Tom Glenn's Blog, page 108

Books

I have too many books. In my office, which takes up the biggest room on the lowest level of my split-level house, the walls are covered with bookshelves. In them, in addition to books, are musical scores, records, audio tapes, CDs, and DVDs. The rooms on both sides of the office also have bookshelves. One room is devoted to copies of books I have written; the other to books of all descriptions.

Because I am a writer and linguist, dictionaries abound. In English, I have handy the Webster’s Unabridged, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, two dictionaries of American slang, several thesauruses, and a etymological dictionary. And on my computer, I have both the Webster’s Unabridged and the full Oxford English Dictionary.

Then there are multiple dictionaries in the seven languages I’ve worked in—Vietnamese, Chinese, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Latin. A prominent and honored place is given to the 1957 edition of Dictionnaire Vietnamien Chinois Français compiled by Eugène Gouin, which I still use as the ultimate authority for the meaning of Vietnamese words. All these books are very large and take up considerable space, especially the ones, like the Gouin, which I keep sitting open and ready for use.

Then there are the more than fifty books I’ve reviewed and my large collection of volumes about Vietnam. Next to them are books written by my fellow authors. Nearby are tomes on subjects I’ve specialized in—music, orchestration, languages, linguistics, and the art of writing.

The problem is that I keep acquiring more and more books, and I don’t have enough room for the ones I already have. I’m piling books on the floor because the shelves are full.

Every few years, I force myself to find books to give away to the local library. That usually happens when I start tripping over the overflow. But I love books. Parting with them is sweet sorrow. Nevertheless, sheer practicality demands I make more room.

Well, okay. One of these days.

John Cribb’s Old Abe

I’m currently reading for review Old Abe: A Novel by John Cribb, due for publication in September. The book is a fictionalized version of Abraham Lincoln’s final years, told in considerable detail.

Reading the book at this time in history—with the pandemic, the national outcry over George Floyd’s death, and the movement for removal of Confederacy statues—throws the story into bold relief. And Lincoln’s courage and determination offer a striking contrast to the presidency of Trump.

Equally conspicuous is the performance of the Republican party in Lincoln’s day compared with its behavior today. Lincoln’s party pushed for the end of slavery and the recognition equal rights for all. Today’s Republicans are complicit with Trump’s corruption of the presidency. Where Lincoln and his party worked for equality and freedom, Trump and the Republicans of 2020 seek to reward those who support the president’s malfeasance and punish those who decry his wrongdoing.

Old Abe, in short, shows me how far we have come as a country in 160 years and how far backwards we have gone in the last three.

Trump (2)

More on the news reports that Trump dismisses intelligence about Russian bounties for the lives of American soldiers:

Was the report of Russian bounties on American soldiers given to the president? Based on my thirty-five years working in the U.S. intelligence community, I find it hard to believe that a report that urgent would have been withheld from Trump. We know that he doesn’t read his daily intelligence briefing; we know he doesn’t pay attention to verbal briefs given to him; we know he is hostile to the intelligence community. But information this important surely was brought to his attention.

If it wasn’t, the blame still rests on the president and those close to him. Granted, he’s seen to it that those around him are not professionals but sycophants. Granted, those men and women want to avoid angering the president by giving him information unflattering to Russia. If that’s what happened, our nation is in serious jeopardy.

Why does Trump always favor our number one enemy nation, Russia? Why does he go so far as to share out intelligence with Putin? Why does he side with Putin against his own intelligence agencies?

I join with those condemning Trump for failing to protect the lives of U.S. soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan. In the less than six months left of his time in office, let us pray that he doesn’t get the U.S. into a war.

Trump

The newspapers these days are filled with stories of President Trump’s scandalous and even treasonous behavior. Because this blog is not for political expression, I avoid talking about Trump here. But when he does something that endangers American military men, I have to speak out.

After the end of my army enlistment, I spent many years working with the military as a member of the intelligence community. For the better part of thirteen years during the Vietnam war, I operated under cover as an enlisted man (army or Marine, depending on the unit I was supporting) while providing signals intelligence on the battlefield. As a result of my experience, I developed great respect and admiration for our fighting men and the sacrifices they were willing to make to protect our country.

The issue at question now is Trump’s reaction to reports from the intelligence community that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Trump claims he was never briefed on those reports and dismisses them as a hoax. He took no action to protect the targeted soldiers and failed to condemn the Russian action.

Arguments that the intelligence was unconfirmed means little. Intelligence is rarely confirmed. The intelligence community judges the validity of information from its sources based on a variety of factors, but it almost never declares that a report is unquestionably true.

More tomorrow.

Life Goals

This blog over the years has mirrored my development and maturing as I grow old. I’m now to the point that I ponder what my life is about and whether I have spent my time in honorable ways. I conclude, with what I hope is pardonable pride, that I have pursued good goals and have achieved much that I set out to accomplish.

Earning a good living was never my ambition. I loved the work I did, gave it my all, and, in passing, was well paid. I loved languages, worked in seven different ones, and pushed myself to do my best. Put in charge of others, I led rather than managed and found my fulfillment in the accomplishments of my followers. When I reached the executive ranks, I nurtured my subordinates and celebrated their victories. The results were indeed phenomenal. Almost incidentally, I rose to the top of the executive ranks. That allowed me to retire early so I could write fulltime.

I have written fiction all my life. By age six, I realized I was born to write. But, as I grew older, I learned that I had to earn a living and support my wife and children. So I became a spy and later led other spies. Over time, I came to understand that I was blessed with talents and understanding that meant I could be of immense help to others. It was incumbent upon me to do all I could to uplift my fellow men and women.

And yet only recently has it become clear to me that through it all I have had two life goals: to write and to help others. As I reach my maturity, I see that I have worked as hard as I know how to reach both of those goals. On the writing side: I now have six books and 17 short stories in print with two more novels in the works. On the helping side: for many years, I worked as a volunteer with those who needed the help I could give.

For twelve years in the past and again now, I have volunteered to work with the dying. I made that choice because we Americans—unlike other nationalities—are terrified of facing death. Hospice needs help, and I can give it. So I do.

So I am content. My two life goals, writing and helping others, have led to real contributions. When my time comes, I can rest in peace.

But that time is still a long ways off. Between now and then, I have much work to do.

Brutal Fiction

A friend of mine years ago asked me why I don’t write pleasant stories about happy people enjoying life. I don’t know how to answer that question. I write what moves me, all of it drawn from memories. As readers of this blog have long since discovered, my life has been anything but wine and roses. It started with childhood poverty, working my way through college and grad school, and bouts with exhaustion that landed me in the hospital. My thirteen years in and out of Vietnam and living through the fall of Saigon cursed me with Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). My later adventures, still classified, were equally brutal. Then, to help me cope with my unbearable memories, I volunteered to work with AIDS patients, the homeless, and the dying in a hospice. Death was a fact of life.

Everything I write is based on remembered events. My novel The Trion Syndrome is about a man coping with PTSI. No-Accounts tells the story of a straight man caring for a gay man dying of AIDS. Last of the Annamese relates what happened during the fall of Saigon. And the last story in Coming to Terms (my short story collection due for publication this month), “Snow and Ashes,” describes caring for a dying man.

Sage advice given to writers always begins with “write what you know.” My writing reflects the life I have lived. That is what I know.

Hair

I’m naturally hairy. My chest, back, arms, legs, and unmentionable areas of my body are thick with hair. And the hair on my head is longer now than it’s been in many years. That’s due to the lockdown. I haven’t been to a barber since February. I’m reminded of men’s hairstyles thirty or forty years ago when shoulder-length hair was the vogue. I’m looking like I did back then, except that these days my hair and beard are white.

I’m able to trim my mustache, beard, and sideburns. Granted, I’m not very good at it, and the results look sloppy. It doesn’t matter much, because when I go out, that part of me is covered with a mask. But I can do nothing with all that hair on my head. It festoons over my ears and the back of my neck like an out-of-control waterfall.

I wince when I look in the mirror and see what resembles a street bum with wild and wooly hair. I’m beckoned back to 1967 when the musical Hair was a hit. Here are the words of the song at its center:

She asks me why, I’m just a hairy guy

I’m hairy noon and night, hair that’s a fright

I’m hairy high and low, don’t ask me why, Don’t know

It’s not for lack of bread, like the Grateful Dead

Darlin’, give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair

Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair, shoulder length or longer

Here, baby, there, momma, everywhere, daddy, daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair

Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees

Give a home to the fleas in my hair

A home for fleas, (yeah) a hive to bees, (yeah) a nest for birds

There ain’t no words for the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Coming to Terms (3)

The last story in the collection titled Coming to Terms is “Snow and Ashes.” It takes place in the same house that was the setting for my novel Secretocracy. The real house, where I lived during my penury, is on Holly Street, NW, in Washington, D.C.

The story is about a young man who is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease. He inherited the house from his father and eventually leaves it to one of his renters, a man who is taking care of him and has earned his trust. The one proviso is that the new owner must continue to make rooms available to men in need.

I stopped writing short stories when novels became the dominant form in my output. But the stories often formed the basis for the longer works. So often a story idea first expressed briefly demands a fuller investigation. So often the foundation tale becomes the full structure.

Coming to Terms (2)

Many of the stories in Coming to Terms deal with disruption of families. They were written when my family was coming apart and reflect my despair.

One, called “Fuchsias,” tells of a man’s decision to leave his wife because it’s so obvious that she doesn’t care about him. That was my story. As related elsewhere in this blog, it was becoming blatantly obvious to me that my wife cared nothing for me. After the fall of Saigon, when I was at my lowest ebb, she refused to come to me and left me on my own. The fuchsias of the title refer to the favorite of my flowers in those days. When I was growing up in northern California, fuchsias were everywhere because the climate—never too hot—favored them. But the summer heat of Maryland meant I had to work hard to shelter my fuchsias. In my mind, they became the symbol of the marriage. At the end of the story, the man destroys the fuchsias he has worked so hard to nurture.

Another story, “Wolf Rock,” relates the camping trip of a father and his two adult sons. One son is doing the fine, the other is in trouble. The troubled son’s wife has left him and taken the children with her. He insists on being an artist (he’s a musician) even though he’s not making any money and they are deep in debt. Told from the point of view of the boy’s father, the story ends when the protagonist refuses to bail his son out financially yet again. It’s time for the boy to face his responsibilities.

“Christmas in Hong Kong” is about an old man, Ferdie, and his daughter, Mattie. Ferdie’s wife insists that he apologize for kicking the dog that bit his grandson. Ferdie comes to understand that his wife cares more about their standing in the neighborhood than she does about the welfare of the family or her grandchild. He proposes to Mattie that he take her to Hong Kong for Christmas, a fulfillment of one of her fantasies. His wife will not be invited to join them.

In reading these stories today, I am struck by how much they reflected the dilemmas I faced in my younger years. I’ve noted several times in this blog that my fiction is based on real events. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that these stories reflect my own life decisions.

Coming to Terms

My sixth and newest book, Coming to Terms, will be published this month by Adelaide Books of New York. It is, like all my fiction, based on real experiences of real people. The collection of ten stories is centered on the idea of finding a way to go on living despite the obstacles life throws in one’s path. The Foreword reads as follows:

“Coming to Terms tells the stories of men and women confronted with pain as a consequence of love and hate, goodness and evil. Each finds a way to go on living, however imperfectly.

“All these tales come from my life, as a husband, father, soldier, and caregiver to the dying. Each major character is drawn from people I have known. My hope is that you and I, both, can learn from the choices these people have made.”

All the stories resulted, in one way or another, from my years in Vietnam. Some are set there, but others are drawn from the actions of people I knew during my Vietnam years, from my time taking care of patients during the AIDS crisis, or my seven years working with the dying in a hospice. I got into that work to help me cope with my insufferable memories of combat. I learned that when I was focused on someone in need, my unbearable memories faded into the background.

One of the stories, “Trip Wires,” was the basis of my later novel, Last of the Annamese. It tells the story of how Ben Griffith died in Vietnam. In the novel, Ben’s father, Chuck, a retired Marine officer, returns to Vietnam in 1974 to work in intelligence. He’s determined to help win the war so that his son’s death won’t have been in vain. When he learns that Ben didn’t die in combat but was murdered by another soldier, his purpose for being in Vietnam and, ultimately, for living through the fall of Saigon, is gone.

But the novel doesn’t tell the reader the circumstances of Ben’s death. Only the short story does.

More tomorrow.