-After dinner lets hang out, says Ben.

-I dunno man, I gotta lot of homework, says I.

-Dude, you know you’re not gonna do it. Be real, we’ll go up to East Campus and burn one at the Gazebo.

-Really man, I got a Brit lit paper Friday and a Modern Europe quiz tomorrow. We’ll wait ’til Friday.

-A’ight man. Check you later. Ben drops me off for school and speeds away in the 1986 Silver Mitsubishi Colt.

I cruise on into the house and sit in my room and look through my tape box. There was one small case with 20-25 cassettes of other music. Then there were two large cases and one huge box of the real music, Grateful Dead music, live and the primary reason for me to spend waking hours. I wasn’t into the Dead, I was the Dead as much as my upbringing, location, and resources allowed me to be. I was still emotionally attached to my parents, so I’d not thought of skipping school for weeks at the time, not yet.

If they sang about loss, I lost. If they sang about a mystical trip, I went on one. If they sang about a dear one lost to the world, I felt the loss, a bird in my life that had flown away. My hair had grown out to shoulder length. I wore tie-dyes, some homemade, some got from street fairs. I’d seen the Dead only twice maybe so hadn’t a big shirt stash, not yet.

I selected a tape from 1971, the Felt Forum, 12-5-71. It had been recorded on a cassette tape that came from the 70’s, shard by my old school Dead Head friend Sunshine. She is beauty and power packed into a 5’2” 105-pound body. We still message from time to time.

The tape had been simulcast on radio and truly was a relic from the 70’s and had odd cuts in it. It was fine though, the out of tune singing was more than made up for in the burgeoning Playin’ in the Band and the Tennessee Jed solo. Masterful and original they are.

I smoked some pot and sat in my thinking chair. I had a big room, generously provided by my step-dad Art who came along when I was 15. He took good care of my mom and me. First time I ever felt secure. A small but lovely house. I wish I had it now.

I got toasted and really dug into the music, following the notes and rhythm the best my neophyte and undisciplined ears could. Well versed in Marijuana, I got pretty damned stoned and eventually lied down to rest my eyes. I woke up and noticed it had turned dark.

My mom called me for dinner.

-I’m comin’, 5 minutes OK? No answer. I was still dressed. It was early Spring. I slept on top of my covers and just doubled the quilt over myself when I got chilly.

-How was your day? Says mom and Art.

-It was fine. Eating and staring ahead, still groggy.

-Got much to do tonight? Says mom.

-Yeah, I got a paper and a quiz I’m gonna look at. Ben wanted me to go out. I said next time.

-Huh, OK. How was your day hunny? Mama talks to Art about his day.

I didn’t really have permission to go out, but I didn’t not have permission to go out either. That was a transition soon to come.

Later that night I sat in my room and read a book. It was for Lit class, maybe Shakespeare. There was a quiz but I couldn’t remember what on. After 15 minutes I threw the book on the modern pressboard desk.

I played guitar for awhile. I barely even knew the blues scales, but tries to pick a few things out, kla-ching, kla-ching, deow, doew, doew. I had a paper due in two days. I didn’t start yet. I thought about the paper. What should I right about?

I listened to some music, more Dead. Since it costs a lot to win, and even more to lose… You fuckin’ right ay know it brother I thought.

I spaced out for another hour and by then it was 10:30. Man, I’m tired, I really don’t think I can do this stuff tonight. I heard Art finish his shower by 10. He rose early.

Hell with it. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I lie in bed and hit my bowl. I blew the smoke under my covers. I still had an old Walkman. I listened to more tunes until I fell asleep. Don’t tell me this town ain’t got not heart…Just gotta poke around.

This was the first house I remember well. All the details, most of em anyway. It was either clapboard or has like wooden shingles on the walls, all a deep red color. The roof was black fiberglass tar shingles.

I lived there with mama and deddy. I remember the big garden behind the house, a big patch of woods in back and a steep hill that went down to 5th street. There was an orchard and flower garden between our house and the landlords, the Dunns, who lived in a white Colonial facing the road. Their house was big and nice. Our house was small and quaint.

We had chickens for awhile. The Dunns hated the crowing cocks before dawn. There was a flat-bottomed aluminum Jon-boat. We took it out to the mill pond fishing. There was a waterfall, tall and strong. I couldn’t swim and was scared. It was probably only 12-15 feet tall, looking back.

I was lucky because behind my house, just a stone’s throw were some woods. I got to play all the woods games, mostly Indians, the Alamo, and Silver War. Me and a neighbor, Bill who was a good bit older, we would paint our faces and sometimes chest with finger-paint, like warpaint. We’d ambush unsuspecting settlers, or enemy villages. Whooping and hollering, chucking our homemade spears and swinging tomahawks made with rocks wrapped around forked sticks with rawhide or bailing twine. We’d be stripped to the waste and tuck old t-shirts or towels into our waste band to made loin cloths. This game lasted many years, til I was at least 10, but in another time and place, the Duck Ranch. My deddy still lives there now. I don’t talk to him. He’s too mad. So am I.

The other good one was Silver War. It wasn’t until I was 6 or so that my mom corrected me that it was Civil War. I’d put on every piece of grey clothes I had and some tan or brown pants. I had a bayonet made out of a stick stuck in my belt. I had a toy muzzle loader I’d got from Disney World when I visited my grandparents in Orlando.

Same game as Indians usually. We’d be rebel scouts. We’d wait alongside the road. The woods were perfect like that as there really were a few old carts paths in them. We’d pop out from behind logs popping shots off, screaming, we had cap guns, the ones that used the smoky-red paper rolls of powdered caps. After we fired off our salvos, we’d rush ’em, swinging out muskets and stabbing with the bayonets and killing off all them dirty Yankees.

My Aunt Judi told me stories of Yankees, and so did deddy. I knew we’d come from South Carolina and the Yankees took everything away from us. I knew we should have won the war and that was a fact. Grey was the only uniform I was interested in wearing. Later on, I wore the olive drab deddy brought back from Vietnam. I even wanted to wear the tan cartridge pouch and mortar mitts he’d taken off of a dead VC. He told me I wasn’t old enough. When I was old enough, I understood why I needn’t wear it.

I reckon I’ll start here so here goes. I was born in Company Shops, NC, least that’s what they used to call it. It a was an important railroad hub in the 19th century. It was a national textile center til the late 20th. They call it something else now. It doesn’t matter.

I want to remember my life so others will too. I made mistakes. A lot of people got caught in the crossfire. Maybe next time around it won’t be like that. I’ll be more true to my heart. I wasn’t true to my heart before. I’ll do what I can now I guess.

My first memories are only a shadow. I’m in a house with some family members. I think Grandma Ruth and Uncle Bob were there. It was 1972, short cropped wall to wall carpets, linoleum in the kitchen and flower prints of the walls. They were fussing over me and carrying on. I tried to remember where and who it was for many years and just couldn’t. Finally, I figured it was just shadows of my first memories.

Later, we lived in a little brick house on the E. 5th Street I think. There was a small sofa, no, a couch long enough to stretch out on with trains and lampposts on the print. It was cream colored with deep yellows and greens in the images.

I came home one night with mama and deddy and there were presents everywhere. I didn’t know why they were there. I opened ’em all and was real happy. Birthday, Christmas, I don’t think so, they were just there.

I ran out the back door to play. Almost everyday, I went to neighbor’s house and rapped on the screen side-door. An older man, in his 40’s – 50’s always came to the door, “Yo mama’s callin’ ya.” I listed for here and ran home. She only called one time. His wife stood behind him with a yellow red and lime striped apron. Her hair was curly and she wore glasses. She didn’t smile.

There were dogs. I think that is when I first met Max. He was a black and white hound dog mutt. Short ears, short hair, and sweet. We didn’t know nothing about pure breeds in them days. At least we wasn’t gonna pay for em.

Then we moved again to the Red house. Max stayed gone a long time.

I was 12 when I started working for real. It was 1982. My old man was getting his life together. He’s kicked the coke and was on a slow burn of Valium and dope. It got him through the day. He was talking to Uncle Charlie at the time, and Charlie’s ex-parents-in-law needed a new roof.

Deddy, Charlie, Great Uncle Tom – a mean old bastard- Roger, and I worked up on that roof. The house was pretty big, just a single-story ranch house in the middle of the country. Rectangle with a hip roof.

Only two sections of roof had to be torn off. The rest could be nailed over. We took flat nose shovels and pried the shingles up in batches, sometimes singles, sometimes one little square about 3 x 3 inches at the time. It was slow work, and hot. It was summer in Teer, NC, dairyland, corn, and truck gardens are about all there is out there. Its right peaceful though. Hot up there.

Thing was, didn’t nobody know shit about roofing. Deddy and Charlie were siding men, tin men, flim-flammers, storm doors and windows. Nailing on shingles was hard and hot. A bundle of shingle weighed 80 lbs. and had to be carried up one at a time. Roger and I broke them in 2 or 3 parts to carry them up. Heavy as all hell.

The other thing that was funny. Real roofers will spread out tarps so they can catch all the trash from the tear-off. Hundreds, no thousands of nails, and as mentioned huge chunks of asphalt fiberglass, down to one-inch flecks. We dumped it all in the bushes. 10-15-25 lb. chunks slid off the roof and crashed into the shrubbery. Deddy said, “You ’n Roger go on down there and pick that shit up.” I was 12, Roger 14 and we did it, hated it. Even though had gloves. Lots of cuts and scrapes, holes poked in our hands. Countless nails and tarry fiberglass chunks got left behind. The lady on the house huffed and puffed but couldn’t say nothing.

Roger only came 3 days. He would prime tobacco stooping endlessly in the fields for his brother for no pay, but he only came Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. It was hot on the roof. We drank water, but not enough. I was a pudgy kid. Skipped lunch most of the year at the Middle School. Ate 2 Nutty Buddies and drank a lemon drink instead. I sweat a bunch off that summer.

A little boy came over one day. He was the lady’s niece’s kid or something, maybe 4 years old. He kicked himself around on a little toy tractor, a red International. Some other fellow was over there talking to William, the man of the house. The fellow leans down to eye level and shouts in the little boy’s face, “ISSAT YOR TRACTOR!?” The little boys face cracked like a spider-webbed windshield. He bellowed tears, eyes closed. his face towards the sky. The man looked up befuddled and laughed nervously at William. William, a deadpan expression, looked out over the wheat field.

We laughed about that for weeks.

There was a bug zapper. A purple light in a decorative plastic case, made to look like a streetlamp. Rabbit wire covered the purple light. Bugs would hit it in swarms. They crackled and popped like giant insects in a horror movie. I was napping at lunch one day on a pool chair under the carport. I didn’t know the bug light made the sound. I thought giant wasps were growing under my chair, like monsters under the bed. I kept my hands well tucked.

One day at the end of the week, I think the job took only 5 days, they were resurfacing the road. Tar and gravel, that’s all. Except it was about 95 degrees out. The tar didn’t harden. Deddy had a ’65 Ford F-100, still in good shape, but the fuel pump was giving out, so it broke down in front of the house.

We stood around the hood trying to figure it out. A disconnected fuel line started spitting gas again. It was fine for a couple of days. The bottoms of all our shoes had a layer of tar and gravel on them. Mine were white high-top leather Nikes with a grey stripe. They were 6-8 months old already. That was about how long they lasted a young teen. I was young and a teen. Deddy and Charlie drank beer while they fixed the truck. Round about 4 o’clock it cooled off. I wanted a coke. Tom had some back at his house. He was mean as hell, bout all the time. He was nice to me though.

My parents weren’t like many others. They couldn’t be friends with my classmates’ folks. I guess it was alright. Beth lived up the road. I played with her for one year.

In 1976, we moved to the country. It was a big change for me. I liked it. We were surrounded by woods, fields and tobacco farms. At 6 years old, I was good. It was an adventure. I played by myself and the dogs. That’s it. We had an old blond short-hair dog named George. He was cowardly. His with was Pearl who had some black spaniel in her. We also had Seal and Eggroll, the pups of George and Pearl. I did everything with the dogs, especially Seal. She was sleek smooth like here dad though Eggy and Pearl were all black.

I ran off into the woods to play. They played along. They scouted, sniffed and dug, and much and as far as I could go. They were ready.

Since they had hound and spaniel in ’em, they were partial to chicken blood and once they got started chasing them, they wouldn’t stop. I had a level action daisy BB Rifle I got when I was 5. It as the starter model but good for me still. I entered first grade that year.

I rode the bus home as usual. There were three black sisters, maybe grade 4,5, and 6. The youngest was pretty and kind. She wore her hair tied back in a bun and had a smooth hazelnut face. The second was tall and ugly. She had buck teeth and was loud. The third was bossy and ignored me I think. The two older ones talked a lot on the bud and caused Ms. Parker the driver to call them down. The younger one talked in a normal tone of voice. Once as I was hopping off the bus, she held up 4 magic markers, and said, “Jonas, is these yours?” She knew I had some that looked like it in a small plastic 3-ring holder in my notebook. I said, “No, they ain’t.” I hopped off the bus because I knew mine were safe in my notebook. When I got home to look sure enough there was a hole in the plastic pencil bag.

I saw Ms. Parker the next day, the pens in a small cubby beside her left elbow.

“Ms. Parker, those ’r my pens.”

“Dey mine now.” Lorenzola was her name. I wasn’t mad but it hurt my feelings.

Deddy said, “I’m ‘a let the chickens out, so go out, play and guard ’em.”

“OK.” If you watched the dogs they wouldn’t chase the chickens. Well, it turns out I did have another friend, my only real friend. Hid name was Roger, I was 7 by then come to think of it. Springtime.

He saw me paying in the strip of woods between my house and the tobacco field and he called out to me. I immediately went up to him and we played for about two hours. Not a second thought.

About 5:30, I hear, “JONAS! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

“He’s comin’,” Roger answered.

“Be quiet Roger!” I heard deddy’s voice and I remembered in that instant, the chickens. I was only 1-2 minutes walk away and as I entered the yard and covered the last 50 feet or so of the front field, I started seeing chicken carcasses and feathers lying everywhere. My dad comes from around the house and yells at me, “See what you did, they killed every single goddamn motherfuckin’ chicken.” We had about 20 chickens or so, and it seemed they were all gone. He whipped out his belt and started whipping me with it right there. It made me pee a little.

We went up to the chicken house and there was one Dominecker Rooster still alive, though he had a raw patch on his back where the dogs had bit into him. His tailfeathers were mostly gone.

“If they killed Babaloo, I’m gonna kill them.” Babaloo was a handsome, multicolored rooster with a tall cone, golden, orange, yellow, green, white, and black feathers, perfect in every way, except his tail feathers were only about 4 inches long. I was crying the whole time and couldn’t stop and he yelled for me to stop.

He said, “Fuck it, I’m gonna kill them sons of bitches.” I followed him into the house and he got the 12-gauge and levered a shell into the chamber. “You stay here!”

My mom pulled up in a brown Corolla. BAWAAM. My mom in fear and anger, shrieked, “What are you doing???!!!”

Deddy had killed one of the dogs, right there by the back door just as she pulled up. It was the small one Eggroll. His 20-pound body withered away with the blast.

I wailed in my room. I didn’t know how I’d make it through this one. It was all my fault and now deddy was mad and had a gun.

It passed in a couple of days. He told mama to take the dogs to the pound. They were stuck in a one-way door and slid down a little chute into the overnight cage. We’d had the dogs for years. Now they were gone, one killed, my best buddies. Maybe someone picked up Seal. She was pretty and young. George and Pearl probably got gassed.

I remember it well, not like yesterday though. I was in fourth grade and had re-entered Little River Elementary, erected 1957, after a two-year absence. My mom kept me in the county schools after we moved back to North Durham from the South. Not really sure why.

She picked me up every day, about a 20m. ride out from town, not so far for us. We had no AC, so the Spring and summer months cooked us right good in the ride home.

On Fridays I rode the bus out to my dad’s house, the Duck Ranch. He’d only lived there 2-3 years at that point and it teemed with life. A Guernsey Milk cow named Madame and her second calf, Baby Calf. Chickens and ducks everywhere, with an occasional pheasant or peafowl. The whole property, about 9 acres, was fenced in with a single wire of 40 volt electric fence for Madame. She wandered wherever she wanted, and the grass was fresh. She was white and orange with an exceptionally sweet temperament.

I didn’t like the bus as I rode only once per week and had no habit, no seat, no normalcy. I had to look for a seat and kids could be real grumpy and fussy over bus seats. Or they could be jerks.

I remember our 5th grade had a hobo day, why, well I guess to bring awareness to traveling homeless. We read one little article called “Freight Train Maury,” and then ran around acting like wild animals dressed as bums.

This bizarre girl named Miriam had rolled up a bunch of notebook paper cut to cigarette length. On the bus she put one in her mouth just to be ripped away by another rider, another fake smoke, rip-crush, another, rip-crush, another, rip-crush. Miriam smirked and stared straight ahead not at all perturbed by the snatching of her bum props. Her face was lightly blackened with make-up or charcoal to make like whiskers. She won in the end as the other rider became bored.

After a while though, I became comfortable and the Friday rides were tolerable and even fun, mostly thanks to kids like Miriam.

This brings me to Baron, infamously known as Old Man Burn. Baron was gentle-eyed a year older than me and a full head or more shorter. He had a narrow brown face and his teeth bucked out a little but maybe no more than a bad overbite. I had one too. As a daily rider, he always sat in the very back and I would as well. His torso was flat and broad and kinda puffed out in the front, a little arched forward. His legs were straight and thin, his long arms extended skeletally, with big spidery hands. The knobby elbows seemed thicker than some part of his arms. His hair was dark brown with large loose curls, not a tight black nap. He smiled widely and his mouth seemed to stretch to his ears.

He was quiet, observed his surroundings and had a good sense of humor. We liked each other well enough and talked a bit about this and that, Hot Wheels, action movies, how crappy homework was, and his teachers that I would meet the following year.

Another kid, I think his name was Tony was as boisterous as Baron was reserved. He was loud, round-headed and had a closely cropped skull. When he laughed the whole top of his head would disappear as he opened his mouth to bray. Tony always had something to laugh about. I would sit next to him sometimes too. It didn’t take much to get him started. He was right funny.

He started picking at Baron one day. Even though he was one year younger, he outweighed Baron by about 25 pounds.

-You gotta watch out fer Old Man Burn, he would say.

Baron would reach across two seats of the old Orange International Diesel practically balancing on his thighs trying to swipe at Tony with his claws, and Tony cutting up with the thrill , couldn’t stop from laughing as he’s jump 1-2 seats ahead if he had to.

-Boy, you best set down nah! Hollered Mrs. Parker

Now I remember one day Tony was in the very back seat, and Baron was across the aisle, but separated by at least 3 kids. I was there sitting in the aisle seat.

-Old Man Burn, you better watch out, he’ll come in yo winda at night, he’ll git ya. Baron had a blank look in his eyes, but a grimace on his face.

-I saw me a scary movie last night, it was like da wolfman somethin’, my little sista was hollerin’. But it won’t nothin’ like Old Man Burn. Baron dove over the three kids trying to get at Tony and land a fist somewhere on his head.

After a while, Tony had to get off and cross within Baron’s range. I don’t know how, but Baron struck like a snake, one hand open for the head slap and the other a knotted fist. Tony slipped out of it like an eel and cackled all the way out of the bus.

Baron wasn’t too mad after that. He knew he’d get him. I’d miss it as it would likely happen on Monday, as my mom picked me up. I would miss Baron’s revenge and Tony’s requisite slap upside the head.

I hopped off the bus that day. Said goodbye to Ms. Parker, not Lorenzola, the other one, the irritated one. I had three bus drivers in my four years there. Two Mrs. Parkers and one Mr. Parker. I ain’t kidding about that.

Bunny road was dusty, the pack barns were full of hay, flies, and cats, a handful of pigs milled in the farmyard, cows grazed in the cedar patch. My house was about 200 feet down. I liked those Friday afternoons, jumping off the bus on that dusty road. Free!

When I was young, I loved fun,

We searched for music under the life-giving sun,

Piling into cars aspirations profound, smoke-filled heads full of sound,

I sit and remember the music in my heart, the memories, skins, strings and electric hammers compound.

A band we adored, driven enthusiastic,

The rhythms scorched our breasts, trenchant and melancholic,

Each moment’s purple-green flecked musical creation, measured instant fecund elation,

At first the parents thought, aberration, for us no thought of filial placation,

Friendship lifted me whole, ecstatic joy uncontrolled and enthusiasm electric.

We followed a forever band, the Grateful Dead,

Some have gone yet we dance to the music which never ever stopped,

Ever present in our hearts wed,

The primacy of joy changed our lives, profound and generous, our voices and intent compulsive yet tremulous,

Garcia gave the soul of his thrice-burned life, fingers streamed 30 years of fire,

We danced delirious and free, our only intent to grow, unfold into life’s desire,

Could we know this was the moment we had waited for all our lives and dreams to come?

Being within the family tribe, our people, yearning for love, seeing through the eyes of the world with limitless love and compassion,

The music bound us together, alas only for an instant and gone, we were One,

Today here and now, still yet we dance, called to the next note by supplication,

We and they are in the forever memory, the songs are still sung.

The sun was high, and the mud had firmed up where not soaked down by the blood of young men. Waterloo, Belgium is a crossroads farming village 17 miles South of Brussels. On June 18, 1815, the newly reformed L’Armée Du Nord under Napoleon Bonaparte met the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington for the most consequential conflict of modern Europe to date. The soldiers and citizens alike were of two minds. Wellington never doubted himself, nor his English troops of the line. His coalition also included the Dutch, Belgians, and Hanoverians. He knew not how dependable they would be.

By 2:30 pm the 5th and final assault on the French left wing was bogged down at Hougoumont, a fortified, walled farm in the middle of the open farmland. The right was held up by another similar farm Le Haye-Saint. Smaller, but still an obstruction to the general advance of the line.

Bonaparte scanned his stalled troops as reports returned to HQ. He was pleased with the initial success of the day but kept glancing over his right shoulder, to the East, looking for dust rising from the roads. “Where is Grouchy, he is late and I need him now.” He will come sire, said Marechal Soult, chief of staff. Napoleon grew impatient, but turned to his aide-de-camp, “Send word to Générale Ruty. I want his artillery to break them. Bonaparte defined conceit, he believed in his invincibility, and was confident of victory, although the entire continent raised arms against him. The previous three nights while his army had advanced and routed the Prussians at Quatre-Bras and sent alarms through Brussels, Amsterdam, London all the way to the dozens of royal houses of the German states, he pored over his maps, he measured, he deciphered, he interpreted, he knew the rise and folds of the ground, what was sown, what forests provided cover and what roads gave him ready access. He kept it neatly filed and folded within his complex encompassing mind before issuing orders during the rainy dark morning hours of June 18. He knew where to put the guns. He knew where Wellington’s would position his units. “Sir, have you any more specific orders?” the aide said while writing his memo. He simply said, “Break them.”

The cannonade during the afternoon of June 18 was devastating. The English, Dutch, German and a few remaining Belgians, those afraid to fight but more afraid to run, lay behind a slight rise, a modest ridge across the farmland, Mont St. Jean. It was not a hill but a gentle arcing ridge. 88 guns tore into the English center for one hour, round-shot and explosive shells. The round shot bowled them over like ten-pins, bounced along their backs like skipping stones, as blood and viscera erupted in plumes. Concussion shell fuses were cut to burst just above the heads of the prone soldiers. English officers stood, within this storm, at the head of their units and discussed fox hunting, their future wives, children and dreams. When the occasional break from the smoke cleared, you could see them chatting coolly as if at a garden party. Inside, they felt terror, taking every ounce of willpower not to cower and dig holes with their faces. Gentlemen simply did not do that. English officers set examples for their men. They were cut down like chaff. Those fiancées, mothers and school companions received letters of posthumous commendation for their bravery.

“Call Ney, we are ready for him….as planned,” said the emperor. “And Infantry sir, Drouot and Duhesme?” said Soult. “Oui, c’est le moment,” it is the time, replied the diminutive commander. The afternoon grew late. Marechal Grouchy, commander of the Right wing with his four corps of 30,000 men had not arrived. The Prussians scouts appeared on his right, but were kept in check. He was furious at Grouchy as he was late, but Bonaparte had decided, clearly. He would beat the English without him.

Marshal Ney, Napoleon’s brash, fearless, red-headed field commander readied his cavalry. Lancers, Carabiniers, Hussars and the Dragoons, still wearing bronze breastplates, and helmets with horse tail plumes, vestiges of a by-gone era, when a gentleman faced his enemy face-to-face with a sword. Napoleon whispered something to his aide-de-camp, and he scurried away. Soult, replied, “Is there more I should know sire.” “You know enough Soult. Face the enemy in your front, burn those goddamned farms! It is enough, burn them, and be done with it.” Soult had been reprimanded in front of the staff. Even though he was not a field officer, he knew it was his responsibility to carry out the will of the Emperor. The farms still resisted, after five infantry assaults. The cavalry marched out in formation, 8,000 strong, an awesome force, their chief advantage being to quickly move from one place on the field to another. Cavalry coordinated with the infantry for feints, spoiling attacks, pursuit, and sheer intimidation, yet rarely a direct assault upon enemy fronts. Infantry lines of battle delivered inhibiting sheets of lead and death to horses and riders. Cavalry had not the firepower to resist it. However, they mustered by company, then battalion, brigade and division. They mustered for 45 minutes in the center of the French line. Artillery and Tirailleurs, skirmishers kept up pressure on the English front. At 4 pm Ney’s cavalry advanced at a walk.

Wellington’s lines had weakened and his men’s morale nearly drained. They had repulsed attacks on the farms, and contained a general assault on the center. The cannonade had inflicted deep fissures in his ranks, but the psychic scarring was far worse. The men died and were maimed as they lie prone, while a feeling of helplessness overcame them. Yet, hope flashed before them.

“By God, they are sending the horse, are they mad?” Wellington’s Chief of Staff, De Lancey peered through his brass scope. He looked again, standing in his stirrups, “There is no infantry in support!” Ney’s men advanced still at a walk. “Send word down the line, form square.” This maneuver dated back to the Greek hoplite phalanx where men drew a wall of shield and spears bristling outward in all directions. And with the soldiers under Wellesley, it was 16 inch bayonets which no horse would charge directly. The officers remaining after the artillery barrage, the ones not cracked and broken, licked their chops, reveling in the folly of the cavalry attack, as imposing and grand as it was, the largest in modern memory, the lancers, cuirassiers, carabiniers and, heavy dragoons spread across a half mile front, creating a rumbling of the earth as distant clouds formed and grumbled over Charleroi. The English, Dutch and German allies formed squares by battalion, 6 men deep, roughly 40 men abreast, with officers, horse and artillery in the middle. They formed themselves in checkerboard pattern.

The units in fact were hidden beyond the lip of St. Jean ridge. The approaching troopers could not see them well, save some of their standards and officers on the ridge. Green jacketed English riflemen, the 2nd and 3rd Battalion, 95th Foot Regiment, the “grasshoppers,” were deployed as pickets. Anyone below division level command in the French cavalry in fact thought the enemy was retreating, that they were being sent in to mop up. Wellington was counting on this, as there was no French infantry in support. If the “little corporal” followed through with this madness, the day will have been won. His bravado welled up inside of him as he declared to his staff, “This is the moment gentlemen, and will perhaps be remembered as our finest.”

Bonaparte smiled slightly, a brief, cursory curl of the lips, instantaneous and brief. The day had gone modestly well, yet it was not decisive. At midday about 1:45 pm he had made other plans, known only to himself, Chief of Staff Soult and Marshal Ney, his ranking field commander, an impetuous fighter, the only officer out of thousands to successfully bring an organized French unit out of Russia in the winter of 1812, when 250,000 men were lost.

Orders had been sent an hour previous. “Soult, are Duhesme, and Drouot ready?” “They are sire, in line, ready to advance,” replied Soult. “Send them, now!” not shouting but with force and incisive surety. Soult raised his hand to an aid, the aid waved a signal flag, in semaphore the massage relayed across the field to the allied front. The Imperial Guard advanced in line of battle. La Jeune Guarde and La Vieille Guarde, the Young and the Old Guard, Bonaparte’s personal elite troops, most of which had been with him since the beginning of his ascendance, having fought in Italy, Egypt, Austria, Prussia, and Spain, were now to strike the hammer blow to retake the continent. There were half-a-million allied troops in Western Europe intent on stopping him, but this moment would change all of that. If Wellington pulled out, the alliance would break. Bonaparte and 45,000 Frenchmen he had on the field that day, would change history.

The troopers advanced at a trot. The ground vibrated with their advance. The Guard advanced, veiled by the horsemen, their dust was the horsemen’s dust, the inhaled it between their teeth and smiled. They advanced at the double-quick a trot of their own. Tirailleurs and Voltigeurs of the Young Guard, sharp-shooters and skirmishers shot ahead on the flanks, and dueled with the grasshoppers. Their muskets inferior, but they were no ordinary soldiers.

The cavalry advanced at a canter. The non-coms in the Old Guard screamed at their men as they advanced at the double quick, Chiens sales! C’est vos plaisirs de rencontrer la morte, en service à l’Empereur. ALLEZ, ALLEZ! The Old guard, having never been defeated on the field were practically running. It was about a mile from the French lines to the ridge of Mont St. Jean. This was their last fight. Courir, fils de putes, vous êtes déjà mortes!!! The guard bolted to the ridge, desperately trying to keep pace with the cavalry. On to St. Jean the French cavalry reached a full gallop. The clouds of dust and smoke from the guns formed a literal fog of war. Nothing could be seen by either headquarters. Bonaparte stood outside of his forward post, listening to the artillery, which had switched to round shot, to be lobbed into the squares, the thunder of his horses, led by the Carabiniers, men with short rifles, followed by the Cuirassiers, men with pistols, followed by the Dragoons, the heavy armored cavalry, with heavy saber made for breaking lines, and lastly the Hussars and Lancers, lightly armed but the quickest.

Wellington ordered his men along the line to hold fire until the horses were in their faces. The horses foamed and screamed, the riders spurred them savagely, then at 75 yards pulled up and began to arc obliquely. Slowed to a canter, they began to spilt in the center and, and cut to the right and left, forming a Y formation. By the time they were drawn abreast of the English lines they were 25 yards away and running in line parallel to the English and they gave them one volley of their firearms and again spurred their horses to the right, before and beyond La Haye-Saint on the right, and before and beyond Hougoumont on the left. Both farms were burning as the Grande Batterie had switched to incendiary shells. There were openings within the English front as the Allied line had formed squares, and presented spaces for the troopers to maneuver. The Carabiniers came in even closer, let loose their volleys and scattered, yet still orderly. British infantry enfiladed them, and they took losses but hurried on to the left and right of the English center. Acrid smoke fumed from the ridge. The dragoons, the heavy horse clad in Bronze, thundered over the ridge, heavy sabers drawn, shooting pistols, carnies and shotguns, they in turn gave and absorbed their volley. Brazen and reckless, some passed within 5 meters of the English squares. Others were shot down and their horses crashed into the massed troops, for a moment breaking their secure formation. Fresh horses could opportunely vault the breach and create havoc from within. But it was not the plan.

The English thought the horses had shied from the wall of bayonets and felt secure. They took their losses but gave as good as they got. Next came the Hussars and lancers, lighter, fleeter horsemen, they dashed and danced between the squares in company strength, hurling lances, insults and pistol shot, they lingered, fearless, terrified and raging, all eyes in the squares on them, screaming horses, the leering Frenchmen and the screaming of the wounded drowned out all sensation.

“FORM LINE, FORM LINE!” The command made its way down the English line. Wellesley turned to his Chief De Lancey and cried, “What the bloody hell do they think they are doing?” The last of the lancers and hussars had darted away into the safety of copses and hollows scattered throughout the landscape. And then they saw them, the Eagles of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Guard Battalions advancing in line, at the double quick, their bearskin shakos perched high on their heads, their woolen clothes soaked through with sweat and the last energy in their souls given to fulfilling their duty on that line. Drive and destroy the English and allies before them, and after if their Emperor willed it, they may lay down and die. At this moment, they were 50 yards from the english, within range, they halted. TIREZ, TIREZ, TIREZ, TIREZ!!!! Their officers wailed at their men at they belched lead into the British squares, dense, packed, crowded pens of livestock they seemed. Redcoats and their allies fell by the hundreds, the Young Guard’s tirailleurs moved aside, allowing the heavy infantry to advance. The Old guard slowed to a march, reloading as they moved, the allied squares frantically tried to deploy into line. “Deploy, deploy, line of battle,” officers and non-coms shouted, again and again, as if to will it into existence, a second volley tore into the English line. Hundreds fell in seconds. The Redcoats were among the most fearsome infantry in the world, dedicated, awesome and fearless in the face of death. Yet Wellington had no more than three fresh English battalions in his immediate center. His allies held not the discipline and fear of its own officers which the English had. They managed to deploy and discharge once into the oncoming guard. The front ranks of the guard fell in scores and laughed. Baisez tes mères! Nous allons vous manger pour le dîner! They reloaded and at 25 yards shattered the allied lines. The English line broke. Baïonettes, Charge! And the guard advanced at a run. The Cavalry had not withdrawn, they found shelter under the cover of the artillery. They drew their heavy sabers, and rapiers. They charged the routed allies. The guard reloaded as they advanced reagaining order, and shot into the backs of running soldiers. Dutchmen threw down their weapons and lie prone. The Germans fought until they ran out of ammunition or were over run. The English reserve retired, taking up positions around the Brussels road.

Bonaparte had received dispatches from his hussar couriers, the Ney and Drouot had broken the line. “Avance, tout au long de la ligne.” Advance, all along the line. Every reserve unit in order of battle advanced to take the field. Hougoumont surrendered, La Haye-Saint surrendered, Wellington, shook his head in disbelief. “Not today old boy, not today, to Antwerp.” He rode off with his retinue of staff officers and found his travel carriage waiting.

The great and lesser houses of Épernay, Champagne sent wagons to Brussels to congratulate the Emperor on his great victory. Each of the four largest houses Gosset, Heidsieck & Co Monopole, Moët & Chandon, Perrier-Jouët, 500 cases each of cellar reserve. The British expeditionary force left the continent, embarked from Antwerp on June 22. Without them, the alliance against Bonaparte died. The Belgians, citizens of Holland, celebrated and welcomed the French, at least half of the nation being culturally and ethnically connected. The banking houses of Holland gave allegiance to the French and committed to building them a Navy. The Austrians agreed to never cross the farthest Eastern frontier of Switzerland, nor Prussia and the German States. Without the West’s support, the Russians withdrew beyond the Nieman river, their traditional frontier between Poland and Austria. Once again, the small Corsican General was in command of a nation, while half the continent took a knee. Napoleon Bonaparte was quietly contemplative of his worst failures, the winter in Russia, the Spanish war and abdication. Now, he would turn his attention to statecraft. He considered himself fortunate, and felt his destiny fulfilled.

#FrenchAscendantatWaterloo

Opening Missives....This is a full-length book I wrote, enjoy a little here. Some of it is true.

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Introduction

This book is for those who like to travel, travel in a broad sense of the word. It’s also a story for people who enjoy beer, not just drinking it but thinking about it, tasting it, and by somewhere through the first 25 pages or so, making it. Beer is a gift, it is a road, it is a highway….wait, is that a song? Beer is a live experience, which if considered carefully and respected properly, will bring many joys and special moments. For a moment considering utility only, I present to you a method to guide you through your first batch of beer. It may be the sweetest beverage to ever touch your lips. It may give you a coughing fit. Either way it turns out, feel good about it. It’s not just about the result, it’s about the journey.

Will you always be successful? Definitely not, impossible, and that is good news. You will learn and grow from your failures, and once you embrace that, you will be unstoppable.

This book is not about the beer formulas, drinking, and backyard heroics. Well, there is some of that. It’s a journey from which we learn about life, a medium and prism through which we may experience and observe all sign-post life events. So, find a comfortable spot, get a cool drink and begin your journey. Let beer brewing be your intimate and your guide.

I. The Suitcase

I started that summer trip with a suitcase under my arm. I’d never imagined it’d be my last suitcase. Beast-Light was the beverage of choice- Milwaukee’s Best Light- smooth when ice cold, it tasted like beer that I’d tasted with my dad as a kid, and dirt cheap, Old Milwaukee, Schlitz, things like that. I think I could get Beast on sale for $5.99 a case- 24.95 cents each. Come to think of it, the suitcase had been cracked the night before in anticipation of the trip, 6 or 7 shared with roommates before the tour; that tour being the 1992 Grateful Dead East Coast Summer Tour. We’d only go to eight or nine shows, not nearly enough in hindsight, but it gave a us a chance to get away from home and work, travel and kick back awhile. And that is after all a huge part of drinking beer, kicking back. You might remember the commercial from the late ’70’s, early 80’s, some guys up in Maryland I reckon, had gone out to check the crab pots, had a big riverside boil, and were stuffing gobs of butter-soaked crab meat in their faces, and the catch phrase was, “It don’t get no better ‘n this.” It had to be Maryland, not New England, due to that catchphrase alone, the dialect and the double-negative, and Maryland is culturally speaking, a Southern state. Having come out of the Piedmont of NC, I had a little of that Old Milwaukee in me. Hence the Beast, hence the suitcase under the arm, the cram packed day-pack in the other, with a change of clothes, a toothbrush and a book. Off to the shows. Those immortal words from the Old Milwaukee commercial have become the stereotypical country boy, even redneck phrase, depending on if you are being genuine, ironic, satiric or a mix of the three. The point was, as I drag myself to it, is that my beer tastes were laughable- I had none really, the less taste the better. I preferred beer dry, if it couldn’t be dry, sweet then, and if neither one of those, I’d pass. My transformation began about 6-19-1992, when Steve Fagan picked me up from the manor house in Weaverville. No, scratch that, he got me at my dad’s house, because I’d been to Charlotte and ended up meeting him later on our way to DC. Steve had not eaten meat in years, 5-6 years at least, and my dad says, “I made us some pot-roast for dinner, I been cookin’ it all day.” Steve says “Sure, I eat meat,” and he fell off the vege wagon that very moment, and tried not to fall off the toilet, as the beef fat went through him like a laser. I can’t remember what we were drinking, probably Miller Light, or maybe even a few of my beasts, but we were drinking to pass the time and wash down the chuck roast…mmmm, the tougher the better.

We traveled for about two weeks mostly throughout the Midwest. We skipped the earlier leg the Northeastern part, nor would we catch New Jersey, at the end. It was a Saturday evening in DC, very humid and about 89 degrees out. It rained heat onto us, you could barely breathe. DC wasn’t the south except in the summer. Then they were as south as you could get. We didn’t have tickets, I always worried about it a little, and Stevie never did. “Man, they always come along.”

-Now Jawness(Jonas), I want you to meet a friend of mine, the one I was tellin’ you about.

About 6pm. Pre-show, 6-20-1992, Jesus, I can’t do this, I thought, I’m fucking high, I don’t need to meet some dreaded out Irie dude brah, if anything I need to chill, the variegated voices and sounds jolted my head disconcertingly. The scene was reaching a frenetic pre-show crescendo.

-Yeah man, he sells vegan food with his brother and man he…..

Yeah, yeah I know, he goes to all the shows, so massive, he was so there man, does he even have any teeth in his head? I didn’t say it.

Sam Walker-Matthews stood there with a big smile, all 6’5”, 265lbs. I looked up as he reached out his large hand and grabbed mine firmly, shaking it politely, resting his left hand on top of mine.

-Jonas, hi, it’s really nice to meet you, Steve has told me about you, can I get you something to eat? I instinctually nodded, yes, it’s nice to meet you too,

-Oh no man, we ate a bunch of pancakes this morning, I’m so full, but I am thirsty, can I buy you a beer, gesturing my empty Beast can at him.

- I think I have something you might like, have a seat. Calmness, warmth radiated out from him, in the lovely chaos of the Grateful Dead lot, he invited me into his world for a moment, the permutable moment and reckless energy of the crowd dissipated and became a backdrop. He had three lawn chairs set up next to a hedge on one side, blocked off by cars on two. The noise was deflected, and it felt like a backstage area or some such thing. We sat down, and I was glad to be out of the noise for a bit, even mildly. The heat was not so bad this year, but the traffic had gotten bad on the way in.

-Robbie, let’s take a break, just sell out that last wok, it’s almost showtime, cool man?

-Yeah cool Sam, his brother Robbie said.

-So, Jonas, you live in North Carolina too?

-Yeah, I live in Asheville. My girlfriend and I go to school there.

-No kidding, man I live in Greensboro. Yeah. I think you’ll like this and reaching into his ice chest he pulled out a 75-cl. brown champagne bottle. I made this, it’s a Belgium Ale.

-Really? never had one, honestly, don’t even know what it is.

-Well, I can tell you, it’s alive, it’s good for you, and its 8% alcohol.

-Well I’m your man. I was actually a little nervous. I cared less for brown beer and the few homebrews I had were less than tasty; even my poor tastes could tell they were awful. I thought I’d drink a little bit and beg off, sure it was good, but too strong for my taste.

He pulled out 3 clean glasses, wrapped in a blue towel, from a pasteboard box, and poured us all a tall glass, me, Stevie, and himself. Sam was tall, barrel chested, with piercing eyes and character grounded in bedrock. He’d been frying noodles all afternoon. Honestly, I expected some grizzly dread-headed dirty hippy, with little to offer but oily skin and feckless anecdotes about this show, this scene, this buzz and I been to so many shows man…. But not Sam, we seemed to understand each other, no predispositions and an open eye.

We sat down a few minutes. Stevie usually played the role of wide-eyed reckless hillbilly, which aside from his fun-loving nature was largely a character he played. In this case, he was the professor. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, smelled the beer, held it up the light and took a long draught, not too big, but more than a sip.

-This has some real complexity to it Sam, fruity but a nice dry finish. I double-took as it seemed as if a doppelganger has invaded the body of my travel buddy.

- Yeah, I let it age out for three months, then I repitched during bottling. I didn’t even prime it.

I didn’t even know what this meant. And come to think of it, although I was ostensibly educated, I didn’t know much about Belgium or that they even brewed beer. The beer was caramel brown and had a lightly sweet smell to it. It was cold the first few minutes and deceptively dry. It was sweet to the taste, so I opened up to it a bit. I had been partying through most of the day, so I was elevated already in mind and body. I sipped on it as Sam and Stevie talked and caught up. I noticed there was a little residue on the bottom of the bottle. I wondered what it was and asked Sam about it.

-Don’t worry about it, that’s just a little yeast. It’s waking up a bit in this heat, but it won’t affect the beer. I nodded, having vaguely heard about that before. I remember sneaking a peak into a plastic fermenter as a seventh grader, that belonged to a friend of my mom’s. The fermenter had 6-8 inches of head space on it and the yeast had formed a protective barrier, a skin on the top of the beer to protect it from oxygen. And then something singularly strange did happen. A little tan speck broke off from the bottom of the glass, floated to the top, bobbed a moment, and then dove back to the bottom. I wasn’t sure if this was an aberration or what exactly, so I looked more closely. Throughout the glass, in 3-5 spots, yeast cells clustered and started swimming. I’d not seen anything like this before.

-Sam, what is happening here?!

-Oh, the yeast is just waking up because its warm out. Don’t worry though, it tastes pretty good. You’ve never seen that before?

-No, I usually buy whatever is cheapest, except on a special occasion.

-Well, the biggest difference between good beer, and the cheap stuff, is that real beer is alive. What you are drinking is alive!

-Wow man, far out!

Sam and I have been very close friends since that moment. Certainly, the beer was unique, tasty, and strong. More importantly, it was time, place and context. I never looked back.

Lots more crazy where this came from. Support! Thank you.

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War for Peacetime

I’ve been terribly troubled lately. I want to help, I see the news, and am terrified by the events in Syria, the razing of Aleppo, the chemical attacks, and the perceived impending crisis between the US and Russia and others…interminable, it keeps OK.

I’m a step above the arm-chair advocate, social media indignities, one every day, or at least three a week. I managed to micro-lend through KIVA, to a resettled refugee in Beirut. I micro-lend to Burundi and the Congo, underfunded, economic exclusion or conflict zones. I feel better. We give $30 bucks a month to World Vision here in Taiwan. It goes to emergency family relief funds for rural families whose kids need shoes, schoolbooks or food to make it to school and get a chance at something.

I continue to be haunted, anxious, unsettled and driven to isolation by dwelling on the events unfolding in Syria, and another dozen locations around the globe. My son feels it, my wife feels it, she knows I care and want to help, yet it’s gotten to the point of disrupting my happy existence with my family. I look for an outlet, something with meaning, substance which propagates some measure of harmony to counteract the swirling chaos.

I do what I can, I could do more. A little about my current life. I’m an expat who moved to China about 10 years ago. After 18 months I moved to Taiwan with a woman who later became my wife and we are raising an eight year old boy, Chevalier. We live in Taichung, a city of about 2 million, very dirty air in winter due to wind currents in the ocean strait, but as we live outside the inner ring, we are 8 minutes from the bustling and modern uptown, and 8 minutes from Rice fields and forests in the opposite direction. Fresh fish is incredibly cheap here and universal health coverage for all three of us runs about $100 a month, total. I teach at a small elementary school which has a strong English program, attached to a regional university. There are trees, parkland and neighborhoods on campus, it is like a garden. There is no crime, the birds and singing as you watch people run the track at the local high-school on Sunday as I pitch an orange foam rubber ball to my son. It is the essence and quality of all that defines peace. The most maddening thing about life here is the bad driving, so if I’m careful, nearly everything is a breeze.

I’ve been forced to look much deeper within myself. I’m a sensitive person, and having had a rocky childhood, drugs and alcohol in the family during the late seventies, I spent a lot of my youth searching for normalcy. For me at 11 years old, blasting ‘Just One Night,’ by Eric Clapton and watch people yell and screaming in delight or misery was normal for me. I am happy I was raised on rock and roll but the intensity of the party, the intensity of the despair made me a sad kid. I went to a good school and grew out of it over time. I am predisposed to that sort of behavior, extreme binging, on whatever that might be, drugs, food, intimacy, collecting, there is a consuming dedication to whatever it is I undertake, whatever it might be for as long as it lasts. And I fly to the next thing. I’m stretched a bit thin.

Back to the point. Why does the Syrian War affect me so? I think I know why. My dad is a Vietnam War combat veteran. He was drafted at 19 and went over in ’67 at towards the peak of deployment and was present in Siagon during the winter Tet offensive of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. When he told war stories, I loved to hear them, and remember several in detail to this day. They are told and retold and the details change a bit, but the theme remains the same. He wanted to help, but it came down to doing whatever he had to, including terrible things, to survive, protect his friends, and get home again. As a kid, the idea of war was romanticized for me, not so much Vietnam but tales of the Civil War and the Great Confederate victories, yes, I’m from North Carolina, and the might have beens, and we really weren’t fighting for slavery but honor and a way of life. Some of my family were slaveholding planters and others were craftsmen and most were likely farmers and the most ordinary people struggling to survive in a hostile world. So I dreamed of colorful banners, red breeches, the Swamp Fox and the battle of the Alamo. Glory and heroes was a part of my young narrative. To be clear, my dad was a conscript and although he did his duty, he was by no means pro military, nor did he expect me to be, it was just the stories that we told.

He taught me to shoot, never to hunt. We fished a bit though. We made bows and arrows, tomahawks and other Native gear. His Grandma James was one quarter Catawba Indian so he had a direct connection to some of the old ways. Since 1977, he has lived in a little 1940’s era farmhouse in rural Orange County, NC. Not much around but farms and forests. We had animals, chickens, ducks, goats, and cows, but he never liked to eat them. Nor did we camp. As a teenager he finally told me he had had enough of sleeping outside in Southeast Asia.

By the time I was 15, my dad and I were great friends. We worked together in summer, climbing on houses, fixing windows and installing vinyl siding and other various contraptions. We drank beer together and shared many things together, kind of us against the world. My dad would be violent, not towards me but others, and as a kid it scared the Hell out of me, I felt so sorry for the recipients and I’d either be silent, or try to calm my dad down or the other person, my mom or step-mom. This part went back to my earliest memories. The verbal and physical abuse wasn’t sinister or premeditated, just triggered by the drugs, alcohol and his own experience at the hands of his abusive father. But this is not even the point. As I got older, we drank together and became confidants, I heard the real war stories the real combat stories, not the guns and glory, the horror, the madness, the unimaginable struggle of men locked in Death’s embrace, trying to live, losing your humanity, and doing anything you had to do, just to have the right to go back home. He had a buddy named Jerry who was cut down by heavy machine gun fire while out on patrol, and dad’s agony and helplessness and despair were present for me too. I could see it feel it, empathize with my dad, and perhaps unfortunately, I could imagine it too. My dad was locked in a struggle for his soul’s survival, he suffered mightily from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and used drugs and alcohol to assuage his pain, his guilt, and his own abusive childhood with war laid on top and shattering what perception of serenity he had left from his small town upbringing. My dad is a real survivor and though he trusts few, he has many friends and is well liked. And after over 10 years of treatment at the VA hospital in Durham, North Carolina, he has conquered most of the symptoms of PTSD and lives a simple yet fulfilling life. Believe it or not, now he needs to go back 20 more years to 1950, to sort out his family stuff, which may be a steeper hill to climb.

So I got the war stories, and I saw my family shriek with ecstasy intermingled with fear and self-loathing, the drugs a balm to regret and lost dreams. I learned about the horror of killing and the animal fear of the hunted first hand. Believe it or not, as a teen, I got it together pretty good thanks to my attendance of a small progressive high-school near Durham. I read about war, the Civil War, WWII, The Revolution, Napoleonic, Vietnam, anything I could get my hands on. I unconsciously hoped that I would learn something that would help me understand my father, help me understand him better, or put me in a position to give him peace or comfort in some small way. We did a bit of trout fishing up in the mountains together; he did in fact sleep outside a couple more times. We worked together and continued to be friends into my 20’s. I trusted him and considered him to be a good buddy. He figured we were cool and we were for many years. In my 30’s we became estranged. I don’t know it matters so much now and I’m honestly not sure why, but we are close again, although I see him rarely, remember I am an expat.

So, in Syria, I hear about the battles, the struggles, the death, I can see it in my mind, not because I’ve seen Saving Private Ryan or Passchendaele, but because I’ve felt the terror, seen the inescapable predicaments, and the loss of humanity, that all in warfare undergo. My service was being a peacetime son to my dad. I looked into his eyes, and saw the lost soldier, the one who has nothing, where life means nothing- the death shone from his green eyes like Charon’s beacon. There is no coming back, only living with it. Living with it. Luckily by the time I was 25, I’d figured out that war was a losing proposition for all involved, except in the utmost extreme circumstances. I venture to say, diplomacy is an afterthought in the majority of conflict today. There was no romanticism left, but still a morbid fascination. I read, and read, and read. None affected me more profoundly than Guy Sajer’s, The Forgotten Soldier. Guy was a Frenchman from Alsace whose mom was German, and he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and sent to Russia to fight. Despite the atrocities committed there, I couldn’t help but see Guy and his comrades as victims. They were not the Einsatzgruppen, the ones who terrorized and murdered civilians, but line soldiers in the regular army, who did what they were told and just a few survived retreat from 1943-1945, where deprivation, death and loss of humanity were the duty of a soldier.

“A day came when I should have died, and after that nothing seemed very important. So I have stayed as I am, without regret, separated from the normal human condition.”

Perhaps from him I hardened my sense of empathy. When I think of the combatants in Syria now, short of the few fundamentalists who hate everyone equally and want to kill all. They think they are serving God, but their action make them the worst sort of nihilists. But mostly just ordinary people, pressed into service or called upon by God and country, wherever the battle lines are drawn. And in this case, many can’t go home. They fight to victory or death, most of the smart ones accept their death and become all the more fearsome fighters. It is the way of way. There is no winning, the good guys fall with the bad, and all of them had mothers, wives and children.

When I heard about the gas attack I was enraged. And slightly gleeful at the launch of the cruise missiles. What an idiot I felt afterwards.

A little more about why Syria has been nagging at me. My dad is a writer, more in lifestyle and presence than marked by his published works. Henry Miller, the iconoclastic writer of the 1930’s modernism, was among the first to proclaim writer friends who never published a word, or perhaps Neal Cassidy, the original Beat and hippy pioneer, who lived his art, until his heart stopped one night in 1967 on some train tracks in Mexico.

We all are writers, my mom, dad and me. My mom did publish her first book recently, good for her. Anyway, he has been telling several stories simultaneously for 30 years- among the topics are his narrative of Vietnam, his hometown, Mebane, North Carolina, a historic furniture town in Central Carolina, and finally, not least important, a story of my great-great grandfather, Aquilla Jones, a Civil War veteran, married into the Catawba nation, protector of the weak and general multi-skilled pillar of a man, who lived into the 1890’s. He raised six children I believe, the youngest of which was Caroline Owens Jones, with whom my dad spent his early childhood with. My dad had stirred my interest in family history so I began searching, using the sites from Utah as a base, and dipping into State and National archives as well. Aside from the Jones’ and the Rogers’- the Catawba line- I am directly related to a group of Massachusetts Armenians, via Turkey and Syria, the Kashishians and Karajians. My reat-granddad and grandma came over about 1909, and 1912 respectively. They made it over, had money for passage, and possibly had family here. Within the Ottoman Empire, Turkey primarily, the Armenians there were a merchant and civil service class, as well as Christian. This could be part of the reason why there was an 1896 pogrom and then a comprehensive cleansing of Armenian people in 1915. The 1896 purge was less violent, which begs the question, how many need to die before it is considered very bad? My great-grandfather Harry, lived in Edessa, the ancient biblical kingdom, crusader city and modern day Urfu, in Southwest Turkey. Harry walked with his mom across the Syrian Desert. They escaped violence to take their chances in the desert. Aleppo would be less than 150 mile away. These human convoys usually carried what provisions they could, and were accompanied by soldiers. The soldiers were known to weave around villages, partly to deprive the marchers but also to keep secret what was happening to the people. They made it to Aleppo. I don’t know if Harry met Rose there, or if they met later in Massachusetts, probably the former. Rose Karajian, a young Armenian teen was 16 when she emigrated to America in 1912. There was violence in Aleppo, reorganizing, but Aleppo was far from Istanbul, and the Syrian citizens may or may not have assuaged the severity of the violence in 1896, the year of Rose’s birth.

Going back to early February, Trump had been president a short time when he announced his travel ban. I was struck inside and felt sick to my stomach. I’d followed the tragic stories of Refugees, sunk in boats, faced with vitriol by Western nationalists, reviled as terrorists by the loud voices within America. Aleppo has been in the news cycle very recently, as a months’ long struggle for it had ended in December or January, pulverizing large sections of this ancient trade city. First, I found Grandpa Harry’s naturalization papers and made the connection between the refuge ban and my family’s successful immigration. Then I dug again and found Grandma Rose’s naturalization papers. ‘City of Birth, Syria, Ottoman Turkey.’ And I flipped my shit. I was enraged and saddened, my emotions were torn, ripped in two, and I couldn’t focus, think, nor function properly. Here we are literally one century after one of the greatest extermination of an ethnic group in human history, ending the sixth year of a Civil War claiming 600,000 lives, and 5,000,000 refugees, and we cut them off, done, can’t take them until we reevaluate. I was apoplectic, raging inside and I felt so helpless. I donated to KIVA, I posted on Facebook, what could I do, What could I do? I don’t know.

The systematic purging of the Armenians from Ottoman territory and Turkish society is a footnote of the imperial annals of 20th century history. I’m not saying it was whitewashed by the West, it was just not comparable to sacrifices made by the West during the Great War, 1914-1918. History is written by the victors, and while the Turks lost the War, they won their country and created a constitutional parliamentary system which brought them into the 20th century. Their denial of the Armenian persecution takes away all of their integrity for me. Fine, I don’t know much about their country, I go to school with a Turk named Yagiz who I like just fine, far removed from this bloody history. But what did it do to the Armenian people themselves? Three in four were murdered or died during the pogroms. There were beheadings, crucifixions, hangings, mutilations, and cold blooded murder in the streets. Teen girls, the pretty or perceived fertile ones were taken, raped, married, and even kept in slavery by Turks and Syrians alike. And they continued to live, make babies, convert to Islam and survive as the human spirit drove them to do. The survivors who made it out lived with this trauma, every moment, every day; it clung to them like a shadow, draped like poisonous mist, infecting every pore of their being. They may or may not have talked about it, like some war veterans don’t talk about their experiences. But it was there, in their lives and that of their children, the names of the dead carefully noted, perhaps written down in a book, a family bible for the children to discover, to ask, ‘mama,’ why isn’t Aunt Mariam here now?’

And my Grandma Lillian was like this. She was American, born in 1919 in Boston. Harry had a small shoe factory there, in Revere, MA. I have pictures of Lillian as a teen. She smiled, but I rarely saw her smile. Life is complicated, we can rarely foresee the events that place us where we are, especially in terms of adversity. Grandma Lil lived in this cloud, this darkness, there was no joy in her life. She said she loved me and I believed her. I just couldn’t feel it. Nor could she feel love in her life. I was dutiful grandson. But didn’t know how to embrace this sad, gloomy person. It wasn’t until many years later I understood what all of this meant.

A little more about what really happened in Turkey. During the Great War, World War I, the Ottoman Turks were allied with Germany, fighting against the English and Russians among others. There was a front in Eastern Turkey, through the area that was historical Armenia. Some Armenians are thought to have fought alongside the Russians, over 100,000 are known to have fought in the Turkish army, as there were about 2 million Armenian citizens of the empire. Talaat Pasha as Prime Minister, among the 3 pasha’s who ruled Turkey, decided it of vital military importance to deport the entire, non-Muslim population of Turkey. It took precedence above all else. The trains were diverted to carry them to Syria and beyond. The main road to Egypt was clogged with refugees and could not be used for the army. They did shoot outright many of the men, certainly any which resisted. People were ripped from their homes with only a moment’s notice. And they marched, or where packed in livestock cars, given no food or water, steered away from any villages that could give them food or sustenance. It was in fact a death march, and for those few that reached the end, The South Syrian desert awaited them. There was no end, only death, misery and suffering. The ones that survived were children, as they were taken in by German, American, and Danish relief or Christian organizations. Thousands of extant documents in Berlin detail these events, including American nationals and members of the Entente or Allied powers of the time. The Germans watched it all happen, and while it disgusted them, the war was more important. To a large degree, it was the children, the children only that survived, as they were the ones that had a chance at protection by the foreign missionaries and aid agencies. Death by starvation and marching- that was it, and brutality, as mentioned before.

Out of roughly 7 million Armenians in the World today, only 2 million live in Armenia, what remains of their traditional homeland. The rest settled in a wide global diaspora. While Harry and Rose missed the violence of 1915, there were troubles before, never to be forgotten, coded in DNA, predispositions for depression, despair, and silence.

I’m not here to get the Turks to confess. The facts bear out the stories, yes, but I really have a hard time coping with war, especially the Syrian war. Perhaps there are very few of my ancestors left there, if any. But I see the death, the cracked skulls, the gut wounds, the pulpy, bloodied extremities. Yes, I am imaginative, but I lived it, every day I lived with my dad, whom I love very much, or remember sitting with Grandma Lil, the sadness coded into her very being. I have a hard time finding the happiness I am supposed to share with my wife and little boy. The death, and the destruction is too much. I suffer from PTSD. I have not killed a person, but I have lived with the killer, I have lived with survivors of the killed, I see it, dream about it, what can I do but medicate myself and try to understand when there is no clarity?

The existential me functions. I look around and I see the peace, but it is fragile, cuddled inside a mica shell, ready to snap. Taiwan is peaceful, very high on the individual, with high living quality indexes. 2000 miles to the East, Muslims are getting deported in Burma, the North Koreans and Trump and ready to go a few rounds, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad. Fuck it, it’s all going to Hell, it’s over, pack it in. Give up, the gasoline will stop arriving, as will the food, its Fucking over, done. How’s that for meaning? Only occasionally, do I not feel the end coming, I look into the light of my child’s eyes, I see a glimmer of hope. And KABOOM, down goes another neighborhood in Damascus, Djibouti, fill in the fucking blank. You don’t want the Truth, there is no such thing. The truth is, it’s over, give it up, the ethos of the proletariat, economic justice, somewhat pretendable equality, fuck it. Done. Ursula Le Guin was right, we cannot have our way, if that little child is not locked in the closet, starving, mottled with suppurations, alone, stinking and afraid. Because my daddy died for that flag, and those people are Godless, and they ain’t my problem, here in my bass boat, or the cultural relevant equivalent of Bass boat, that is mine- SE United States.

Fuck you, it’s over, done, the Grim Reaper has arrived and he’s coming for all of us. Don’t save yourself, give yourself to your dog, at least he’ll be fucking happy, see where justice gets you? #warforpeacetime