War & Johnny Carson's Shirt Size

Elle Smith Fagan  

a true story from the 1960's  dedicated to deployed military and their loved ones at home.

23 hrs · Edited · 

I was going to tell my happy  husband and Handsome Prince "when we're old" - a huge list of neat things couples  "keep in their hearts".   My handsome Prince got home from war just fine and to a fine successful life in work and love and fatherhood, but   I'll never get to tell him these things I saved.  He died  suddenly one morning,  well before retirement age.   But I can  share it with you:

He was an officer, with USACEngineers,  Black Diamonds special ops - showing Army Engineers how to NOT to use  the horribly carcinogenic Agent Orange  to clear foliage.   Just graduated with a degree in Chemistry, a healer - He loathed all  Chemical Warfare.   He enlisted before his draft notice arrived in July,  because, if he did so, he was promised that he could choose his job.

It was worthy , but it was war.  

The news shared a list of horrifying new war words daily, with "body bag" at the top!    I'd blanche and take a chair.   No Norman Rockwell and John Wayne easy patriotism - no.    Unable to sleep, the popular "Heeerrre's Johnnny!"  called my attention and tried to not be  "one tough audience" to get a laugh from -  though things for us were grim.  

Replying to audience comments and questions, he told us his shirt size !   What a guy won't say, to get a laugh!   But if you are Johhnnnnny, you can say ANYthing and bring down the house - even his shirt size won the moment.   OK, funny!

 But NOT for me;  Hypersensitive from love and fear, the mention of   "fourteen-and-a-half / thirty-two"  made me jump up -  Though my husband was taller, the shirt size was the same.  And suddenly for a moment I smiled in happy peace , remembering the first time I bought him a shirt, the first time I pressed one up for him for a fete, and the first time I trashed a worn out one that  he loved secretly and replaced it with a spotless twin.  Oh dear, I WAS missing him so much!

It was 1968 - there was no media - no internet  - no SKYPE - no email - nothing to bring reassuring live images of my deployed husband.   There was Silence, and often lost or delayed mail.  Food and other goodies I'd send were raided and never reached him.

I praised our baby, whose health made me NOT hold onto stress that would upset the infant in my arms.   Being a good mommy meant NOT hugging our son tighter than I should over it.  

But the silly moment worked and  after that night,  I'd watch Johnny Carson and fix on that shirt size, over and over - for the power of a factoid to generate connectivity.   It worked, somehow, till my husband's tour was done.   It was a way of poking fun at my own fears. 

My late husband's homecoming from war remains the  happiest day of my life - surpassing our wedding, our children's births, and even my art at the White House.   Till then Death was there constantly taunting me with promises to destroy all the work and love of my own birth and development to make a fine adult life.  Fear taunting constantly, no matter how cool and good and brave and busy I could be.  

But,  NO - you won't win this one....LIFE this time.   My Lieutenant USACE Black Diamonds - some months later,  walked through that door at LaGuardia - HOME - "all ten fingers, all ten toes",   and the love better than ever for the test!  

No Johnny Carson story for him - NOT that day.  Time - the gift of time was ours - no rush.   My husband had plenty of stories, as well, but one look at one another and we exulted :   "We'll talk about it when we're old!  We're not gonna have a problem ."  And we didn't!   Boundlessly grateful there was no PTS  for us!    Life - we won our right to a good life - with a  down-payment on the mortgage for it.  

   Even years later, with our babies half grown and softly sleeping in the next room , curled up safe and sound,  "watching Carson" with my husband - I'd sometimes remember the time of his deployment and that night when I was saved by "Johnny Carson's shirt size" on tv;  and I'd  feel  "moreso"  blessed for a moment,  by comparison to those late nights alone, with nothing but a fixation on a "shirtsize-in-common" to help me hold onto my mind.  Grateful praise !

Even widowed, years later I am fine and thriving for the goodness of the many years we made and enjoyed so well!

 To all who serve and to all who love them,   l send a good wish and a prayer that the Angels send at least a helpful bit of silliness, like "Johnny Carson's Shirt Size" to help any who need one.

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Labor Day 1953

Note: featuring the happy stories about Mother for the next few days - this is her week - she passed in her sleep before Monday morning12/11/17, at just shy of 92....she is free to be our angel always. I love you, Mother!

Life was very very good for the Smith Clan of Fairfield after WWII - all the sons who served, home and decorated for their heroism for Army Engineers in the Battle of the Bulge, Army Communications, Marines, Army Infantry,  Army MPs, and our Dad Pioneer Army Air Corps "Smitty the Flight Mechanic" .  All home and married to their sweethearts who served on the home front and all grateful and joyfully working at grand new jobs and raising families. 

Photoshop needed here - but it's Father's fun with new camera day and all three of us with Mother at one time. Rare to get us all to stand still together that long.

Exuberant Gram and Gramps so proud and nearing their 50th wedding anniversary, and fit for it, joined the annual Labor Day Picnic - a patriotic work song celebration - and this  year it was at Auntie Em's big homestead, to save Gram the work for a change at their "Little White House".

Mother was tall and lovely and expecting her third child very soon and fidgeted that morning, wondering if it was wise to join seven Irish sons and a daughter and their respective families at the blowout event of the year.   She had experienced a false labor, a trip to hospital to deliver, but home again, and NOT deflated enough -  so it could be any time now.  But the All-American Smith Family day found her doing her part with the women, setting up the table and presenting the feast, as the men talked over their game of horseshoes and the children helped with chores and played running and swinging games at the fine large place under the trees and in the field with the sheep and one good donkey.

NOT without caprice, Mother thought it might help things along to overdo the watermelon-eating and did.  Sure enough !     The second trip the hospital soon followed, and blushing, back to face the crowd at the picnic in an hour,  from a second false labor.  Father and the others making jokes about my Mother's desire to "go have this baby" on Labor Day made for a LOT of extra fun that day, for everyone but our Mother and the baby! 

But she was NOT wrong to feel like getting things going - when our sister Lori was born on September 18th, she was not fat, but a very long baby weighing in at 9 pounds 3 ounces!  No wonder she felt it MIGHT be time!  Third millennium medicine would have been able to image it out and let Mother deliver earlier, but back then, no.    And...Since Lori soon developed normally in size, it WAS surely just a long pregnancy resulting in high birth weight.  This one remains a family favorite LORISTORY , all these years later!   Hope you enjoyed it! 

And always a quick prayer and a wish that all who ARE in labor on this American Labor Day, enjoy a celebration of life of it all - today and always! 

Blue " Hallelujah"

 Peter Hollen and Jackie Evancho sing a pretty a capella version of Leonard Cohen's iconic "Hallelujah" -  this year at YouTube for the holidays ......find it if you can.   I think I wrote this "Variation on the Theme" for a memorial to the author's passing this November 7th

A ' Different'  Hallelujah

What , sweet angels, do you do

It's Christmas and they don't like you, 

And to be truthful, you're not keen on them ?

Skip them,  and go find your friends

and play till New Year's parties end

Find the new year full of Hallelujahs

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

When big hurts hurt, they do deplete - 

It isn't pretty, isn't sweet

You cry, "Please, Santa, ANY Hallelujah ! "

You pray to find a new insight

 it won't run clear, it won't go right

 Till you can't even spell out  'Hallelooojah' !

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

I found my son today online

With Bride, too far away, but  fine

But why assail me with   UN-hallelujah !

And now they'll have to charm this dear,  

to find the former welcome here

And still I know I'll know that Hallelujah !

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

His sister's newly-wedded smiles

Just dreams - we are apart by miles

Some one-day moment here -  for Holy Yule - yah !

Again a merry company

For Christmas, once again, and we will

Sing ensemble, truly,  Hallelujah!

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !    Hallelujah !   Hallelujah ! 

The strawb'ry top still  spins,  my loves !

The spirit's there and more above

A power of its own, sing Hallelujah !

I love the wisdom of my years

The invitation's loud and clear, so

  I'll close now  and just get back to my Yule - yah !

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

May YOUR  "Hallelujah" and "Gloria" and "cheers", glow with family spirit this year and always!

elle

Hallowe'en Stories of a Sort

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Do not let the cheery pumpkins fool you - I have scary stories to share at Halloween at this true stories blog.  But should they be shared at all?  Grownup scary stories are not pretty. 

Mayborn, my life has been a blessing, and very normal;  these stories only a fraction of my generally happy life.   More -  these stories  enjoyed happy endings,  but I certainly do have my moments - and then I realize most folks do.

  Life is not "Trick or Treat" but Trick AND Treat ! 

A list of my scary stories - details on request - or maybe added here as possible, with lead in and outcomes included.

There is the story of why I am why there are child-guard caps.

• There is the story of life with no pulse at all, for varied reasons during the years at war. 
• There is the story of childbirth and not dying like two of the grammas doing it - just almost.
• There is the story of how a  woman's hair can stand on end, exactly like the "Little Rascals" movies, when her love dies suddenly at her feet
• There is the story of abandonment by loyals, and being harassed by new, completely inappropriate, spouse material, or none at all .
• There is the story of raids upon a grieving lady and her children for anything not tied down.
• There is the story of rescuing staff of noble personages in panic over the recession, staff being exploited to the point of slavery.
• There is the story of being exploited and left for dead in a shelter for two years.  And like Sherlock Holmes' famous cormorant story...the world isn't ready for it yet.
• There is the story of how these scary stories could not possibly have happened - but did, prudence notwithstanding. 
• There is the story of the destruction of fourteen years of honored online existence and the near-destruction of its business.
• There is the story for this year: attacked by a mix of stinging insects and stopped counting at over 55 bites  -  my main job was not screaming. 
• There is the story of wondering IF to tell such scary stories, knowing it might bring the reprisals we are guaranteed cannot happen in America. 
• There is the story that there is not a "thirty million dollars" in my bank account for fair compensations for the clear malfeasances.  Oh yes..that, to this proud American is the worst, the scariest!  
• There is the story of the "Troop Beverly Hills" moments, when the nail polish error cost negative impact to the entire integumentary system....and stuff like that.

And yet... to tell these truly terrifying stories effectively, I'd need to be paid enough for the spa afterward to make repairs from the angst, and a nice retainer for the right attorney to protect me.

Would it only insult what is otherwise the most wonderful Golden Autumn Day full of pumpkins, friends, good work  and the Autumn Art Shows under way and me able to be part of it all?

 Would it help or hurt the honeymoon with  my new Mac and being able to run again and dance and drive after spinal injury and earning the cash for the car with fine artwork I am able to do?  

 Would I win my justice or undo my happiness?

SOME of it I must pursue and win, or be remiss.  Some is hopeless and timed out.  Some of it stays as a thing to peck at and eventually resolve. One point may need very hard work to win through...and risk...and danger of only creating another scary story to survive.

What do you think? 

Scary, no? 

Happy Halloween!

Elle

Accidental Activist

 An election year note: Accidental Activist or not, that's how it was.  I found myself doing much more than I ever thought I would - in brave ways - and am fine for it - and maybe finer than some for having done what I could, for seeing it as a human responsibility and acting on that consciousness. My Godmother made the room collapse in laughter the day she said I was a "female Forrest Gump" in that I just happened to be on the spot when some interesting things took place and I was compelled to help.  Great - but they left out the Apple Stock for me and emptied me, financially, in the Recession instead. Hmmmmm...

 It is clear that many say, with reason, that we have we lost sight of it all and been "do nothing"!       My team may be aging, and many think it is right to do nothing.  Sometimes it IS right to do nothing and let others lead.

But most of the time, we can do a thing - the right thing.

• All I had to do was nothing, and my late husband would have lost his health , college and his life twenty years sooner than he did.
• All I had to do was nothing, and our son would have died before he was quite one day old.  
• All I had to do was nothing, and our daughter would not have been born.  
• All I had to do was nothing,  and in civic response work,  and others would not be here, or failed the need to get going on a fine new path.
• All I had to do was nothing, and assorted groups and clubs for books , children and sports and design home and cuisine and health would not have happened at all.  
• All I had to do was nothing and I might have been killed.
• All I had to do was nothing, recently,  and there would have been no  SilverSneakers supports from our HMO , when mobility IS life always and truly, as we age.

Making this list helped me to act today.  Send me YOUR list - smile , because you may not have realized that you acted - and helped.

For my children:  it's not your fault - you didn't do it:   when I opted for all the good things, I was surrounded by good people, good schools , SAFE schools - 'dope' was a name for a buddy acting dumb - and there was plenty of prosperity to support me in the grand new things opening up in those days.   I skipped and sang down the street in safety and peace. When I was challenged, help was there, never an issue and soon happy days restored and the good things.

My poor children!  They knew the good things in early days and even much better.  But just as they reached adulthood, personal worldclass issues:  they have had to deal with every form of poverty , setbacks in the entire economy and violence - not only far away in a war- but on their streets and in their classrooms every day.  

And then, as if we were not dopey enough, they want to legalize narcotics?  Suicide for an entire nation is possible.   

Worse: our very happiness and prosperity and success CAUSED some of the issues we howl thru today from true abscence of malice and innocence.  Growing up in times of prosperity and love and freedom and plenty, our grownup children feel rudely awakened that things are not simply "automatically super"  -  and this happens every several generations, till things degenerate so badly that"wailing cries shake the very heavens" .  And then , compared to the suffering , taking up the tasks to recover the good days,  seems fairly easy.

There was a "Do Nothing Congress" , during Harry Truman's Administration, and others were called so, before and since .  And they were right.  They are saying so now.  But why blame congress, when it is we - the people they represent - who need to ACT. Our leaders are not feeling our support and our support is their life blood.

On the sunny side of serious recession, and there is plenty to cope with - Brexit, Terrorism and more - no safe place beyond our home and some do not even enjoy that much.   And all these issues won thru to us when we were financially impaired, and so, guilty of caving in to the pressures and going silent.

At the moment, all the other national leaders get to taunt us about our Failures.   

• Failure to use our amazing resources as we should
• Failure to get our money in order.
• Failure to law and order in order - to legislate at the federal level,  to disarm in the populated areas , arm our police with cams for evidence , and kevlar to save their lives and nonguns, so as not to KILL someone every time there is a "moment".   Shame to those who say it is not do-able. It MUST be do-able.  
• Failure to get public safety in order: for example, thousands die each year because no one will take up true updates to Occupant Safety and Escape Technology, for tall buildings and planes.  Architecture and Aeronautics are seriously remiss - they have cost lives in their failure act on this one issue. As is media for helping them suppress even commentary and calls for action.
• Failure to better define the Presidency and the rules for candidacy and election proceedings to reflext the times and needs. Right now, we idly watch how they can break every good rule and win, anyway.   

Yikes!

But, GOOD NEWS:  Americans are reeallly bad about Failure of any kind.

We think ourselves a winning entity.  Winning through does not just happen.  All we have to do is NOTHING. 

We have been oppressed by national misfortunes but that is over and we can restore the good. 

Act.

Saving Connecticut's Old State House - Petition to Sign, Please

Connecticut's Old State House with a golden statue of JUSTICE atop - needs some herself!

UPDATE August 2016

"The oldest State House in America is now closed to the public amid Connecticut’s budget problems. In addition, millions of dollars worth of artwork could be removed from the building."  Google - WNPR link

Please click and sign the petition to save this wonderful site from closure.

https://www.change.org/p/state-of-connecticut-do-not-close-connecticut-s-old-state-house?recruiter=2948991&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

July 28, 2016 - Sign the linked petition here BECAUSE: 
 today's paper tells that the artifacts are being removed from the  recently closed down site to protect them better at the Atheneum and the Connecticut Historical Society. Sad news but good news for their safety. This move is said to be temporary as new leadership hopes to do a  LOT better job of keeping the key historic site self-supporting.   LIARS - that building should be done like Sturbridge Village, since it's unique funnctionality in Colonial Days absolutely Dazzles but NO  ONE has been promoting it AT ALL. I think they mean to kill  her.

IN JUNE 2016,  while closing down my computer for the night, the breaking news alert notification kept me on a new job till late.  Whyyyyy just at Independence Day , would my beloved homestate close this icon site, which has only recently been renovated ?  The golden statue of JUSTICE, symbolically, is barely visible in this official photo, though her new gold paints normally gleam proudly in the sun and brighten a rainy day.  Funding and cutbacks were cited as the reason, but not very convincing. The Petition lists ways to fix.

Please click and sign the petition to save this wonderful site from closure.

https://www.change.org/p/state-of-connecticut-do-not-close-connecticut-s-old-state-house?recruiter=2948991&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

This site WAS Connecticut's capitol, till the larger one was built a century or so later.   It stood and served all life in the area and in early America.   And with not much else around, one block from the Connecticut River, the Old State House was the nearest to  the river life line in those days.     Rules were made and important history to all of America - not just Connecticut- happened there and the building is used daily today.  Not profitably enough, but that's easy to fix.

  This video will tell you more - click here for it.
 

Personally, I developed just a silly love for "OSH" as she is called -  when I first visited Hartford back to my home state, after 20 years in the big world, it was like seeing a lot of it for the first time, and often seeing old sites with new eyes. And especially OSH.

Suddenly I saw her in a personified light:  My paternal Grandmother was alive again, a tiny dolly , surrounded by her many tall children and grandchildren!   The anachronism she presents, in the landscape, making her just that more wonderful, sitting pat, on that spot, among companions two centuries newer.    She is my Grammy and I simply felt too personally upset by the news to NOT act.

Old State House is a genial Happy Cat on a carpet before a fire, much-loved by her  companions.  

What on EARTH would make anyone think it is okay to change that?  We need her in this world.   And why hurt this historic site AT Independence Day, America's Historically Proud Birthday! 

The petition has some signatures already and I have done only modest promotion. More to come. Comment here or on the petition.   Those with power to change the closure will be getting updates - it is part of the petition's machinery.  Make it count!

elle

The Angels and the Bloomsday Soliloquy 2016

Page 7 of the hard cover original of this book , now in its 60th Commemorative Edition, where I found the best of Bloomsday! in 1963. Thanksomuch school chum!

What do they call it when you see the most beautiful thing!  It is a glimpse, out of context, perhaps, but you feel redeemed, renewed and more alive than before you met.   But the high turns to  horrified, when the entire image reveals itself!   OH!  And then, just as passionately  one is  "RE-redeemed", when insight and the angels come to help?  There must be a word for it.  Let me explain, and  ask me for clarity where it gets obscure:

Tomorrow is a literary holiday - more popular each year:  "Bloomsday" - honoring James Joyce and his hero, Mr. Bloom - June 16th , the Day after my parent's wedding anniversary.    So many beautiful things go unnoticed, but  Bloomsday is celebrated worldwide.    

I am not a terrible critic and I am very Irish, but James Joyce's most famous book is on my hate list.  I hide from it.  Then feel worthier for having won through it.  There is a story that explains:  

I first read the romantic  Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, the final passage of the book, as an excerpt in the iconic, "The Family of Man"   ( The show and book were the famous 1955 MOMA NY Photo installation )  used as a caption, to clarify a famous romantic  photo.  

Taken out of context it is brief and breathtaking in its strong , profound simple Beauty! 

"...and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes...." 

What more could there be?!! 

I swooned. I was just seventeen and it was just a bit before meeting my late husband, a fine Irish Prince, then and always.  English major or no, finding the thought/words for that upcoming "moment" needed help and this excerpt did it!    Soon, I would be able to finally say YES and I prayed to say it even half as right as the words in the caption:  I was in class, but  The passage made me want run and read the rest of "Ulysses" , immediately! 

Ever kind, loving and watchful, the good Sister saw that I wanted to read the whole book, and she gave me one of those looks:  super discrete , nun's eyes down, and catching mine sideways, wordless but definite, " you don't WANT the whole book yet...not just yet", nodding ever so sharp/subtly - no. 

So I skipped it!  

Thrilled to read the excerpt again and again;  I would swoon and soar and, soon after, as I prayed, the right words were there on the right day when I met the man of my dreams,  at the dance,  the one I'd seen in my mind's eye four years before.   It was HE!  ...looking back at me with the same expression!      He said , "Hi , let's dance! "  heaven!  But   afterward, when he said "let's go neck" , my holy romantic reply was NOT quite the one , but the quick stall,  "We need to talk."  :-)And   Inspired?  Sighhhh..no.  But we'd known one another five minutes...really!  He won thru it and liked me better for it and the talk was the Good Talk and full of promise and more.

I realized that my rejection at first,  only made the excerpt truer - since,  it wasn't SO long after, at my cue , he "asked again"  and  we were okay to say yes and the rest is no one's concern but "ourrown".

...and then we were busy and I FORGOT to READ THE BOOK.... and got away without reading it for thirty years!     

Till my husband's sudden early death.

Irish angels must have helped 'back then ' but now it was "Dies Irae"  - "Day of Wrath" and , no grace and no skipping things.    Uncanny and cruel, now,  Such things FOUND ME, like  bills of a sort to pay, that I'd skipped out on, merrily,  so long ago. 

And, sadly yes - one of the things was the entire book "Ulysses" by James Joyce .   It just fell into my lap one day to read. 

I remembered the excerpt and cried , and then I sighed and then I started the book and reminded the angels that I was still grieving, because  "Ulysses" was NOT pretty...but I hung in and finished it....sad duty. 

I did not cry at the end...the in-context reading of the famous Molly Bloom's soliloquy ends the book.....and it was SICKENING - my blood stopped!   James Joyce's telling was an extreme contradiction of the nearly holy, lovely excerpt that I found in "The Family of Man" book in 1963.

Since the lovely words were so powerful to me, this "update" in their meaning was powerful, too.  I was numb and sullen and sluggish and sickened and  angry -  with my husband dead, one more and one more thing to deliver sorrow. Unfair. 

I struggled and in time I felt redeemed - because I could see the beauty in the soliloquoy - no matter the context and I was grateful,  and I understood sister's recommendation, long ago - thank you Sister!   A good thing was done in that.

But I ask YOU and  YE GODS!   Why  MUST the artist aim at the worst interpretation of the way of life,  to twist beauty into deliberate ugliness!   How degenerated !     WHY??  With so many stunning paths to find and make and follow and actualize  - so many good things - why choose the other???  So many true reports of it all, told in ways that inspire and give life!  Why the evil?

MISTER JOYCE!  Your gift, your destiny to be Dream weaver and empowerer for the grandest things our human limitations allow.  Was it his desire to help us to find our own redemption in spite of the writings?  Or his conceit? Or .....

 If the artist is of the Irish persuasion,  it is not merely an option but a mandate to empower for the best.  And they feel their approach does DO it!   Sometimes, in the taking up of this path, the lights are found, and then it proves worth!   Sometimes.  Not so cheery a prognosis. But we do it and that too is value!

I am quiet and grateful that my truth is its OWN redemption.  And most of all, grateful that I did not need to read the entire story too soon - that I found the beauty in an excerpt, in a heartbeat, and the glimpse lasted for thirty years, ready to glow again if called up.:-D

Thanks Angels!!!! 

elle smith fagan Bloomsday 2016 vigil note.

Molly Bloom

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG