Too Absent Herald

When his officers were angry late in the war because Congress had not paid them as promised, he refused to support their plan to march on Congress. Instead he confronted the officers planning this action, known as the Newburgh Conspiracy. Washington won their allegiance when he made an example of his own self-sacrifice. Eyewitness accounts relate that Washington used his failing eyesight as the example, saying “Gentlemen, you will permit me to don my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray but nearly blind in the service of my country” when he was unable to read a document.

I’m on the road, again, in Newburgh, NY, for a convention of Small Boarding Schools. Just up rte. 300 (I’ll have to take some pictures before I book, tomorrow) there is an open field amongs the almost ceaseless brittle winter trees.

This is an out-of-the-way place. So much so that this field is marked only by a single roadside sign. Scattered around are squares of stones. These were the foundations of dwellings. The dwellings were the last encampment of the Continental Army. Such sites, unlit and likewise unheralded with bunting (like The Wilderness in VA) are like food to me.

The field is surrounded by the expected ranch-style, lean-to dwellings that you would expect (!) to find. I mean the sort of homes that are not (but should) be featured in those repulsive “Go Army” ads where the lucky youth gains something of adulthood after 11 (not 13, army pukes) weeks of basic. At least if the young man or woman were shown, in his/her smart uniform, standing amid the flagstone path to a red-shuttered one-story home, under the flags of Betsy Ross and Dale, then one might get the idea that the service raises one, truly enobles one.

Instead of this, of course, the youth is always shown in completely unrealistic surroundings: a well-appointed home, and the sounds of celebration from within, as though the olive-green were a sign of high priesthood. Rubbish. I’ve seen and know what the armed services can do to raise people up. But this pablum, marketed to zombies, glued to “America’s most absurd one-acts”, “American Idol(atry)”, and “Survivor” (no pun possible); – this is revolting.
Today the United States Senate (doesn’t that sound nifty?) voted to raise the debt ceiling, again. That means that the US Government is borrowing so much money…

How much money?

So much money that it is equivalent to borrowing $30,000 for each citizen. So sayeth my complimentary (refused) copy of USA Today. I can’t decide whether this figure includes the 1/3 of the population in prison, or 1/8 homeless. But you get the picture (cuz it’s USA Today, and it’s all a cartoon).
Happy spending, yahoos. I’m just barely crawling out of a two week blue funk over how I am ever going to extricate myself from student loan debt (the last step taken tonight, below). How about raising my debt ceiling? How about letting me get away with that sort of nonsense. And now that I think of it, isn’t it priceless that this would happen today?

Blissfully, all I could think of today was that it is Paul E’s birthday. It took the combined heavy hitting of an extra-long wait for my take-out salad at Friday’s, having to endure two (2) cheers and chants that I could not make out… then finally noticing the several times that the pixie behind the bar kept lining pilsner glasses with Creme de Minthe… and I realized it is St. Patrick’s Day. So let’s go ahead and raise our spending limit. Right? Cuz Angela’s Ashes was about how the Greatest Generation tightened their collective belt so that I could get two (2) cheeses on my enhanced burger (and bacon).
Seriously, I have to remind you and myself, that the budget surplus of ‘99 could have allowed for the expunging of most education debt for millions of people. And then I, yes, I would have been on the bar, in a Dr Seuss’s cat hat (but green-striped, of course) yelling about my inherently Irish heritage. Think about free education for all… We could’ve partied like it WAS 1999.

I used to read Camus a lot, which is to say, I read Camus once, and it has never been washed away. I read a lot about crossing lines, about determining that “enough is enough”, “one may go this far, but beyond this, you may not cross.” At worst, he was talking about justifying a murder of passion, at best, standing up to the Nazis. I am not so shameless to think that I am at that point, or that we, as a country have to think that drastically (though I would not be alone). But I am sure tired… well, just tired.

I’m not who I think I am. I am who I seem. I’m twenty-seven, sarcastic, sardonic, and determined, and fun-loving. I am going back to who I was, whom I have always gone back to. Who lends their memory to the title of this, my feeble web experiment.

I shook off the last of the ennui by buying a suit that, because it is a size 50 (eur), is equivalent to the 39.4 that I apparently measure. That has double vents, slim cuts under the arms, and a smooth plain front. I almost ran off with it.

And I paid with cash. bless america. Now I’m going to watch the Sopranos. Wouldnt want to miss it.