The Hymn of Pain

Years ago I wrote a little poem by this name on a scrap of paper. I don't even vaguely remember why, or how it wound up in Leo's posession but it did. He keeps finding it over and over as the years tick by, and makes a point of reciting it aloud to me each time it is discovered again in some box, on a shelf, or wherever it has been lurking since the last recital.

"The Hymn of Pain"

When you are shot by sneaky gun
Or wicked blade does through you run
When smoking semis run you down
Or you are lynched by angry town
You sing the hymn of pain.

I have a feeling I'll be hearing another performance of this in a few months, right on schedule.

Curse you, Newman.

This is a cool poem.

In a departure from writing my own stuff, I want to share a poem I have always liked.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
"Dulce et Decorum Est"

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes wilting in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

(PS - The latin there means "It is sweet and meet to die for one's country."

I'm the president, so I don't have to.

I've been thinking again about stuff I did when I was a kid. One of the most common things for kids to do is to form clubs, and I was no exception. We had a few of them, and I think the main goal was to torture other kids in the neighborhood we didn't necessarily like all that much. It was never quite clear why you would want to join one of the clubs, since all we did was spend all of our time initiating other people into the clubs.

My parents live in a nice little house out in South Everett. They haved live there my entire life. One of the distinguishing features about the house is that it has a very large yard (which I used to hate mowing, a whole other story). In the back yard there is a patio, a strip of grass, and then a slope filled in with bark, tams, an apple tree, a pear tree, and some stairs. Above that is a nice big open space with a huge maple tree and some tall cedars. Ok, enough about the landscape. The reason this layout is important to know will shortly become obvious. Also, please note that there was a jungle gym to one side with swings, a slide, and monkey bars, and also a large pit I had dug down into one corner of the yard.

Our clubs always had initiation rituals. In fact, in retrospect, they were nothing but initiation rituals. Because I formed the clubs, I never took part in the initiations, claiming I had already done them alone to 'test' them out. Sometimes I would form clubs with my friend Nathan and we'd both claim that. It was even more believable coming from two kids instead of one. Kids being kids, our friends believed it, too.

We were such little bastards.

Without further ado, here is a list of some of the 'initiation rituals' we coerced our friends into undertaking. Please bear in mind that in almost all cases, our friends performed the assigned tasks without complaint, and were duly praised and welcomed into the club as a result.

The Obstacle Course - Without stopping, please start down at the end of the driveway, run barefoot across the lawn, climb over the chainlink fence to the backyard, run up through the scratchy tams*, roll along the grass here, then go hand-over-hand BACKWARDS across the monkey bars and down the slide. We'll be timing you.

The Mud Pit - OK. Take off your shoes and socks, roll up your pants. Now get down into this big pit here. You see where we've dug that 2-foot-deep hole, and filled it in with water to make sludge which is mostly mud, but also quite possibly contains tree bark and even some insects? Right! You've got it, step right down in there. OK, good, now stand there. We're going to go attend to some other club duties, but we'll be back in a little to check on your progress. No, don't get out 'til we come back.

The Paper Airplane Targetting Exam OK we've got to hurry with this one, because my mom will kill me if she catches us doing this. Yeah, fold up a few paper planes. No, not the arrow-shaped ones, that's too easy, make some of those stunt ones that fly all crazy. Yeah! Ok, now, you've got to stand in the middle of the street right here, and try to land one on our roof. Yeah, don't worry, no cars come by here, and we can climb up there and get them down later.

Dodge the Frisbee - Here it comes! At 40mph! No, don't use your hands!!!

Endurance Tests - OK, OK. Get out of the mud pit. You did real good there! Before you can be in the club though, you have to clean off that mud so you can come inside. Yeah, go stand on top of that yard sprinkler. Oh, yeah, we'll be back in a few minutes, don't worry! We'll come get you in a bit. Important club business to attend to. I know its cold, but you won't feel it after a minute.

Written Exam - You've done very well. Now this is the most important part, so do your best! If you do good enough, you might even get to be a weapon specialist in the club!

Quetoin 1 who is the coolest club
Questoin2 why should we let you into the club
Questoin 3 if the club was under atak would you run or fire the wave motion gun
Questoin 4 whats cooler the wave motion gun or our club

Well. I don't know what questions I really had on the tests, but they were similar to this. While this might all seem cruel, remember the kids participating in the initiations did so willingly and usually had a great time. Go figure. And don't worry, I got plenty of revenge played out against me. ;)

*Scratchy Tams - I am not sure 'tams' are even the real name for this type of ground cover, but i have called them that for almost 30 years now.

Car going too fast. Roll.

Yesterday, we watched the Winston Cup race (NASCAR, not something I am into very much but which my brother-in-law loves, so we get to see it now and then on TV at family gatherings.) It was pretty cool actually; There was a nice 10-car accident partway through, and then some other guy who blew a tire and smacked the wall at 180mph. Crazy bastards. Their cars are little more than a motorized chassis with a fake car attached to the top to look pretty so that the sponsor companies can sell their street models. They attach stickers that look like headlights and grills and everything.

I learned quite a bit about the cars from Ken, including trivia facts about how the pit crew operates (They are required to wear helmets, but can choose any kind they like.. bicycle, motorcycle, armored beanie), about how they take the fair measure of things at the end (Each car is pretty much ripped to bits to be sure they was nothing shifty going on. They cautioned the winner "Don't jump on top of your car roof!" because apparently this can affect the height of the car and disqualify it), etc.

The guy who won the race was a replacement driver (not even a rookie) who was taking over for the main driver who had received a neck injury a week before. This is only the second race he ever participated in and he won, he's the first person to do that since 1960. Most rookies go a long time before winning a cup race, some take hundreds of races.

And his comment after winning, and being called, "kid" and "sport" and "champ" a lot was,

"Wow, man, like, I am so nervous. Go and drink some Coors Light! Wooooo!"

So therefore my childhood notion that Wheaties are the "breakfast of champions" is false.

The breakfast of champions is beer.