Ancient Ritual

We witnessed an ancient ritual last week, my youngsters and I: the victorious homecoming of Fox Co., 25th Marines, USMCR after a tour in the western deserts of Iraq. I felt bad for them, these proud weekend warriors. Despite advance press coverage of the parade route and time, there were precious few patriots to welcome them home. I'm not a patriot in the way we define it now. Oh sure, I raised $1,000 for the troops once and shipped them as many comfort items as I could cram into cardboard boxes. I donate money from every single biweekly paycheck to help wounded Marines get their lives back in order in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I write poems and songs about their pain, and I help them get money from the government when things go to hell and the VA can't be bothered. I've even accompanied several of them on that long, last trip deep down into the ground, into that final six-foot foxhole that will protect them forever, but no, I'm not a patriot, not to those who wave their flags and shout loudest on the radio. But once upon a time I too was a Marine, and I wanted to be there for my brothers. It doesn't seem to bother them that I never stuck a yellow ribbon on my car, these beautifully tanned, dusty-looking young men marching into history along Freeman's Bridge Road in Scotia New York. They march as experienced infantry have always marched, with a tired insouciance, a hint of slouch in the shoulders from carrying things most will never understand, or care to. If you had been there you would have seen a strangely fragmented celebration that only an "I don't really give a shit" America could produce. Old Marines in their Marine Corps League red jackets guarded the entrance to the assembly area as blue-jacketed Veterans of Foreign Wars manned the charcoal pits and lugged cases of beer, all while smiling, white-haired, white-shirted Ladies' Auxiliary handed out flags for those of us with nothing else to do. Strangest of all, a platoon of motorcyle mercenaries, the Freedom Riders, prepared the parade route, rumbling menacingly past in their glinting chrome and faded denim, followed by a green-skirted phalanx of tartan-clad bagpipers, holdovers from those glorious days of yesteryear when wars were simpler for everyone but the dead and the dying. Why, there were even firetrucks. Yes, everyone had their places this day, everyone played their roles, even the scattered media in their sloppy clothes and long lenses, but no one really seemed to care, no one was really there but for the family and friends of the tired men in sandy clothes and short hair, the very same ones who show up for the funerals. Oh we've moved on, haven't we, my friends? Six long years later we've moved on. But maybe we were never there.

Happy Birthday

I turned 48 on Good Friday in the un-holy city of Manhattan. It was a beautiful place to age another year, surrounded by male friends and in-laws, a pilgrimage of sorts, a monastic retreat into the heart of manhood. We took communion with chicken wings and hefeweizen. We took confessions at the Manchester Pub. We recited our creed block after block after block: "Isn't this great? No man, really, ISN'T THIS GREAT!" There was communal singing to hits from the 70's, the sign of peace for every bar maid we met, our blessing upon every pub on 2nd Avenue, the mortifying of our flesh over 100 blocks of aimless ambling, with always the pungeant incense of beer farts wafting to remind us of what we could be. There was a late night vigil at The Waterfront Ale House, and fresh encouragement for the journey from master beerologist Randy Mosher, author of Tasting Beer. Brother Mosher, what shall we drink? "My children, there are many paths to intoxication, but you must choose wisely. Let your palette be your guide." So we took the common cup of unusual brews from around the world, and we found therein a bond of fellowship so strong that not even the persistant pull of distant wives could weaken it...

...for a day.

Good Fences

I cast a long, westward shadow on the earth this morning. Fifty feet at least. I'm not sure I want that kind of influence. Can I be trusted with it?

We leave the rental car in a lonely pull-off about a mile from the Buttercup Ranger Station. Mom, age 72, is wearing a turquoise blue jump suit as I lead her by the hand far out into the desert. I'm surprised she wants to make the trek. We stumble through the flotsam and jetsam of American leisure strewn along the ground as a hard wind from the north blows at our backs, pushing us on like tumbleweeds, out to the dirty black scar in the distance. As we get closer the scar grows immense, stretching as far as par-boiled eyes can see after a day in the brilliant Yuman sun. Ignoring the lilting warning post 50 meters out we press on until the scar towers over us, fifteen feet of six-inch black steel, closely packed, anchored and bolted onto the shifting sand. The wind through the gaps in the immense steel pickets makes the fence moan and scream with the injustices of time, and timing, all along its endless length. Change is coming. Change has come. Change will come again. The Spaniards took our brief footprints from the Indians, then morphed into Mexicans, who lost out to the Americans, who, when nobody was looking...

Walking back to the black KIA Rondo I hold onto mom's hand tighter than before. The coarse grains of America bite hard into our eyes and faces before blowing off into northern Mexico. The fence won't stop them. It can't. I don't know if this is what Frost had in mind when he said "good fences make good neighbors." Maybe. And I don't know if this fence is a good thing or not. Maybe. But one thing is for certain: it is a sad thing, this long, lonely, moaning fence in the desert. Endlessly sad.