RANGER AGAINST WAR: From Oklahoma! to Oh! Calcutta! <

Sunday, September 21, 2008

From Oklahoma! to Oh! Calcutta!

I know you're in there
You're just out of sight

Oh, time passages

--Time Passages
, Al Stewart


Your echo comes back out of tune

Now you can quite get used to it

Reverb is just a room

--Hope
, Jack Johnson


Vanity of vanities; all
is vanity
--Ecclesiastes

_________________

Ranger is waxing philosophic.

He read in Saturday's Boston Globe that Barbara D. Metras, 99, had died.
Ms. Metras was the first woman in the Armed Services to retire after 20 years of service. She attained the rank of Chief Petty Officer in 1945. He also learned that the rock formation "The Old Man of the Mountain" had fallen off Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains years before his recent arrival there (in 2003, actually).

He will be attending his 40th college reunion next month, and will be part of a group which will address ROTC cadets from the class of 2008/09. This set him to thinking how it would have been for him had the commensurate occasion occurred upon his graduation in 1968. Those men would have been class of 1928! Practically geezers. How might their experiences have comported with those of the psychedelic love children?


Then he thought about how hip people in his generation still imagine themselves to be: "We introduced yoga, transcendental meditation, Esalen." They listened to The Beatles, and Rolling Stones and The Doors and "Hair" and "Oh! Calcutta" . . . But what if -- just what if -- the things they ushered in were not societal positives. What if the Class of 1928 held better values and mores?


After all, before them was Moon River and Frank Sinatra and "Oklahoma!" and "The Music Man". After them was Johnny Rotten, Biggie Smalls "All That Jazz" and "Rent" (in no particular order.)


Ranger has outlived a geologic formation. He muses he will appear positively neolithic to these young cadets. Perhaps he will become, after many eons of compaction, fuel for some future H2.


A sobering thought.

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8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aloha, Ranger!

I made the hike from the lake up to the ridge and stood on top of the head, they had a lot of metal straps to hold it in place back in the early 80's... Btw, I was two when you graduated! ;-)

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 2:28:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Aloha, CT!

I was five. Jim seems to be a combination of some of the worst of his generation, plus some of the better parts of the previous one. He has grown into a standard issue curmudgeon. I imagine his would be a conflicted generation in which to mature.

In a similar fashion, I imagine it is difficult for guys of a generation younger than I to navigate the waters of women's independence, such as it is today.

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 9:58:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

C Tuttle,

Thanks for the up--now I know what all these metal straps are for in my head.

jim

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 10:01:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger The Minstrel Boy said...

yeah, we be old and stuff ain't we?

tell the rotzies that they look like junior high kids. that'll really make them squirm.

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 11:17:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah, man, one of the things I love about Italy is that they have a living anarchist tradition, where the old folks from the spanish civil wars still come to the places where the young people work to participate in the ongoing project of keeping a sane undercurrent going. If you ever get to Rome, go see Forte Prenestino, a squatted medieval castle on the outskirts of town, you can still meet some of the old folks having coffee there with the young mohawk girls serving them. Age = experience. Experience = responsibility of teaching. So dont give up, because all that is needed for evil to conquer is for good men to do nothing.

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 3:23:00 PM GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That last anon was me.

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 3:26:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Ghost Dansing said...

it's a buck dancer's choice my friend!

Well the first days are the hardest days,don't you worry any more....

....cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.

Think this through with me, let me know your mind.

Woh-oh, what I want to know, is are you kind?

It's a buck dancer's choice my friend; better take my advice.

You know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice.

Will you come with me, won't you come with me?

Woh-oh, what I want to know, will you come with me?

Goddamn, well I declare, have you seen the like?

Their walls are built of cannonballs, their motto is "Don't tread onme."

Come hear Uncle John's Band playing to the tide...

.....come with me, or go alone, he's come to take his children home.

It's the same story the crow told me; it's the only one he know.

Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go.

Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait....

Woh-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?.......

Uncle John's Band

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 6:36:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

ghost dansing,

"Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go." I really like this line. Thanks for sharing.

Monday, September 22, 2008 at 9:41:00 PM GMT-5  

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