CSotD: Remembrance of Things Past
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“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
“No. Your past.”
"Oh, &%^# that," said Scrooge, and went back to bed.
The End.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Today's Juxtaposition gets top billing because it really fires up the Rant Generator and I'm going to have to sort the relevant from the visceral here.
To start with, Rex's sudden willingness to reminisce was touched off by running into an old high school acquaintance who, he suspects but is about to witness, is trapped in an abusive marriage, and I suspect that Rex's successful, popular stature in the Olden Days is quite a contrast to that of his nebbishy friend.
Granted, it does stretch credulity to think he and June could have known each other has long as they have without her knowing about his high school days or at least knowing that he never talks about them. But I'm willing to allow the point for the sake of exposition.
What it makes me think of is the odd outcomes that emerge at 10th and 25th reunions — the quarterback/prom queen folks seem to burn out quickly, their glory days behind them (This is probably a better pop culture reference than the unintended Springsteen "glory days" one).
The actual student leaders — the ones who were, like Rex, in a lot of activities and went on to med school or somewhere similar — genuinely seem to have followed through for the most part, and, if they changed direction, went someplace also good.
But my best conversations at reunions have been with the folks who didn't get a lot of tickertape in high school. Some of those people have pretty much kept the nose to the grindstone, while others suddenly took off into totally unpredictable places, but they've generally kept an eye on a fixed star in the firmament. Solid in high school, solid now but with more now built upon that foundation.
I suppose the ones like Rex's friend Buck, the schlubs who have managed to throw snake-eyes for 25 years in a row, don't necessarily show up at reunions. Which is too bad, because one endearing thing about this story arc is that Rex has affection for Buck.
So let's talk about Maeve moving to Germany, because, of the three main characters in "Between Friends," pretty, fashion-plate Maeve seems like the one who might be voted "Most Likely to Flame Out."
Except that, for all her brittle insecurity, she's a pretty bright cookie, and, if she hasn't gone all the places she once thought she'd go, well, here we are and she's talking the talk, so let's see what happens.
I lived out in Colorado for nearly 20 years before returning to the East Coast and the general area of "home," and I learned something interesting about the difference between immigrant and native communities.
When I was out there, nearly two-thirds of the adults in the state were newcomers. What I realized only after I left was that, when you were sitting around a boardroom table hashing out a problem there, the majority of people present had, at least once, thrown it all in the trunk of the car and started over.
Back on the East Coast, I found that there were a lot of people who had weathered some real reversals but had found ways to get through without having to completely reinvent themselves. Too many had seemingly done it with compromises that I wouldn't have made.
In the former case, the danger is in too quickly abandoning a process that, with a few tweaks, might straighten out and work.
In the latter, the danger is in applying Band-Aid after Band-Aid to something that is never going to work, or, at best, will never be more than a gigantic, clanking, clattering, inefficient patchwork of serial insufficiency.
Which makes me very curious to see how both these arcs play out.
And by the way:
King Features comics are about to become easier to read for free. Bear in mind, however, that the cost of a premium subscription not only has some benefits for you, but that, while it still won't break your bank, it will put a little extra cash into the pockets of the creators of all this stuff.
I'm happy to forget this part of my past:
I may have been a bit premature in saluting Kal for his willingness to confront Netanyahu's obstructionism.
It has emerged that, while plenty of chickenhawks and Islamophobes are attacking the agreement, Kallaugher is apparently not the only political cartoonist who reads the papers, knows what's in the agreement and has identified the main source of the pushback:
Meanwhile, back at the club …
And David Horsey doesn't go after Netanyahu, but he's got a good rant about old chickenhawks to which I can only add the words of Wilfred Owen, killed a week before the armistice that ended the war to end all war:
So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
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