357

357 Magnum? A gun or a quantity of champagne? Miller – the champagne of bottled beers? What number bottle of beer on the wall? Another brick in the Berlin wall? The thirtieth anniversary of the fall. Fall is the season..A man for all seasons..Was Thomas More a saint or a hypocrite? Depended on who you asked..Anne Boleyn or Thomas Cromwell. Ah well, enough of the word association game.

Fifty one more weeks until the election, and y’all know the news – can Bloomberg be the first mayor of NY elected President? Low odds but these days, anything is possible.

Yesterday was Veteran’s day. The airwaves were full of old war movies, tv series and the like. I didn’t watch any of them. What I did watch was a rerun of the last episode of MASH on MeTV. It’s title was Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.

When the commercials came on, I turned to something else – can’t stand all those Medicare enrollment ads designed to con old people into switching out their good plans for a low premium/high-cost -to-them plan. The episode originally aired in February, 1983. Back then, I had a teenager, a two year old and was pregnant with Kirsten, so no wonder I missed it when it came on. But here’s the thing: as I watched the first half hour or so of the 3 hour run time, I had to turn away and do the dishes. It was a visceral reaction on my part to what Hawkeye Pierce, the main character, saw that drove him to madness. And I somehow knew it was coming, that a Korean woman smothered her crying child to prevent the busload of doctors, soldiers and refugees from being attacked by a Chinese patrol. It’s a classic story element, but I couldn’t watch it.

Now I could interpret this a number of ways, but frankly I think it’s aftershocks from telling the story of Clemmie and his impact on the family. He spoke to me while I was avoiding the program. All he said was he didn’t just want to be remembered as a function of the war. That was it. But an hour or so ago, I realized why he and I were so downhearted yesterday. With the story I conjured up, he helped ease other family members’ burdens by taking them on himself. Where his soul was at ease before my meddling, now he is feeling their pain. I’m beginning to regret having written it.

Clemmie’s Watch

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