Get Down!

I heard that the reason so many Blacks were killed in Vietnam was that, when the shooting started and the sergeant hollered "Get down!", they all jumped up and started dancing.

When I was in the army, not all the lifers were Black. We had all kinds of people in our outfit except Asians, I don't remember seeing any of those. There aren't many Asians around Cheboygan either, now that I think of it. Some of the guys were bothered by being around all those Blacks and "foreigners", but it didn't bother me. I grew up around people like that and believed it to be the natural order of things. It wasn't until I moved to Cheboygan that I met a grandparent who didn't speak with some kind of an accent. I suppose, if I had come from a place like Cheboygan, I might have been uncomfortable around all that ethnic diversity. Any prejudice that I do have was picked up years later, mostly from watching television.

I don't know much about those Ottomans, but I think that big strong guy who was fanning the sultan might have been a eunuch. Several ancient cultures used to castrate some of their slaves at a young age, I think for the same reason farmers castrate young bulls and boars. Those eunuchs grew up big and strong and often became the most loyal and trusted servants and guards in the palace, especially around the harem.

Where do the workers fit into your cruise-quest-battle-climb model? I'm not talking about the over achievers and workaholics, just the regular average workers. You know, the guys who come home from their paying jobs and work on things like their lawns, gardens, home remodeling projects, and cars instead of going bowling or to the movies. My father was like that, he was a social person and knew how to have fun, but he always managed to turn his activities into jobs or projects. I am kind of that way myself, although I'm a lot less social now than I used to be in my younger days. I don't have the energy to do everything I used to do, but I still cut my firewood. That's probably the last thing I will give up, even after hunting and fishing. When I can't work in my woods anymore, I might as well check into a nursing home and be done with it. I'll probably still blog on the internet, though. It's not exactly work, but it's something I look forward to at the end of the day.