Goodbye to the Way We Were @ AMERICAN DIGEST

April 18, 2006

Goodbye to the Way We Were

In which I discuss how I got from "there" to "here"....

My Back Pages: Debating on the step of Sproul Hall, UC Berkeley, 1966. (Left to right:) Me (Somewhat younger but just as strident), An Iranian friend named "Jaz" -- worked with me in the UC library, a refugee from the Shah's Iran -- probably went back after the fall of the Shah, (foreground right) He lost his eye in the Hungarian Uprising and had to run for the border and on into the West to stay alive. In this picture he's attempting to convince me that Communism is an evil ideology. I'm not buying it then, but I buy it now. (Click to enlarge)

A FRIEND WITH WHOM I HAVE A DAILY CORRESPONDENCE takes great pleasure in needling me on my, shall we say, adamantine position that we need to start fighting the First Terrorist War to win it and not as if we are engaged in a game of patty-cake. In March of 2004, after the Madrid bombings, while I was trapped on a Cruise Ship somewhere deep inside the sixth circle of Hell, he decided it was an ideal time convert me to his policy of "reasonable accommodation." It was the moment in which, as he put it, "...the common citizens of Spain and France are saying 'Tell us again what this got us, other than lots of angry teenagers with bombs?' "

I replied that I'd lived for years in France with months in and about Spain, and most of the 'common citizens' of those countries would surrender to anything and sell out anyone if it meant they could shop in peace for a few more years. Vichy and Franco came to mind as examples.

Yesterday, in Tel Aviv, the angry teenager with a bomb on his body came again, as he has so many times over the last few years, and as he will in the years to come. Maybe Spain was right to see the effort as futile. Maybe Europe as a whole should just roll over and not just play dead, but be dead. Perhaps Israel should just shrug and say, "Okay, you win. We'll move."

After all, what's really in all this fighting and dying for anyone? None of the countries that are engaged in this war against terror seems to be ready to do the terrible things necessary to end terror. ("Don't you see? That would make us just like them!" "Perhaps, but we would be alive to repent and reform.")

I once admired the subtle thought, the careful parsing, the diplomatic pas-de-deux of policy, but lately I seem to have taken up a taste for straight talk. It seems to me that if you don't go to war ready to achieve victory by any means necessary -- by any means necessary -- why would you bother to go at all? And of late, I'm only hearing the weasel word "win." I'm not hearing a lot about "victory," which is quite a different thing.

It seems to me that if you are actually "in" a war, victories, big and small, are what you seek to achieve. Once you have the final victory, and that means that the enemy and all that supports the enemy, is so destroyed and laid waste that there's no fight left in him, then and only then can you say you have "won." Absent a drive for victory, there seems to be nothing in this war for any one fighting terror on any front other than pain and death -- and the added insult of an unremitting disparagement from many of the citizens for whom they fight.

That's certainly true when it comes to the United States of late. We seem stalled at the stage of the struggle that brings to mind Churchill's proclamation that he had nothing to offer except, "blood, sweat and tears." We've had those three things constantly for years -- as our media are so keen to remind us every three minutes of every day.

Another factor in the dumb-show called "Bringing Democracy to the Middle East" seems to be that our leadership has become, shall we say, less than inspiring and more like Monty Hall emceeing "Let's Make A Deal" with contestants and a studio audience packed with crazed and crapulous mullahs. Finally, we're seeing a host of our fellow citizens so immersed in their hatred of the current president that the impression we are hip-deep in demented traitors is getting hard to shake.

All of these things conspire, on a daily basis, to shake our belief in ourselves, our institutions and our commitment to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism. Lately we seem to be living on a daily drip feed of despair for our future and estrangement from our past. It's not a new diet in this country, but it is starting to assume the proportions of a runaway fad diet, a political Pritikins. And yet this thin gruel is what's being poured into us from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C.

If you look closely at this diet for a diminished America you see a familiar list of "ingredients." The list is composed of the ideological stock and trade of a significant segment of Americans to whom this nation, as conceived by our founders, and struggled for for more than 200 years is merely one long, large joke. And I should know. After all, that boy in the picture up there -- that boy that thought Communism was "something we could live with" -- that was me.

In my small way, I took part in the crafting of The Joke on America. For years I thought there was nothing funnier. Conceived during the waning months of World War II, I had no idea I was a Baby Boomer, but that, in the end, was what I was. And being a member of this large and fortunate generation gave me the leisure to develop quite a sense of humor when it came to basic human values.

When I was a student at the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1960s, we were the brave new world's social engineers. We were the innovators. We were busy innovating the brave new world where everything about the old world of our parents seemed either hilarious or evil. Our program was quite clear early on and it hasn't changed a jot, it has simply gotten more pervasive and elaborate. After all, we're older now and we're in control. We can finally fund these things. With your money.

God, if he didn't emerge from 500 mikes of pure Sandoz LSD, was just a funny old guy a little bit like Santa Claus but with less of a user base.

The Bill of Rights was okay as long as you could figure out someway to erase a few of the amendments involving guns and add a host of new ones involving groups.

The Constitution? Too long and too arcane to really read with care. It was a given so what did we care?

History? The only really happening history was the future, man. Ours.

The United States? They were really "Amerikkka" -- Satan incarnate.

The US Military? Baby killers and agents of Satan.

The Police? Pigs.

The Viet Cong, Fidel Castro, and a host of other evil dictators and fascists? Heroes of "The People."

The People? Really wonderful as long as you didn't really have to hang out with them.

Voting in political parties? Stupid. We were into "participatory democracy" which involved really long meetings. ( This is now known as "emergent democracy" and involves really long online discussion threads.)

We believed in sex and drugs and rock and roll.

We were determined to resist "the man" on all levels.

We were young.

And we were very, very stupid for college kids. Check that. We were stupid because we were college kids.

Many of the most committed of us, decades later, are still in college and even dumber. We're professors now and our ability to be dumb has never been deeper.

Others of us are well ensconced in the various parts of what passes for the media. We're there with a lot of others just like us and, even if we thought differently, we'd never say it for fear of losing regard, position, grants, or promotion. Besides, we've been around others who think like us for so long its no problem at all to top up the latte and nod in blind agreement.

Nope, we never sold out. We bought in. But we kept the Che poster pinned up forever in our hearts.

In our aging but fitness-crazed hearts, we hate what we've become and, like any good group of neurotics, transfer that hate to the country that gave us everything including the Long Peace in which to enjoy it. We're the first to bitch and moan and hate a country that makes our freedom possible. More than that we're also in love with the privilege, comfort, money and safety that makes it possible for us to mouth off without limit. And finally, we're coming to understand that we are not our parents generation, we're "The Not-So-Great" Generation, and we're afraid.

We say we're 'afraid' of losing our cherished 'freedom' to the jackbooted legions of BushHitler Brownshirts that stifle our dissent from every street corner. That's really what a lot of us think. That's really just how bull-moose looney we've become. We're so afraid that we can't look at what scares us but instead pull the covers over our head and dream of the BushBoogeymen. Why? Because they're an illusion. They are not really scary at all. Why? Because they are all "just pretend," and we know it. What many of us simply cannot face is the real terror of the times, terror.

We're really afraid of the wrath of those who, unlike us who believe in nothing, believe in something so deeply that they'll kill us for it and die doing it. The bomb in the baby carriage wired to the radio. The teenager in the Army sweatshirt with three pounds of C4 wrapped inside of two pounds of ball bearings showing up at the Mall for a Big Mac Attack. The Muslim-American who decides one afternoon to park his Jeep on top of as many of our kids as he can find in a group. That guy sitting next to the window at 36,000 feet with fuses coming out of his Nikes and a t-shirt on that says, "Just Do It." The Imman with a plan who is so tense that he decides to walk into downtown San Francisco and unwind with a small shooting spree. All these realities disturb our dreams and threaten to pull the covers off our heads.

As a result, we like the slogans, books, movies, TV shows and publications that confirm for us the deep liberal dream that if we are just understanding enough, long enough, and offer enough in the way of bribes, the oppressed of the world will come to love us... and then just leave us alone. Like the Spanish in 2004, we believe that by selling off our ideals we'll receive, in return, peace and cheap vacation rentals in France and Greece for the rest of our lives. Like the Spanish, a lot of us believe that by just being nice we'll be left alone to wallow in our prosperity. Like the Spanish, we've come to believe that there's nothing in war for us except "teenagers with bombs."

Like I said, people of my 60s generation are very, very dumb. And, it would seem, we've now bred children who are even dumber than we are. We are now, as far as dumb liberalism is concerned, deep into the third generation of the soul dead and the dumb, and its clear that not a lot of us are coming around soon enough to avoid another massacre on American soil. To paraphrase a slogan about working with heavy machinery, "You get stupid around terrorism and it'll hurt you real quick and real bad."

How can we get off on being "stuck on stupid" when it comes to this First Terrorist War? How can we prevent another "4/20," "5/14," "7/4," "12/25"? Pick a number, any number, there are 365 to choose from. But before that we might want to consider, seriously and carefully, taking some measures which are not merely careful campaigns to 'bring the fruits of democracy,' but things that fall, instead, under the general heading of "draconian." A modest beginning in this regard would be to convince many members of my baby-boom generation to simply shut up and eat their tofu.

You don't have to look very far to see that while the dumb teenager might be the Terrorist's first choice when it comes to delivery vehicles, that teenager isn't the one choosing the target, setting the timer, choosing the target, or buying the bomb. That sort of thing is left to the "leadership" which is far too valuable to expend itself on direct attacks.

Nor do you have to look very far to understand what the goals of that leadership are. You are told in sermon after sermon throughout the Muslim world week after week. But those of my generation who are still mired in the ideological foolishness of their youth cannot hear these words and, even if they did, would not believe them. Since they come from a culture where words seldom have any consequences as long as you choose the right ones, words don't seem like weapons to them. Words, to my generation, are merely poses at cocktail parties at best, or the latest glib lyrics of some pot-drenched rock idol who believes that having a hundred voice choir screech out "Impeach the President" is the latest iteration of cool.

The Terrorist War scares my generation more deeply than teenager bombs in Tel Aviv put the fear into the Israelis. The Terrorist War is something that is in ernest and it is something that will not go away. What scares them the most about it all is that the conflict, at its deepest core, is actually about something my generation understands only as one of the great standing jokes of our youth: Religion.

You see my "people" don't really get religion unless it comes with a lot of New Age claptrap or a hefty dose of Zen. Pure Christianity or Orthodox Judaism or Islam is far, far outside our ken.

Where previous generations could write, as late as 1927, the sentiments found in the Desiderata:

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

My generation was the one that came up with the variation called the Deteriorata :

You are a fluke of the Universe. You have no right to be here, and whether you can hear it or not, The Universe is laughing behind your back.

Therefore make peace with your God whatever you conceive him to be, Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin.

With all its hopes, dreams, promises and urban renewal, The world continues to deteriorate.

Give up.

I believe that to be The New Commandments of the 60s boomers. The "Bible" of our generation, the National Lampoon, first came up with them. I remember how funny we all thought they were. A laugh riot and, well, so true too. So right on. Words to live by.

But when you get a little further down the road and look back, if you have learned anything at all, you'll have learned to cherish the sentiment of the first and despise the mocking nothingness in the latter. They are not 'words to live by,' but 'words to die by.'

But my generation, being eternally drenched in a mindless nostalgia for its weird youth, refuses to learn that. It believes that the cool answer to the great crisis which has been brought to us in the last five years is to make a sign that says " I heart New York more without the twin towers," parade about in the streets and, when confronted with the death of your fellow citizens, to stand firmly in solidarity with the sheep of Europe and say, "Give up."

When I look at the spectacle that my Boomer generation has made of itself, a generation that had everything going for it, that had every opportunity, and came up with the John Kerry, Caramel Lattes and "Impeach the President", all I can say is:

"I resign the Revolution. I'm joining the Resistance."

Posted by Vanderleun at April 18, 2006 6:57 AM | TrackBack
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Comments:

AMERICAN DIGEST HOME "It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Excellent. This is what I've been trying to say for years, but could only sputter and stammer in incomplete sentences whenever the topic arises.

This should be in every damn paper in the country instead of the warmed-over crap by Maureen Dowd and breaking news of "Brangelina".

Thank you, Gerard.

Posted by: Mumblix Grumph at April 18, 2006 5:52 AM

Gerard

Thanks for bearing your soul, again. Future generations will place folks like you, David Horowitz, and Tammy Bruce as the people who(hopefully!) will have helped to save the Republic.

Do you feel like this is deja-vous 1935? Haven't we done all this already? Leaders like Churchill booed. Leaders like Chamberlain embraced.

And will the Leftists fight, or will they convert to Islam to keep their pathetic selves "alive"? They appear to be quite spineless to me.

Yours in the Constitution,

Jim

Posted by: Jim at April 18, 2006 6:47 AM

Well said. Extremely well said. Makes one wonder if it's humanly possible for Jane Fonda,et el, to read this and make a thoughtful, intelligent comment(s).

Posted by: Mark J Keaney at April 18, 2006 8:25 AM

Gerard,

Your post is wonderful. However, don't despair too much. Not all of our generation are "eternally drenched in a mindless nostalgia for its weird youth".

I too am a UC Berkeley boomer (although a few years later than you--the People's Park era rather than the FSM). I too fully bought into the racicalism that was oh so chic at the time. But somewhere along the line I morphed from a proud Carter voter into a rabid Reaganite. (Yes, the same Reagan I so reviled and demonstrated against when,as Governer, he came to campus for Board of Regents meetings.)

I daresay there are many, many more of us who are part of "The Resistance". We are just not as vocal and obsessively attention-seeking as the Caramel Latte drinkers.

Posted by: GEC at April 18, 2006 8:30 AM

Thank you for a wonderful declaration of liberty. You speak for so many of us. I converted to reason in 1990, thanks to a stellar economics professor at Pacific Lutheran University. From those 15 years experience as an outsider in my own land of lattes:

Thank goodness you already know lots of attack-trained attorneys. You may need them when the left gets wind of such a high profile manifesto of defection. Mike Adams over at Townhall.com can advise you about handguns, and REI is a good source for the rain-resist clothing you need to prowl the streets of Seattle seeking to subvert the natives. REI gear can also be considered camouflage; in it you can more easily pass yourself as a proper northwest greenie. It won't do to have a freedom fighter beaten to death with organic zucchini down at the supermarket.

Being on the right side promotes fitness. Hanging out with the ex-military types and lifetime hunters, farmers and construction workers who populate the resistance can't help but be a good thing for those of us who used to consider carrying the Sunday New York Times home a good workout.

We save money on food too. Bottled water, designer salads and imported French goods are OUT and tap water, comfort food and wonderful cheap American beer are IN.

Last but not least, don't despair as you survey the abundance of local grievance collectors, grant hustlers, poverty pimps and entitlement princesses. There are people in Seattle with clean haircuts, no piercings and actual free market skills, and someday you may be lucky enough to meet one or two of them!

Posted by: AskMom at April 18, 2006 8:54 AM

It turned into a post

Why do you keep doing this to me? Just once can't you post something that doesn't make me go on at length in response? I'm just not the type of guy to write a "me too" when I read a bit of worthy prose.

If not for me, then for my aging keyboard.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at April 18, 2006 10:39 AM

Gerard, I have a gut feeling that a major reason the polls are so low for Bush is that he appears not to be agressive enough in the war effort. At the same time I think the polls that show the Republicans in congress likewise have poor showing is that they will not carry the fight to the liberals. I remember when the Twin Towers went down a massive show of determination to achieve victory over the enemy. In Georgetown, Texas, near where I live, it seemed that everyone was flying the stars and stripes. Many, many vehicles had full sized flags rigged on poles. Where are those people now? I think they are still here and just as adamant that we totally vanquish the enemy. The people are willing to be led to victory. What we lack is leadership that knows how to harness this will.

Thank you for your eloquence.

John Hinds
Vietnam Veteran
Member, Patriot Guard

Posted by: John Hinds at April 18, 2006 3:31 PM

As always, good stuff. However, I would argue that real conundrum facing our decision makers is that they cannot/will not call the enemy by its real name. You yourself fall into the trap of calling for the elimination of terrorism, which of course is an age-old tactic of the weaker beligerent and not in our power to wipe out. Terrorism isn't the enemy. Nor are terrorists. Instead of being the enemy, terrorists are foot soldiers of the enemy, which is a core of radical, violent, extremist Islamists. But you can't say that if you're a leader in the government or the military. So we have proferred the myth of terrorist-as-enemy so much that many just accept it as fact. Recipe for failure. The first step to engaging in this war is to call the enemy out by its real name. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, know thyself, know thy enemy, and you will be victorious.

Posted by: Jeff at April 18, 2006 10:38 PM

There are a couple of other factors that need to be taken in to account:

1. The resurgence in Islam and radical Islam is the result of the ocean of oil money that has flowed into a previously impoverished area. If the West were sensible imperialists they wouldn't be making their enemies richer.

2. The extreme attitudes of the US Democratic party and the left is partly a reaction to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. This was seen as "Dirty Pool" and a sort of unfair "Nuclear option". The rules of US domestic politics are now seen as different. The "Gloves are off". If they were ever on. Perhaps, instead, the brass knuckles are now on. Same idea.

3. George W Bush just isn't as capable as either Clinton or Bush Sr. The Republican party obviously thought that by surrounding him with numerous wiser heads with greater experience (Cheney, Rumsfeld et cetera) that W's weakenesses could be finessed. This might have actually worked had the attacks of 9/11 not occurred.

4. If the old Beserkely/SDS ethos were as dominant as you say, Reagan would never have been elected and neither would either of the Bushes. What's happened is that the fall of the Soviet Union has disoriented the "Left" and they are falling back on old reflexes until they re-organize their thoughts and strategies. This might never occur, of course.

5. The existing anti-Semitism of the Muslim and Arab world was reinforced by an injection of Third Reich ideology in the 1940's and given a cause by the creation of the state of Israel. The Saudi's recycle the money they get for oil into grants for Islamic Studies all throughout the West, furthering their world view.

Posted by: Fred at April 19, 2006 7:39 AM

Wonderful post, exactly on target!

The Dems are clearly the still not matured remnants of the radical dredge. They would happily sink the entire nation if only to gain control of the sunken ship. Not bright enough to understand all the implications, you know.

The problem is much wider, as you allude. It is the western world itself that has drowned itself in absurdist absynthe, perhaps out of too great affluence, or perhaps the human genome has reached its limits. Maybe people really are this stupid.

Posted by: Ted at April 19, 2006 9:43 AM

Thanks for the amazing post. I have thought about it for the past couple of days....

I was born in 1968--I don't even remember 'the sixties', yet the people who did influence everything I see, read or do.

It's frustrating:
Not every war is VietNam.
Not every President is Nixon.
Not every year is 1964 for civil rights.
Not every Republican is Goldwater or McCarthy.
Not every struggle is a People's Struggle Against Oppression (whatever that is.....)

Not every man is The Man.

Posted by: Evan Larsen at April 19, 2006 10:07 AM

What was it that Screwtape said about flippancy?

"Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk *as if* virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practise it."

Posted by: Michael Andreyakovich at April 19, 2006 10:23 AM

Do I detect a bit of wistfulness in this post? While I agree with the conclusions you enumerate, I am not at all optimistic. Another, larger attack upon the U.S. will bring about the same stupid liberal, 'Why don't we just talk to them, and find out why they hate us?, response. Many of us conservatives will scream, 'If you hate the country so much, you are free to leave!'
Meanwhile, we'll be busy holding our politicians to the fire. Certain civil liberties may have to be momentarily suspended. Jefferson might have to be invoked again. 'The tree of liberty has to be fed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.' Our government is today a reflection of all liberals in the mainstream media and on the college campuses. 'Politically correct speech' that does not offend, is in the end, just so much more pablum.
We are at war with a cunning, ruthless, bunch of Islamic ideologues, who want to take the world back to the 9th century. They truly believe they will someday dominate the world.
We ignore this at our peril. I can't think of anyone in the Bush administration today who is a real leader. If there were one, they'd have to ask for his resignation, because he'd scare the pants off all of them.

Posted by: PineKnot at April 19, 2006 10:41 AM

Gerard: A most excellent and reflective post.

Fred: Your item #4 ". If the old Beserkely/SDS ethos were as dominant as you say, Reagan would never have been elected and neither would either of the Bushes. What's happened is that the fall of the Soviet Union has disoriented the "Left" and they are falling back on old reflexes until they re-organize their thoughts and strategies. This might never occur, of course." is partially true in that the left may never re-organize (one may hope). Unfortunately, those on the Left are convinced that to be elected President, one only need to campaign in NY (city), LA, San Francisco, Boston, DC, and other major Metropolitan areas. Say things that sound good and go on about their business. Those in 'flyover' country or on Active Duty do not count as they are not the 'right thinking people - if they were they would be where the action is.'

If you look at the States that Bush (both) and Reagan won, they were all in 'flyover country' whose total of Electoral College votes were enough to overcome those in the Northeast and the Left Coast. Both Bushes and Reagan understood that the strength of America is in the American worker and farmer. The overwhelming majority of which THINK and vote responsibly. And who happen to live in 'flyover country'.

The other thing the Left fails to understand is that these thinking people have heard their message - and are rejecting it at every opportunity. Socialism/Communism does not work. It is a flaw of the systems themselves, not the people who are trying to make it work. One of the underlying themes of the US Left seems to be that Marxism-Lenninism/Maoist Communism and European Socialism (ala Rousseau) can be made to work if only the 'right' people are in charge of making it work (themselves, of course - the great unwashed outside the gates of their ivory towers have no relevant opinions). This is also evident in their defense of their pet theories, such as human (read U.S.) caused global warming. In any dispute between observed reality and the theoretical model, it is reality that's got it wrong...

As to the Global War Against Terrorism - I have heard one individual call it W's campaign to export democracy (pejoritively, of course): Many seem to think that it is only against al-qaida and Osama Bin Laden, and if they are captured all will be well. As others have noted in this thread - it is NOT the fighters we need focus soley on. It is the imams and mullahs behind them who are the real threat to freedom and liberty. W is right to attempt to remove the training camps and safe haves (state sponsors); but until we target the mullahs who teach such ideas, we will not win. They may not win either; but their immediate goal is simply to avoid losing - and they are succeeding on that level.

Posted by: dash at April 20, 2006 3:13 PM

Very good post about why the left is spineless. However, I would submit to you that the right is also intellectually bankrupt and ignorant of history. You can't just send an army into a foreign country, kill it's dictator and expect to set up a democracy there. The declaration of independence says that a just government rules by the consent of the governed. If the Iraqis want an Islamic theocracy, then no amount of US bullying is going to put a "seperation of church and state" representative democracy there. Consider for example, Korea. The Korean war was fought in the 1950s. Well, guess what. Korea was a dictatorship all through the 1970s. It slowly started to become a democracy through the 1980s but not because of US help (the US actually supported the dictators by for example, supporting the Gyongju uprising). It's 50 years after the Korean war, and we STILL have American troops stationed there. We also STILL have troops stationed in Germany and Japan.

So Rumsfeld just shows his ignorance of history when he claims optimism about Iraq. Since Americans don't have the will to have troops stay there for 50+ years (like in Korea, Japan, Germany, Phillipines, etc.) we will pull out, Iraq will become unstable (there is already a civil war going on there) and this will go down in history as one of Bush's failures.

Posted by: Brian Dean at April 21, 2006 7:46 PM

Sorry to offer the only flippant comment here among many fine comments to an absolutely brilliant essay,

but, is the student in the lower right hand corner of the photo sporting an eye patch?

Didn't you want to wear one too in the 60's (I wanted to) and smoke Benson and Hedges 100s? (secret agent man...)

Yes, we were a bunch of stupid punks.

Posted by: Doug at April 22, 2006 10:50 AM

I had never read you before. You are now on my permanent must-read list. We are of the same age and before-and-after mindset, but I was never able to articulate it as you have. Thank you.

Nanner in Atlanner

Posted by: nan at April 22, 2006 12:50 PM