Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Perfect Storm of Comments

There is a huge tropical depression going on in the comments somewhere, the post is so old I can't even find it, you know who you are. Interesting remark today about the two most intollerable criticisms: 1) you have no sense of humor; and 2) trouble? you don't know trouble.

I know that I am funny because people don't respect me enough to laugh out of a sense of duty. No trouble there. And I'm a little funny in the head, too.

Trouble? I had a client, Jack let's call him, well, his name was really Jack, and he was a young blond, blue eyed Polish Jew when the Nazi's came, he ran from them, his family all died, he got to the Russians and they arrested him as a Nazi and put him in the Gulag hunger camps for four years, the Russians then put him in a stooge Polish army unit, he deserted and made his way to Israel where he joined the Hagganah and bombed some shit, then fought with the Israeli army in 1948. That's trouble, my friends, bent little arms outstretched. If only stuff like that is trouble, none of us have any trouble; if any trouble is trouble, we all have trouble.

People write interesting stuff when they are annoyed. Keep it up, boys!

1 comment:

Rory Cripps said...

Fred: Who yu callin' "boys"? Yes; 'lot a tropical depressions and "trouble" (most of it self-inflicted). Your former client, Jack, was subjected to so much trouble that he dismissed the luxury of being pissed off and focused on survival and he, ultimately, embarked upon a mission of historical significance. It has been written and said (by credible sources) that fellows such as Jack contributed to the invention of modern-day terrorist techniques. However, the Haganah was not as ruthless as the Stern Gang. Had I, myself, been subjected to Jack's trouble, I would have, probably, contributed to the "invention" myself. And the thoughts and images of "bent little arms, outstretched" would have caused me a lifetime of trouble.
When I was a kid, I thought that I knew trouble . . . but I didn't know Jack. My dad--blind in his right eye and deaf in his right ear--was drafted in 1941. He wound up flying bombing missions over Europe. Perhaps he was better off not being able to see and hear as well as the others. My father-in-law "jumped" into Normandy with the 82nd Airborne, was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, escaped, and in 1945 took part in the liberation of Wobbelin. Wobbelin was more "trouble" than all of his previous war experiences combined. And Wobbelin was merely a subcamp. By the way, Linda O's dad got his arm blown off at "The Bulge" -- I guess he faced some trouble too. The closest that I've come to trouble was in '72 when my draft classification was "1-A". Lucky for me that I was born in '54 instead of, say, '50. Could it be that our threshold for trouble, or for knowing trouble, corresponds to our degree of self-absorption and what we see when we look at ourselves in the mirror?

In regard to "the post" that "is so old": Yup . . . however the "old post" prompted my re-read of "Main Street", by Sinclair Lewis (published in 1920). The story is an old one, but it's also a timeless one, and perhaps it can be interpreted as a new one. In any event, "Main Street" provides a good source for timeless quotes.
Here's another quote from "Main Street": "Be patient! Wait! We have plans for a Utopia already made; just give us a bit more time and we'll produce it; trust us; we're wiser than you."