Tom Glenn's Blog, page 75

Authors Dinner

Last Tuesday, I attended the Authors Dinner at the Old Europe restaurant in Washington, D.C. I was one of more than fifty authors in attendance, ranging from the famous to the unknown. I’ve been participating in the event for more years than I can remember, but it hasn’t been held for the last year because of the pandemic lockdown. It was good to see again people I’ve known more than half my life but only see once a year.

Getting there and back from Columbia, Maryland (where I live) was more than a nuisance. It took me more than an hour to get to the restaurant, driving, as I was, at the height of the rush hour. And the drive home was almost as long. I’m getting to the age where a long drive—especially in rush hour traffic or in the dark—is a real nuisance.

But I’ll probably keep attending the annual Authors Dinner for as long as I am able. There’s nothing quite like being in a room full of people who understand the difficulties of translating thoughts into words and transcribing them onto paper. These folks are my fellow crusaders.

Comments Invited

I blog almost every day. My intent is to stimulate readers with my thoughts and experiences. And I more than welcome reactions from readers.

So I encourage you to respond to my writings, especially if you disagree or simply see the issue from a different point of view. I learn from what others have to say. The more I learn, the better my writing—and this blog—will be.

So step up and speak out. We’ll all be the better for it.

Meaningless Words

A habit of most of the people I know has caught my attention: scattering meaningless expressions throughout their speech. I suspect they do it to fill in the empty spaces created when they pause their speech to stop and think. As far as I can tell, I’m not subject to that habit, probably because I was rigorously trained as a public speaker and learned to eliminate unnecessary sounds.

The utterances I’m talking about include but are not limited to “well,” “you know,” “so,” “and so,” “mmm,” and “um.” They get in the way of clarity and drain away the emotional power of elocution. All they do—and, as far I can tell, all they are intended to do—is make sounds to fill what would otherwise be silence.

In my experience, only speakers of American English litter their speech with these sounds. The British and Australians I have known didn’t do it, nor have I observed it with speakers of languages other than English.

What is it about the American character that leads us to spend so much time on meaningless sounds? I have no idea. But my guess is that the habit does not endear us to others.

Memorial Day Readings

For many years, I have trudged down to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., every Memorial Day and Veterans Day to participate in readings by local authors. The event included music—singers accompanying themselves on guitar or banjo—and poets outnumbered prose readers like me. It was a joyful occasion and entertained many passers-by.

No events on the mall have been held since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. More than a year passed with no gatherings. Then, this Memorial Day, the program organizer, Dick Epstein, decided to hold the event not in person but remotely by Zoom. More than twenty of us sat in front of our computers with webcams and performed. My contribution was reading from three of my novels.

The content of the readings emphasized the theme of Memorial Day, remembering our war dead. It was a rewarding afternoon. Dick tells me that future readings will continue to be remote. I’ll tip off readers here so that you can tune in.

Begonias, Begonias Everywhere

On the back of my house, looking north over the pond which is about a hundred feet in diameter, is my deck. It’s roughly ten feet by thirty feet, surrounded by a railing topped by flower boxes. Last summer, I planted a variety of annuals in the flower boxes, but the plants bloomed at different rates, and some started dying off before the summer was over. So this year I planted only one variety, red begonias.

I figured I’d plant one begonia every six inches, all around the deck and bought the requisite number of plants. But the instructions that come with the plants said they should be spaced apart ten to twelve inches. I had too many plants. As a result, I planted extra begonias in a dozen pots. I still had plenty left over. So I cultivated a plot to the side of my driveway in front of the house and planted the remainder there.

To my surprise, the end result doesn’t look crowded or congested but resplendent. Flowers everywhere. And the plants are thriving. Not a one is showing signs of failure.

For once, my miscalculation turned out to be a handsome improvement.

Rerun: Do What You Have to Do, Whatever It Takes

This Memorial Day, I return to the subject of an earlier post. I have hanging in an honored place in my piano room a color photograph of a pair of empty combat boots. The caption, quoted from my novel Last of the Annamese, reads “Do what you have to do, whatever it takes.” The implication is that the owner of the boots did what those words imply and gave up his life for his country.

During the thirteen years when I spent more time in Vietnam than I did in the “real world” (what we called the U.S.), I knew far too many who died in combat. Among them were men I particularly admired, navy corpsmen. These men were sailors, but they were assigned as medics to Marine combat units to care for those wounded in battle. So all corpsmen, by definition, saw combat. The Marines they served all called them “Doc.”

Some 10,000 corpsmen served in Vietnam. Of those, 645 were killed in action and another 3,300 were wounded. They are credited with saving thousands of lives.

I know two men who were corpsmen in Vietnam. Both were there in 1967, and both were assigned to units operating in the central part of the country. I was in that area at the time, and although I saw other corpsmen working with Marine units I was supporting, I never met either of these two guys, nor did know each other. One of them still uses the moniker “Doc.”

My corpsmen friends and I are alike in one respect. We weren’t on the battlefield as combatants. They were there to save the lives of the wounded; I was there to provide intelligence on the enemy. I know they were armed. I was, too—I carried a .38 revolver, but I never fired it on the battlefield. One of them was wounded multiple times in combat; I was not.

All three of us lived by the rule of doing what we had to do, whatever it took. We knew we might not survive. We were serving our country by putting our lives on the line.

American combat veterans are becoming a rarity. There are fewer of us every year. And I am the only combat veteran I know who was civilian. During my entire time of working on the battlefield in Vietnam and afterwards, I operated under cover as an enlisted man in the unit I was supporting, but I was not in the service.

So I am more than proud to be able to say that I understand in my heart of hearts the meaning of that saying—

“Do what you have to so, whatever it takes.”

Goslings (2)

The family of geese swimming in the pond to the back of my house continues to appear at most hours of the day, but whereas in the beginning there were four goslings, now there are only three. What has become of the fourth offspring is a mystery. It might have died a natural death, but I saw no indication of illness or disability affecting any of the four. More likely, the missing gosling became a meal for a predator. If so, the hostile animal would have had to have been quite large to withstand the attacks of the gander and goose. I’ve watched them chase away other birds who have come near the goslings. They’re quite ferocious. I wouldn’t want to tangle with them.

The three remaining goslings are growing at a surprising rate. They’re now nearly twice the size they were when I first spotted them. But they’re still the dirty yellow color they were when they first appeared. No sign yet of the lack heads with white cheeks that characterize their parents.

If the fourth gosling was eaten, there’s some likelihood others will be, too. I’ll watch the family closely and see what happens.

Cicadas

These days, at most times during the day and night, I hear the high-pitched buzzing of the cicadas that are everywhere around me. So far, they are not too thick, averaging something like one every ten feet on the ground. I’ve only found one on the deck at the back of my house, and only one has attached itself to a door screen. The weather, against all expectations, has not gotten warmer, and it’s not supposed to be over ninety degrees anytime in the next three or four days. From what I read, I’m assuming the cicadas will not come out in force until it gets much warmer.

Or maybe the cicadas are fewer in this part of the world. I tried to remember their last appearance seventeen years ago or, for that matter, any time in my life. I don’t remember ever having encountered cicadas, so they probably weren’t numerous enough to make much of an impression on me.

I don’t object to the cicadas. In fact, they intrigue me. And even the din of their buzzing is not loud enough to penetrate my house when I close the doors and windows. So for me, the presence of these strange insects is no more than momentary entertainment. Maybe if their numbers grow, I might find them objectionable. I’ll wait and see.

Gerrymandering

A reader (and old friend) suggested that my list of “Things We Need to Change” should have included gerrymandering. I agree, so I drafted a blog post. Here it is.

Gerrymandering is defined as manipulating voting districts to create a result that helps the instigators and hurts their opponents.  It is named after Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) of the Democratic-Republican Party, which later coalesced into the modern Democratic Party. It has been most infamously used to vitiate the political power of minorities, especially Blacks.

The Supreme Court has heard seventeen cases on gerrymandering, each time resulting in impeding the group attempting to cripple its opponents’ voting power. The dominant principle throughout has been the right of every citizen to have his or her vote counted, sometimes called one-man-one-vote.

As with so many of the governing defects I cited in the original posts on “Things we Need to Change,” gerrymandering has been conspicuously used to obstruct racial minorities. The stain of slavery and its aftermaths continues to degrade us.

But H.R.1, passed by the House of Representatives in March, would ban gerrymandering at the federal level. It is now before the Senate. The Republicans, still loyal to Trump, have so far succeeded in preventing the passage of H.R.1. We may have to wait until the next election before we expunge this obviously anti-democratic vice.

We’re making progress on righting the wrongs that stain of slavery has created. But we still have a long way to go.

Goslings

I have written here several times about the wild animals I see from my deck on the north side of my house and the windows looking east. Deer and ducks are the most common, but I’ve also spotted a fox, rabbits, raccoons, an opossum, and a beaver. Within the past few months, the dominant animals have been two Canadian geese, apparently a gander and his goose. I watched them fly in from the north and fly back out at what seemed like random times. Recently, I noticed that they seemed to be staying close by, never leaving.

Then, about a week ago, I discovered why: they now have four goslings that scramble around after them in the water and on land. Commonly, I see the whole family sailing tranquilly across the pond in back of my house in a straight line, an adult goose leading followed by the four goslings in a line and the other adult goose bringing up the rear. They are peace and contentment incarnate.

I read that Canadian geese breed once a year and return to the same nesting area year after year. So maybe my geese will remain close by and produce more goslings next year at this time.