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I'm not really sure where yesterday's post came from, something in me said, "Write this." So I did.
Maybe it's like Boat Guy said, Armistice Day/Remembrance Day/Veterans Day was last week, perhaps a seed was planted, I really don't know. When it happens it feels good, sometimes it even reads well.
I like to write, I like to tell stories. But yesterday was different, there's something about the so-called "Great War" which haunts me. It led to World War II, it led to the Korean War and Vietnam. Whenever some greedy bastard wants something that ain't his, it's always bad.
I have a few more ideas floating around inside my head, nothing that would make a full book, but might help me say what's inside of me. The world now looks nothing like it did when I was young, I need to express that. Even if it's indirectly through my writing.
So every now and then I'll write one of those little stories. There's one floating around just beneath my consciousness now, it's not ready to come out, but I think it will soon.
The picture above is representative of what that story might be, I'm not sure yet. It starts something like this ...
The pony was nervous, his ears twitching, his tail in nearly constant motion. The man sensed danger, he had learned to listen to his horse. Something was out there in the great grasslands which stretched all the way to forever.
Something told the young man, that life as he knew it was about to change, and not for the better.
That's all I've got right now. Might be a good story, I don't know. But I do know that it isn't quite ready to come forth. We'll see what tomorrow brings ...
I wonder if the world always looks different than it did after 60 years? I'd ask my grandpa but he's gone... so is my dad. It does to me...
ReplyDeleteThat first line could have come from any Louis L'amour story, (he's good!) the next line is pure you! I'll be here when the muse finishes dumping the story into your brain and you just have to share it. :-)
Have a good weekend.
Good question as to the world looking different after 60 years, I hadn't considered that.
DeleteSitting here thinking about it & the world and changes .... I'll bet that if you went back a 1,000 years the "looking different" wouldn't be there. Even 300 years ago I'll bet things looked the same when you were 60 years old.
DeleteI forget the last few hundred years have been different than the 1,000 before that.
The past couple of centuries have been interesting to say the least.
Deletegot to thinkin':
Delete60 years ago the Berlin Wall had been in place for just over a year, JFK had established MACV six months earlier and it would be a year yet before he would be assassinated, and 'bout a year n' half before President Johnson would get us embroiled in Viet Nam over the Gulf of Tonkin incident. I graduated college the previous June and had just begun my first year of dental school in Manhattan with Uncle's guarantee that I could could graduate as a dentist in 4 years keeping my 2S status if I kept my grades up; I put my name on the dotted line the first day of school to be a part of the Air Force reserve - with pleasure; I was planning on heading in that direction in any case.
The United States was at the top of the world and the world itself was a far better place 60 years ago today.
Rob. Someone from a 1,000 years, or 400 or 300 years ago, would see radical changes over a 60 year period. Between ever-war, the various renaissances, culture mixings and, yes, climate change, there was quite a lot of incremental and evolutionary changes, at least in Northern Europe. Metalworking, mining, farming, clothing, architecture, all changed.
DeleteThe change wasn't as rapid and noticeable as it is today, where every 10-20 years seems completely different than the previous time period, but changes existed.
It's something most people, thanks to those witty Victorians, don't get to see. The Victorians (and Gilded Agers) were ever so very interested in making people in the past seem dumber and stupider and less evolved philosophically and materially than the Victorians (and Gilded Agers.)
boron - Can't argue with that, I was a little kid in the early '60s, the world seemed bright and clear. Then everything changed.
DeleteBeans - Yup, the Victorians weren't all that good as historians.
DeleteFor a long time (my understanding of it) getting enough to eat was the major human endeavor. A stubbed toe could kill you, infant mortality was the norm, raiders, warlords & the like were a fact of life.
DeleteIt was like that for your children and it was like that for your grandfather.. Little changes probably but I'll bet you grandfather would have little trouble fitting in the world of your grandkids.
Survival was the ever constant struggle in the bad old days for us European types, for many in the world, it still is.
DeleteUp until the 1940's, any sort of cough or cut could be and often was fatal. So, medically, that's a huge sudden advancement.
DeleteAs to the Victorians, they weren't just bad as historians, they were actively bad, changing physical evidence to support their pet feelings, not using the evidence to support or negate any hypothesis or theory.
DeleteCastles weren't full of poop and pee in the medieval and later periods. Poop was fertilizer and pee had lots of industrial uses, from washing and bleaching to tanning and other processes.
And now we are in a neo-Victorian era of history, where forces actively destroy what doesn't fit their precious self-conceived world views.
Beans #1 - Yup, any little bug could (and did) kill people.
DeleteBeans #2 - The Victorians sound rather woke.
DeleteRollin', rollin", rollin"..........keep that Muse amovin"....my apologies to Rawhide Sarge......... :)
ReplyDeleteAh, one of my favorites growing up.
DeleteI hope the man has a lever action 44.40, that can handle a lot of problems. Maybe a 45.70 for really big problems.
ReplyDeleteKeep writing, we love it.
Tree Mike
I just might surprise you.
DeleteYou often do, especially dredging up history we never learned.
DeletePerhaps your rider is one of the Spanish explorers who roamed mid-continent in the 1540s?
Maybe one of the Seminoles or Creeks who might have escaped the "trail of tears" in the forced relocation from the swamps of Florida to the plains of Oklahoma, after having been moved from Georgia and Alabama?
Maybe one of black cowboys emigrating to Texas after the Civil War as a newly freedman?
Heck, if someone was going to Texas instead of Hell, as Davy Crockett chose, there were a lot of Tennesseeans who chose that route, including Sam Houston and the incredibly interesting Benjamin McCulloch.
Or, a country bumpkin from New York or the old Northwest territory ["Ohio country", not Yukon] recently converted to Mormonism seeking their destiny in Zion, which requires dragging a cart with his family's worldly possessions across that sea of grass and what lay beyond.
Greed is a powerful motivator, and there is Gold in them thar hills in Kalifornia, and that is due west from our rider's current position.
Native Americans roamed the prairies in their nomadic lifestyle, and did not get along well with other tribes, so perhaps one has escaped from another tribe's "hospitality" and seeking refuge. [Kinda like the opening in Michener's "Chesapeake."]
Maybe a European adventurer seeking "sporting" opportunities to slaughter bison?
Heck it might be some skinny kid fro New York City with spectacles and testicles seeking experience as a rancher in the Dakotas.
Dang if I know who it will be, but I am certain that it will be a great tale, told well, grounded in historic truths with a bit of fiction. Get the muse a drink, or the whole bottle, and let 'er rip!
John Blackshoe
JB - Might not even be North America. 😎
DeleteI grew up on flatter ground than that picture, but I know what you are saying. I've been in that situation. One of the first things dad taught me about horses was their ears and eyes. They are listening always. Whichever way their ears are pointing is where they are paying attention to. And if they are stock still and staring with both ears forward, you better be too.
ReplyDeleteIf it were me, I'd be on his back, shading my eyes, and looking at what he is. 15 seconds of nothing seen, and I'd make book at 180 degrees, looking over my shoulder. If I could find some terrain feature, like a fold or a gulley, I'd pull a right or left and sneak off a ways. Sweeping turns are good if they are close to uncover your gun hand. Might be I spent too much time day dreaming while I rode old Honey T, but you run things through your head out there on the flat prairie when time slows down to a crawl.
oops... forgot my moniker... STxAR
DeleteHorses will often pay attention to things their rider does not.
DeleteTruth be told, it "sounded" like you. 😁
DeleteSarge, I think the Great War was different and jarring in a way that the other wars you listed were not. The Great War was not supposed to be the way it was. Everyone assumed it would be the same as war had been for the the last 50 years or so in Europe; what they were not expecting was total war combined with modern war. It shattered not only an understanding of how war and the world worked but how a civilization saw itself. Post Great War Europe was so different from pre-Great War Europe as to be a different era, which it was.
ReplyDeleteVignettes and parables (my favorite) can be useful and important ways to communicate what we see about truth and the world in a way that trying to pack everything into a manuscript cannot. In some ways I find them easier to write as I can be much more direct and focused about what the point is.
I suppose the world is always changing and looks different to us than it did as a youth. However - and I think here your sense of The Great War is accurate - sometimes things change so much in ways that the outcome cannot be foreseen. As you pointed out, The Great War directly birthed World War II and indirectly The Korean War and The Vietnam War. That does not make the current situation a promising start.
I think you're right WWI was shock to civilization, but 20 years after that, we did it again. Sometimes our species is pretty stupid.
DeleteI think WWI started as more or less as a continuation of the 1871 war and morphed into something worse -if that's possible. The technological advances of WWI, specifically the aeroplane, submarine and tank, would figure mightily in "WWI 2.0" which the ETO more or less was.
DeleteI don't think it's a "species" problem as much as a government problem; yes our species will kill for reasons other than survival or food, but that's a small subset of psycho- and sociopaths. The problem is when those types, aided and abetted by the corrupt enablers of the grifter class get into power.
WWI also led to the formation of the Soviet Union which gave voice to the evil idiocy that is communism, which continues to threaten decent, productive people everywhere.
I expect I'm of an age where I too look back on 60 years to a country, however flawed, that was better than we have today. I intend that my posterity will have better than this; I regret that "the only way out is through".
Boat Guy
What Boat Guy said. I'd put it a little further. American Civil War, Crimean War, Sino-Russian War, Boer War, Spanish-American War and even the Boxer Rebellion (which, in its way, was a true 'World War' as combatants from all over the world fought in that conflict) all were lead-ins to WWII. All were wars of incremental change. And someone from the ACW or CW or SRW or BW or SAW would not be out of place in WWI except, maybe, just maybe, at the end.
DeleteAerial scouting with direct communication or indirect communication - ACW and the Pancho Villa expedition.
Major sieges, well, pert near all.
Same, same, same.
BG - I think that at some level, most wars are just a continuation of the wars which went before.
DeleteBeans - Some of those wars you mentioned were Colonial in nature, somebody taking something that wasn't his, just because he could.
DeleteMy military history instructor in college simply referred to it as "The World War", part 1 and part 2.
DeleteReally, it was just that.
DeleteI was looking at some photos taken in the Texas Hill Country, and remembering my thoughts of what the original settlers may have encountered. Their thoughts, history, and legacies are there somewhere, but nobody to tell their stories. The grandeur of the area hides them now, but my imagination tells me even fiction is better than being lost forever.
ReplyDeleteGood point, so many stories which were never told.
DeleteA number of their stories have been told but have been forgotten. That is why I look for old books.
DeleteGood point.
DeleteMy aunt who raised me was born in 1892. She saw ladies go from button hooks for shoes and long dresses to automobiles to 2 wars, 24 presidents, the great depression, peace and prosperity the middle of the century, love-in's and watching the USA put a man on the moon. So in her 82 years she saw a great deal of change. Never had children till her and my uncle took me on at 3 months in their 50's. Never drove and never worked outside of the home.
ReplyDeleteBoron - Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was formed in 1955 to prevent Communist expansion. President Eisenhower sent some 700 military personnel as well military and economic aid to the government of South Vietnam. When JFK was elected he kept the troop and sent more but Johnson escalated from there.
If you live long enough, you see a lot of change.
DeleteI figure if we live long enough, the change will be to the previous eras. And it will be a bit jarring for us "moderns". Hand dug wells, horse power and swords for $500....
DeleteIf there are enough people left who know how to make a good sword.
DeleteMy vote (not that I really get one, but) is give the Muse another bea and let 'er rip!
ReplyDeleteYou tell history well, probably because you truly enjoy it, and you have the imagination to wonder about what folks who came before wondered about.
The human condition changed pretty dramatically from the 19th into the 20th centuries. The technology advances were HUGE and not just in how war could be waged, but also in how every-day live could be lived. The changes have only increased in rapidity from the 20th into the 21st centuries. Transportation, mechanization of work, medical advances, social advances, technology and governmental "advances" have all come pretty rapidly in the last 100-150 years. Civilizations change as a result.
Medical treatment has advanced in great leaps. Most of those who died in war back in the day died from disease. Those with anything other than minor wounds died where they fell or in some pestilential "hospital." Now, if delivered to a surgeon in a timely manner, many wounds, fatal in olden times are now actually survivable. But the mental cost is still significant.
DeleteAnd yes Suz, you most certainly get a vote.
I could live with a lot of 19th century elements but I want -and appreciate - 21st century medicine and dentistry. Lots to be said for our contemporary hygiene and sanitation as well.
DeleteBoat Guy
That was how Florence Nightingale got her start--wandering around "hospitals" in the Crimea carrying a lamp. She had all the patients carried outside, the entire ward washed--floors, walls, beds/cots, everything, then fresh straw put down and patients carried back in. She had the water boiled before being given to patients, and fresh food prepared in clean pots.Dressings--think ripped up sheets--were boiled and hung to dry in the sun before being used/reused. And fresh air was encouraged to flow through the wards. So she basically improved sanitation, hydration, nutrition, and ventilation which improved the health of the patients enough to allow them to get better enough to live to be shipped home. Soap, water, and elbow grease still go a long way even today.
DeleteBG - I'll second that!
DeleteSuz - Nurses make a big difference!
Delete