Bill's been posting quite prolifically since I joined up, and because it is, after all, his blog, I've kept quiet, except to comment a little. But my soap-box sap is rising, so here I am again; what I'd like to do this time is try to give a better sense of where I'm coming from.
The short version: By nearly all lights, conventional or non, I am a specimen of that variety of American most to be despised and/or pitied by all decent Americans: A Loser. I am both a high-school and a college dropout (though I did, at age 28, get a useless GED certificate). I never had anything resembling a career, rather a "careen," jumping from one low-wage job to another (well over 50, all told), punctuated by long periods of unemployment, nearly all my life (my total lifetime earnings, from age 16, when I started working, until I finally "retired," as calculated by the Social Security Administration, came to slightly over $150,000). I am a convicted felon: Bail Jumping, a Class D felony in my state, punishable by up to 5 years in prison (I got 2 years, probated for 5 years, to time already served in the county jail), for failing to show up in court on a bounced rent check charge (if you are a low-life, like me, disrespect for the court is the most serious mistake you can make, regardless of the original charge). I was a serious pot-head (or, these days, I guess it's "stoner") for 15 years, until the cost of my habit became too prohibitive. For over 20 years I experienced numerous episodes of homelessness, at first on the sofa circuit, in the back seats of cars, and in hospital lounges and waiting rooms, later in homeless shelters, after they became fashionable (and available). Today, I'm what some would call a "fat old fuck," living in a housing development for the elderly poor, surviving only on a Social Security check that puts me at 77.8% of the poverty level, waiting to die from lung cancer.
But there's more to it than just that. As Terry (Marlon Brando) said to Charley (Rod Steiger) in
On The Waterfront, "I coulda been a
contender." I was certainly bright enough: IQ 135 (for whatever that's worth), full 4-year scholarship to a parochial high-school, National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalist my junior year in high-school; perennial teacher's pet (I learned in the 3rd grade how to snow the teachers), junior class treasurer, debate team, drum-major in the band, starting offensive and defensive tackle on the football team (linemen were never "stars" in those days, or nowadays, either, at least not as unlikely as in the days when a 6'0'', 205-pound boy could play tackle). But a deteriorating domestic situation (I was a product of a single-family household, with 2 siblings, as a result of my father's death in 1954, when I was 8 years old), the cold realization that even a full 4-year scholarship for tuition, books, room, and board, which I was virtually assured of by dint of the National Merit program, wouldn't cover the full costs of college, and, frankly, an overpowering distaste for the idea of even more schooling, forced me (at least, as I saw it) to take another course. So, shortly after turning 18, I joined the Army.
I've never regretted that decision. I unequivocally assert that
no institution of higher learning in the United States - not Harvard, not UC Berkeley, not Northwestern, not Vanderbilt, not Notre Dame, not Columbia, all of which I'd been considering in high-school - could have come anywhere near, at any price, to providing me the kind of education, a true liberal education, that I got thanks to Uncle Sam. Eight weeks of basic combat training in the sandy hell of South Carolina (though I detested it at the time) threw me for the first time into intimate contact with people with wildly varying backgrounds and abilities, and forced me as near as I've ever been to my physical and emotional limits, not to mention impressing on me the value of cooperation, of covering your buddy's ass, and of making enough effort to keep your buddy from having to cover your ass (which I appreciate more and more the older I get). Then nearly a year's intensive (and I mean
intensive) study of a non-Indo-European language (resulting in real fluency, not just touristy passability) in the northern California Big Sur Coast setting of Monterey, once again surrounded by people from varying backgrounds - except that we were almost all National Merit people, or very near. Then several months in the nation's capitol, at last learning what Uncle had in mind for us to do. Finally 2 1/2 years in rural Bavaria, surrounded once again with people like Bill Boydstun - intellectual equals, if not superiors, all - with ample opportunity to absorb, not just sample, the cultural riches of continental Europe and a way of life, while not totally alien from the American way, at least different enough to provide an illuminating perspective on both. In short, I consider my Army experience priceless, and if I had my life to live over again 20 more times, I'd repeat it each time.
Problem is, it ruined me forever after for living anything resembling a normal life. Thanks to learning how to think in Magyar, talking with and learning from people like Bill, and getting inside an "un-American," if you will, way of life, I have never since been able, as Hank Jr. put it, to "go for that old stuff anymore." If I'd been able to make the right contacts, and to screw up my courage to a high-enough level, I'd have been one of the hippies who moved to the hills. Instead, I spent my life trying to make a go of it from where I was at the time, constantly struggling, constantly "failing," and progressively painting myself into a tighter and tighter corner.
The upshot is that I've lived life from the very bottom, or quite near it, and I think I've got a pretty good handle on how it looks from down here. Most of all, I see that there's not much being heard from us low-life folks about what it looks like, and I see that as a situation that needs rectification, whatever little I may be able to offer. Testimony from any other Losers out there would be most welcome. Let's start talking about this shit, people - that's the absolute first step in changing it. Whaddya say?
