I think this morning that I may be tripping. Not the chemically induced head trip, but simple electronics -- Deja vu, the mind's trigger which fires you deep in to the crevices of your grey matter.
Although it’s Sunday near noon, December 2006, the ambience, the atmosphere itself has become early morning summer 1971. Pleasantly warm in the sun, noticeably cooler in the shade. The morning dew has already burned off, but the grass was still pliant under my feet as though it was carrying me to another time. It’s an all too familiar feel, but this time it seems almost surreal.
As I walk my dogs toward the lake I close my eyes, just for seconds, although it seems like an eternity. I smell light sweat mixed with suntan oil, and even a bit of the salt air although we’re 50 miles inland either way, combined with that unmistakable light stench of orange blossoms. Now, even as I open my eyes, it feels like a hundred years has been lifted from my back, before the weight of responsibilities, before the weight of heavy decisions, before the fires of love and the desolation of heartbreak, pre-careers, mortgages, and children, before I really started to live life, real life. It almost seems as if the entire country was as innocent as I.
It’s an odd notion, that we were once anything but innocent. We were mired in the midst of a no-win civil war, we were trying to bring democracy to the good people of Viet Nam whether they wanted it or not. We always did know what was best for everyone else. This morning's news from Iraq rang quietly in my head. The sixties had proved that the people in this so-called democracy, yeah, the same one we were still trying to shove down everyone else’s throats, didn’t have one word to say about the workings of our government. You know, "of the people , for the people and by the people?" They just never said which people. It seemed each time a leader spoke for the “people,” he wound up with a bullet in his head. Strange co-incidence? No stranger I suppose than all of the conspiracy theories.
I really hadn’t considered the parallels of the past. In this light it all began to look like a poorly scripted espionage movie. You know the one where you sit there and yell at the screen, “how stupid can you be?” I almost said it out loud. At least back then we did have a clue, no matter how innocent we may have seemed, no matter how futile our so-called revolution, we kept on fighting, refusing to give in to the propaganda. Oh, you don’t believe that this country engages in propaganda -- only the bad guys would stoop to that level, I mean, that’s lying, Right? Now though, with all of our advances, all of the lessons learned, we seem more naïve of the government's intent than ever. Imagine our shock to learn that our vice-president, an ex-employee and shareholder of Halliburton had awarded generous contracts to said company. ‘Shades of Lyndon Johnson/Bell Helicopter’!
Article comments
1 - Mayank Austen Soofi
Oh Lord, its a wonderful piece. Thanks.
2 - Peter J
Mayank,
Thank you, you're very kind.