about sundown and then headed home. The kids are all grown now they’re all as tall as the adults, Caty is a beautiful young woman. Dad gave me the gift he gives me every year, a bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey that I have to remember is not wine. Then we went down the street to see Rick and Lane Tulipano and their young son Gabriel. Rick’s parents were there, his mother home from the nursing home. And Louis was there, the handicapped man that Rick has befriended for years and always brings to the family holidays. Finally Scott and I went to Liz’z for dinner and to open presents. Liz’s Mom and Stepdad were there and Joe and Rocky and Penny Liz’s dog. We are home now recovering from all the traveling.

I am working on a new house in Duxbury and working with an excavator approaching retirement age who has lived and worked in town all his life. His name is F. He has been telling me stories of Duxbury before it became Yuppyville. He used to plow the field where we are building the house back in the fifties before there were any houses here. His grandfather was George Loring who had an ice business where he used to deliver ice to all the surrounding towns by horse drawn cart until the invention of the refrigerator put him out of business. Loring also used to bring his oxen over the Powder Point bridge and out to Saquish and walk them across to Clark’s Island at low tide where they would spend the summer. F told me he built the house the Hogans have just moved out of at the bottom of Tremont street when he was in his twenties, and he told me a lot of other stories about builders and developers around town. The field where we are now working ended up belonging to Bud Goodrich as compensation for unpaid bills to his feed and grain store, (Goodrich Lumber), Bud gave it to his daughter Nina and Nina sold it to the present owners.

It seems to me that it is better to live working outside, and with your muscles and your brains in a smalltown society rather than to work in an anonymous commuter-computer, bedroom community. Think of the advantages: You work with your body, physically, everyday, you work in the elements and close to nature and you work where you live. I think we have lost so much that was a part of the New England experience for 3 centuries. Now commuters want to re-create a fantasy of rural life but without the essential elements. Frank is moving to Maine when he retires and I think he is moving closer to home than farther away. He has 7 children of his own and his wife has four from a previous marriage. He went through a bad divorce in the seventies and ended up losing all he owned and owing thousands but he has managed to put himself financially on a high road for retirement, mostly because of the land he has owned for thirty years, now worth over a million dollars

The Roots of War

I worked upon a farm in Illinois.
The squad appeared; I marched away.
Somewhere in France, amid the trenches gray
I met grim death with many other boys.
I gave my life for freedom—this I know.
For he who bade me fight had told me so.

Saddam Hussein was captured this morning. He was hiding in a hole, he must have known his days were numbered. He will now either be tried and executed or tried and imprisoned for life. I think, if it was me, I would rather have been killed, and I would rather not have been captured hiding in a hole. It is a political victory for Bush and for supporters of the war. Of whom, I am not one.
If Bush is able to bring peace and democracy to Iraq it will truly be a great accomplishment in spite of the lives lost and the dollars spent. Time will tell if it can be done and if the US government truly is willing to see that come to pass. The danger in success is that it will set a precedent and we will have to re-write our constitution to allow the president free reign to re-engineer the world in our image. As for me, I still believe we were lied to about the real reasons for the war and that the conduct of and the rhetoric of the war is based on hypocrisy, a willingness to use the same means of violence and subjugation we claim we are overthrowing. War fever siezed America and her government and propelled us into yet another war that really did not need to be fought. But now with Saddam as a public prize and a reminder of the evil we defeated, Bush may be able to claim victory and go home to the applause of history.
War is evil on evil. My biggest problem with the war is the almost unanimous backing it has among the evangelical community. To me, it is associating the name of Jesus with evil. I am puzzled and confused. I hope someday to resolve this issue. But now I do not see good coming of this other than the creation of another heroic-American myth. And a crudely created one at that.

Day of Infamy


What could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

As I in horror watch this war in Iraq unfold, I wonder if all our wars were not birthed in like fashion. What I see in sequence is a nation, prosperous, and powerful and at relative peace called to war by its leaders for reasons that seem false and unsound. The nation, convinced, responds with fervor, the thrill of battle overtakes us. The people are enticed into war by the lust for glory, power and righteousness, for purpose, for solidarity, for entertainment. We love war, at least we love the idea of a glorious struggle against evil. We love the myths of our warrior heroes. And our leaders steer us, not way from war, but into it.

God Is Love
I wonder, reading about an illegal round used to kill an Iraqi insurgent,
Just what kind of ammo would Jesus use?

I wonder looking at the evangelical Christian Bush responsible for some sixteen thousand Iraqi deaths and some 400 Americans, if Christians are not less concerned about the consequences of death or is it just that Bush is not a Christian except culturally. The Puritans were men who risked their lives for their faith, who dared the unknown, who acted much as my own church does, yet their war against the Pequots was excessively brutal, (though outnumbered they wiped out a whole village). And so many of the Christians I know, whose faith I do not doubt and in many cases consider superior to my own, support this war. And they lend the name of Christ to a war that the world sees as motivated by greed for power and money.