From: S.J. Van Sickle (sjvan@csd.uwm.edu)
Date: Sun Dec 10 2000 - 18:51:53 MST
On Sun, 10 Dec 2000, Nicq MacDonald wrote:
> paradigm, but it's a wonderful way to live one's life. In my opinion, the
> best philosophy isn't that which achieves the most universal happiness, but
> the one that tells the best story in the end. Wars, revolutions, love,
> hate, death- this is what makes life interesting!
Ah! Spoken like someone who has never actually experienced *any* of those
things.
My mother tells a whopping good story about the air-raids, SS troops, Red
Army soldiers, refugee trains, starvation, dysentery, playing with
unexploded munitions, POW camps, and other facts of her childhood. She
was one of the lucky ones. Sometimes she can even sleep afterwards.
The only thing my grandfather *ever* talked about that happened prior to
1945 was the time he went to see Herman Oberth give a lecture. It always
horrified me to watch him eat...after all those years, he still wolfed it
down like he would never eat again. Literally licked the plate clean.
Sometimes afterward I could sleep.
My other grandfather carried a BAR in the Pacific. Never talked about it
either, other than mentioning once that he could still smell burning
flesh. He could sleep after a quart of scotch.
Even I have stories. Listening to gunfire late at night on the East
German border. Tripflares and land-mines exploding, straining to tell if
you could hear screams. T-72 tanks rumbling in the dark. That electric
shock you feel when you realize that Hind helicopter flying by doesn't
have rocket launcher pods but instead has nerve gas dispensors. Years
later turning on the TV and seeing people gleefully climbing over the
Berlin Wall. I wept like a baby. 'Course I had it soft, never got shot
at. Never even missed a meal.
Oh, yes. Great stories. Even lived to tell them.
Can't say much for the philosophies that made them, though.
Can't say much for you, either.
steve van sickle
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