SOFT AMERICA FLUFFS HISTORY AND LIKES IT LIKE THAT

What turns hard America to soft America?

It starts with a poor role model for hard America, when a soft man portrays a tough guy.

An aging man can be a comfort when they share the wisdom of experience, when they show up on time and ready to go, when they take their age into consideration.

No one wants to see an old guy over extend, become the center of attention because of negligence, and change the mood to focus on their emergency.

No one but other soft Americans.

In case you wonder, dear reader, this writer composes blog posts on a nice leather loveseat recliner. Pretty soft stuff.

With feet up, a laptop mounted on a pillow, it doesn’t get much softer. The firmness comes from the cookbook base between pillow and laptop, Deep Run Roots by Vivian Howard.

That’s the setup, an early morning perch with coffee. Pretty soft stuff? Naw, just the most convenient spot in the house.

Soft America Embarrassment

I read an unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, by all accounts a tough guy out of Hoboken, New Jersey. From the sound of his town, everyone from Hoboken should be a tough guy.

The story goes that in middle age, Frank and his boys were at the beach and Frank caught a sneaker wave and fell down. His body guard/assistant guy rushed out and scooped him out of the surf and carried him to safety.

It was blow to Frank’s ego to be saved from drowning by a lesser man than himself, a man strong enough to pick him up like a baby. The assistant got fired, then supposedly said, “Mr. Sinatra had no muscle tone, no firmness, like a jellyfish.”

That’s not a direct quote, but the picture of a skinny-fat man so ashamed of being found out that he retaliates against his lifesaver stuck with me.

Soft Americans hide their cushion under sports clothes tailored to their strong suits. Broad shoulders like a weight lifter? Add the pads. Slim waist to show fitness and discipline? Wear a girdle and suck it in.

It works better on stage than it does at the beach.

Soft American Leadership

A soft older man who thinks of himself as a hard guy, a tough guy with fists of fury, does whatever it takes to get his message across. Mainly, they hurt people they despise, and the biggest hate target are genuinely tough people.

Tough people endure hardships with hope for a better day; soft people watch, say it’s not that tough, that they too could endure, but know differently in their hearts.

The truth about their weakness does not set them free, and they can’t chalk it up to aging because it’s too frightening to consider. Getting old and feeble, even though old and feeble, scares them like imminent death, which is just around the corner.

Instead, they lash out at everything that annoys them, and everything that doesn’t go their way annoys them. Maybe you know someone like this? Maybe you are like this, too?

Are you more like the Frank Sinatra described here:

“Nothing less than adulation would suffice. Criticism of any kind produced attacks that were unsparing in acrimony and at their worst alarming irrational.” 

Or, more like Dylan Thomas who wrote about mortality and fear and darkness?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A quick check showed Thomas wrote the poem in 1947. His dad died in 1952. Did he rage for five years?

If you know a raging maniac, leave a comment.