Today I went to the stop and shop and was horrified. I had a craving for Count Chocula and they did not have it. How could this be? This was, after all, the SUPER stop and shop. Its bigger than 3 airplane hangers. They had all the cereals except mine. And a bunch of stuff NO ONE eats. Who the hell eats Muesilix?
I asked the young teenage clerk “Hey do you have Count Chocula?”
“Uhhh (scoffing and laughing) No. Dude they haven’t had that in years. You bought it here before?”
“Uhhh Yeah.” I was annoyed the way he called me dude.
“”Well it musta been like a while ago. Cuz I never seen it.”
“Really…How long you been workin here for”
“Uhm like …Probably like uhm since May.”
“Wow! And in ALLLL that time you never seen it.”
“Nope” (oblivious to my sarcasm)
“Have you ever seen it anywhere.”
“Uhm my parents like told me about it. Like how the goverment said it was bad or something”
Now I was totally pissed. I was the old guy. Christ, I might as well have asked if he had that old time sasparilla. Besides, I knew the cereal was bad and sugary and actually I would never dream of allowing my daughter to have it. But I wanted it because it felt good to know in someway that I was physically able to buy it. And I suppose, psychologically, it felt good to know that a little bit of my childhood was still there.
“OK thanks anyway.” I’m walking away and he yells after me.
“You could try like Cocoa Pufffs..”
I spin around. “DUDE…I don’t want cocoa puffs maaan!”
So now, as I’m pushing my cart, the scenario is playing through my head and I’m laughing to myself at my stupid Lewbowski-like response. I realize I’m smiling and I’m walking alone. I consider censoring myself and then I think “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with smiling while walking alone in the grocery store. Is there? I mean if some douchebag next to me can walk around with his bluetooth headset talking to his secretary while fingering casaba melons, than I’m not that bad. So I relax and I’m thinking back on all the good times I had with Count Chocula. And not only him, but all the monster cereals. Frankenberry. And of course the lovable and effeminate Boobery. It was all gone. Gone!
Or maybe it was at the downtown PriceChopper. That place is very, shall we say, Urban. They probably have the original cereal in the original box. Along with Ivory soap in paper wrappers and Tylenol with no seal and child protection whatsoever.
I continued on in my super stop and shop and it got worse. I was innocently glancing at the meats section and there it was. Right between the steaks and the hamburger. Tongue. A big huge tongue. The tongue of a cow. Right there in see through cellophane packaging for all to see. A big slimy 18 inch long white tongue.
WHAT THE CHRIST IS THAT?
AND WHY?
WHY?
Seriously…w h y ?
I almost puked. I fantasized of leaving my whole cart full of stuff right there and running home to wimper in a corner. “Make the tongue go awaaaaay.” I was not only queasy and disgusted, I was angry! Angry at the injustice of it all. Wait a minute! No Count Chocula…But TONGUE!
I don’t know if I want to live in a world like this.
I got my act together and went up to the cashier. I wanted to get the hell out of there and go home. Home. Away from the tongue. My sale was done and bagged and just for the hell of it I ask the cashier, name tag reading Chrissy, if the bags are still free. She says yes. We joke about the inconvenience of the environmental steps we take but both agree that its a good idea. She mentions that instead of reducing bags everyone should shut their lights off for 1 hour a day. I replied “Brilliant. Ya know in some places they do that anyway. When I was in Costa Rica I noticed that whole towns shut their lights off for the turtle population that is mating at night.” Crap! I quickly decide I must tell her something else about Costa Rica to distract her away from the phrase “Mating at night.”
Got it.” Oh and I saw a sloth too. Its a great place. Beaches. Rainforest.” Whew.
She says she would love to travel but just can’t afford it since she just got out of grad-school. I ask her what she’s studying. She said “Art Restoration”. I said “Now that is fascinating. Man. you must look at art so differently because of that. Some look at things conceptually. Others for technique…And…”
“Exactly”. she says, “My sister always makes fun of me when we go to a museum. I’m not very emotional toward it. Although I went and saw Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise…ten panels of gold and bronze depicting religious scenes and it was stunning. These were outdoor pieces from the 15th century…And they were so detailed. And I’m not religious at all…But I wept when I saw them ”
“I can totally imagine”, I said. ‘Seeing passion like that regardless of the subject is so beautiful.”
“Yeah”, she says, “So..Anyway…I’m trying to get into a doctoral art program in Delaware. There’s only like 700 people in the school. They only take 200 applications. 75 are called to interview. And 10 are chosen.”
“You should do it. The world needs you. Art needs people with a sense of beauty…And ethics. I mean their must be a lot to consider. I would imagine ethical dilemmas. How do you decide what gets cleaned or restored or left alone.”
“Exactly. Like over in downtown. In the museum. Ya know past the PriceChopper.”
“Yes…I think of it often. I plan to go there tonight. No tongue. Good cereal”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been workin all day and I’m a little slow.”
“NO. Trust me. It’s me…Just a stupid thing that I uhh…So downtown the musem…”
“Yeah. There’s this big pyramid. You’ve seen it!”
I had no frickin clue what she was talking about but I didn’t want to stop talking to her.
I wasn’t so much attracted to her or anything. I just didn’t want her to stop talking.
“Yeah of course…Its awesome. Its a landmark.” I lied.
“Riiieeght. So its made of a strange mix of metals and copper and materials that rust. It’s supposed to rust. To clean it up would betray the artist.”
“Exactly.” I really didn’t want to leave. But there were people coming. “Chrissy”, I said offering my hand, “A real pleasure. Best wishes. You should go to Delaware.”
“Thanks. Have a great night.”
And that was it. I ended the night on such a high note. I overcame the count Chocula tragedy by just talking to someone.
So the point is this: If you try and live in the past, looking for Count Chocula and cheap thrills and such, you will inevitably be disappointed. And if you go looking around long enough you are sure to see some awful things. Like an accident. Or a bad relationship. Or lose a loved one. Or maybe come face to face with an 18 inch cow tongue. But if you just find the strength to look away from the past and away from the little everyday things that bum you out…You will see something. People. Beautiful people working just like you. People filled with passion. People with stories. Works of art all of us. Some need some cleaning up and some are a little messy but you wouldn’t want them any other way. So thank you Chrissy. Thank you tongue-less cow. And good night Count Chocula wherever you are.
So there was something I been thinking everytime I see them together. I couldn’t wrap my head around it or crystallize of what it was reminding me. And then it hit me. Best in show. The glamorous poodle lady and her …uhmm “husband.”
PARIS — Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled “pagan” passion for power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague Saturday as he led more than a quarter of a million Catholics in an outdoor Mass in Paris.
He then had a few people bow before him and kiss his million dollar ring before getting in his pope limo and going back to his castle.
About Thirty or forty seconds after McCain made an impassioned call for Americans to be involved and help fight ADULT ILLITERACY…The camera is panning the crowd and there is a huge sign held by a guy. Thank god for my DVR and camera phone:-)
My friend Jacqui wrote a rather eloquent and touching note about her new prius and the American dream. “A new car smells like the American dream” she wrote:-) on facebook. It made me smile and now I respond with my thoughts.
the american dream does indeed NOW smell like a new japanese import.
In times past it smelled like gunpowder
and sounded like the click clack of rifle loading
it smelled like the sea
and sounded like the waves on a new shore
it smelled like tobacco
and sounded like a whip
it smelled like a machine shop
and sounded like a hammer
it smelled like a dank canvas military ruck sack
and sounded like the rhythmic marching of boots
it smelled like perfume from a letter home
and sounded like rapid unrolling of medical tape
it smelled like a burning draft card
and sounded like a riot
it smelled like a crisp check on the first of the month
and sounded like bass drum and electric wa-wa guitar
it smelled like burning flesh
and sounded like tumbling buildings
My countries heroes in Boston did not see it.
They fought before there was America but there was indeed a dream. Risked all for a country that only existed in their minds.
Indeed a dream that they could only smell and hear.
And when I close my eyes and really concentrate
it smells like the black leather box lined with felt that holds my fathers medals. And it sounds like the crunch of snow under my boots on a sub zero driveway walk.
And thats just it. I can smell it and I can hear it.
But I could not see it. Until now.
The other night over drinks at my favorite cafe my friend fired out a great quote.
We were discussing movies, politics, sociology, and of course…women that walked by as we sat outside on the sidewalk. It was a great conversation which happens frequently at my little cafe. I feel like this poem, which he quoted verbatim to the full moon summer night sky, is very important. It seems to address many of my feelings and anxieties. It seems to address current events. It is, as they say, where I’m at.
THE SECOND COMING
W.B. Yeats
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Published: July 04, 2008 9:50 PM ET
PINEHURST, N.C. A former Army medic made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war has died of an apparent overdose, police said.
Joseph Patrick Dwyer died last week at a hospital in Pinehurst, according to the Boles Funeral Home. He was 31.
The photograph, taken in March 2003, showed Dwyer running to a makeshift military hospital while cradling the boy. The photo appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide, making Dwyer became a symbol of heroism.
Dwyer laughed when a reporter told him of the photo and its widespread circulation, and he tried to deflect focus to his entire unit. His mother, Maureen, said then that the photo embarrassed her son because it singled him out while other soldiers were doing the same thing.
Last week, Dwyer called a local taxi service to take him to the hospital after an apparent overdose, Capt. Floyd Thomas of the Pinehurst Police Department told the Fayetteville Observer. When the driver arrived, Dwyer said he couldn’t get to the door, according to a police report.
Police kicked in the door at Dwyer’s request, and he was taken by ambulance to a Pinehurst hospital. Thomas said bottles of prescription pills were found near Dwyer when police arrived. The former medic died later the night of June 28, according to authorities.
Dwyer served with the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of Fort Stewart, Ga. He earned the Combat Medical Badge and other military awards.
His mother said the military could have done more to help with post-traumatic stress. “He just couldn’t get over the war,” Maureen Dwyer said. “He just couldn’t do it. Just wasn’t Joseph. Joseph never came home.”
His wife, Matina, said: “He was just never the same when he came back, because of all the things he saw. … He tried to seek treatment, but it didn’t work.”
She told a reporter that she hoped that her husband’s death would bring more attention to PTSD issues.
Kelly Kennedy, who has won wide praise for her coverage of the war and problems faced by returning soldiers, added details in her account for Military Times. An excerpt follows.
*
For the medic who cared for the wounds of his combat buddies as they pushed toward Baghdad, the battle for his own health proved too much to bear.
On June 28, Dwyer, 31, died of an accidental overdose in his home in Pinehurst, N.C., after years of struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. During that time, his marriage fell apart as he spiraled into substance abuse and depression. He found himself constantly struggling with law, even as friends, Veterans Affairs personnel and the Army tried to help him.
“Of course he was looked on as a hero here,” said Capt. Floyd Thomas of the Pinehurst Police Department. Still, “we’ve been dealing with him for over a year.”
The day he died, Dwyer apparently took pills and inhaled the fumes of an aerosol can in an act known as “huffing.” Thomas said Dwyer then called a taxi company for a ride to the hospital…
When he returned from war after three months in Iraq, he developed the classic, treatable symptoms of PTSD. like so many other combat vets, he didn’t seek help. In restaurants, he sat with his back to the wall. He avoided crowds. He stayed away from friends. He abused inhalants, he told Newsday. In 2005, he and his family talked with Newsday to try to help other service members who might need help. He talked with the paper from a psychiatric ward at Fort Bliss, Texas, where he was committed after his first run-in with the police.
In October 2005, he thought there were Iraqis outside his window in El Paso, Texas. When he heard a noise, he started shooting. Three hours later, police enticed him to come out and no one was injured.
*
Greg Mitchell’s new book includes several chapters on the plight of Iraq vets. It is “So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq.”
