FOR THE LAST TIME: A LIST

You come to the last time after too many bad burgers, bad drinks, and bad decisions.

Enough is finally enough.

This post was inspired by a short visit to a local tap house, the last such visit.

What happened?

As a beer fan, I’m currently searching out the best pilsner, if a beer place opened across the street from me it would be my favorite place.

My favorite winery is the one closest to my house, too.

Call me simple.

However, as the years pass, my enthusiasm has waned.

In the beginning it was fun having a joint owned by a guy from the gym and a bartender from my youth soccer teams.

Other guys who knew my kids came in for a drink. I was in my element for quite a while, and it was more fun than anything.

But, like everything else, things changed.

Life made a rude appearance with people coming down with life-threatening illness, breaking bones, breaking up, moving away, getting sober. The works.

Happy hour devolved into the same crew, the same cliques, the same attitude as boys trying to be men who somewhere along the line missed the Man Boat.

The same shuffling drag-asses wore their superiority day after day, year after year. It was hard to look at, harder to listen to.

One guy knew everything and his boys all agreed with whatever came out of his mouth.

Did I call bullshit on what was obviously wrong and I could prove it? That’s a recipe for a fight, and the guy looked like he’d already been pounded enough.

Last night was my last night, more accurately my last happy hour.

I left home at 4:30 and got back at 5:15.

 

Me: That’s it.

Wife: You’re back early.

Me: Now I have to find another place you don’t like.

Wife: Or someplace I would like.

Me: There’s an idea. How could I tell if you’d like it?

Wife: Start with someplace grown men don’t show up like they just came from under a bridge with their pants drooped halfway down their ass.

Me: Well, aren’t you the picky one.

Wife: You’ve never liked them, either.

Me: You think I don’t like anybody.

Wife: You like your kids.

Me: Yes, I do. And you’re okay, too. I like certain people.

Wife: I can think of three.

 

The Last Atomic Bomb

Today is the last day of World War Two.

August 15, 1945.

 

Truman announced Japan’s intention to surrender to the American public on August 14 at 7:00 p.m. Washington, D.C., time; not long after, Hirohito’s address was broadcast in Japan at noon local time on August 15.

Although the formal surrender ceremony wouldn’t take place until September 2, celebrations erupted across the United States and the globe as World War II was finally brought to an end.  

 

It signals the first, and last time, atomic bombs would be exploded over unsuspecting population centers.

The last time a super-nova flash turns people into shadows on sidewalks and building walls.

You don’t hear much about it these days and I suspect you’ll hear less and less as the old guys die and the new guys pretend they were there.

I met one of the old guys back in the 1980’s, Mike Paola. He owned Paola’s Groceries on the corner of NW Lovejoy and 21st.

The atomic bombs meant he and his fellas waiting on Okinawa and Iwo Jima wouldn’t have to storm Japanese beaches and go town to town with machine guns and flame throwers.

Was he glad for Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Yes, he was, and for good reason.

 

Post-war analysis estimated the potential casualties from Operation DOWNFALL to be anywhere from 250,000 to 1 million.

 

Like my dad who figured he would have died in Vietnam if he had stayed in the Marines after Korea, Mike Paola knew he would have died in Japan.

Guys have premonitions.

 

The View From Here Last Time

The guys came back from WWII after years of panic to find themselves with new demands.

If you made it through all that, do something with yourselves.

I can see it. Guys so lucky to survive that they dove into higher education on the GI Bill for better jobs and more money and a house in the suburbs instead of thin-walled apartments where you could hear a burp next door.

And kids. Don’t forget the kids. And they didn’t, which produced the Baby Boom.

Boom.

Some of this off-spring occupy elected offices in high places where they conveniently forget their history and the importance of historical turning points for the rising generations.

Kids should know civilization hung in the balance from 1939-1945.

If it had gone the other way we’d have local concentration camps and your mom would be a comfort woman for traveling troops and it would all be normal, or normalized.

Baby boomers blinded by their own light and good luck have attached themselves to the rotting idea of one man above all others, and it’s not Jesus.

Their man deals himself in first, wins his own games, and practices his faces in the mirror like an actor out on loan.

He plays his part exquisitely. Instead of a wobbly old dump struggling with consciousness, he’s accepted as a strong, virile, presence that’s been missing for so long.

One flash of his convicted felon face solves world problems.

One angry mug-shot glance is enough to move the wheels of government and finance his way.

With minions practicing the art of such manliness by calling all commanders in to watch them dance and twitch, there is such a thing as too much, such a place as too far.

And that, boys and girls, is why we vote in America.

 

PS:

What’s too much? Vote for less from the hotelier in chief.

 

PSS:

What’s too far? Vote for a better map so you know.