I know for sure there are two Spanish War vets still alive in the US, Moe Fishman and Clarence Kailin. Moe’s 91 and Clarence is 92. I met ‘em both back in 2006 [I did a post about it in April 2006] at the million-person anti-Iraq War (Afghanistan War, too) march in NYC—they were there at a table at the side of Broadway with a sign saying “Survivors of Abraham Lincoln Brigade of the International Brigade of the Spanish Civil War, 'We’re too old to March but we stand by you and encourage you to keep on marching.'" At that time I met them and praised them because I literarily grew up on that war since Hemingway was my ideal in those young days of mine when I was let loose from college and the US Army to find my slot in life and I came across Hemingway—and Hemingway’s books became my guidebooks to life and tons of Hemingway’s writing was devoted to his love of Spain and then his involvement in that countries civil war and I knew the film Spanish Earth. I still have a copy of it and watch it every two years or so—it is a quite serious look directly into the eyes of a war that if the US (old aristocrat Roosevelt) and Britain (old ass-licking Brit fop Neville Chamberlain) had stepped into that Civil War and pushed the Roman Empire Fascists and the Prussian Empire Nazis back into Germany, followed them on in, with Russia attacking them on their push into Austria, they would have weakened them to the point they could not have carried out the mass death and destruction they eventually carried out—and over 60 million folks met their unfortunate fate in that mele, another war to end all wars--war over and over and over and over again and again. If Roosevelt and Chamberlain had not have been protected aristocrats and listened to their people and in Roosevelt’s case his own wife, Eleanor, who was 100% behind aiding the Spanish Republicans in that war—we didn't even have to send them troops just arms and ammunition and trucks and cannon and a few airplanes—that’s all they needed and they could have kicked Franco and his Nazi and Fascist pals out of Spain on their asses easily—but, no, these aristocratic foul bastards took a noninterference stance—let Spain handle their own problems—besides, Roosevelt and Chamberlain both knew American financiers had financed Germany’s military buildup—why, look’a here, here’s old Prescott Bush from Connecticut admitting that his family was financing Hitler—banking his holdings in their Wall Street banks—there probably were several trays of gold teeth taken from the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in those bank vaults—but NO, we love war, the bigger and messier and more destructive the war the better we love it--we love making profits off war. It’s always, wait’ll you see WWIII—you thought WWII was bad. I can’t wait. I’m gonna die before Armegeddon gets me—I ain’t no Christian; I ain’t no Jew; I ain’t no Muslem; I ain’t no Hindu; I ain’t no Buddhist; I ain’t no Dalai Lama Asskisser; I ain’t no whacko Mormon; I ain’t no Cargo Cultist, so I ain’t gonna let no religion and its hatred of all people just because God must be a damn monkey since we are all made in his image—Holy Ape Shit, God’s a damn Gorilla.
This got me to remembering—what this blog is really all about—just teasing your memory no matter how old you are—even if you’re only 6 years old and just learning to read—and what better place to learn to read than trying to read The Daily Growler? Come on, kids; get hip; get hop; get a growler attitude. Remember, it’s all gonna be yours soon.
Oh my mercy goodness, can you imagine having to live say 50 years from now? What the hell is it all going to look like then? Will there be anything left? Einstein said we have 4 years to survive when our bees disappear. Our bees are disappearing. They are flying off from their home hives and never coming back. Scientists are speculating it might be due to so many cellphone electromagnetic waves shooting all through the airs all over the airs that splatter all over the world it's confusing the bees, messing up their homing devices and they are lost in space, so to speak.
I grew up with a woman born in 1857. I remember hearing the stories she told, especially at night--she didn't use electricity; instead she used coal oil lamps, big glass ones that my grandmother told me were as old as my great-grandmother, or she burned candles in hurricane lamps, candles she made herself in a cauldron she had buried in the back yard of her house. It sat over a firepit and in it she made her own lye soap, candle wax, home brews, potions, and likkers--she was the owner of a recipe for a certain tea, my grandmother said it might have newts in it and certainly a frog or two, but if you could stomach it it would give you vitality beyond compare, the urge to live at full speed. I was too young to remember any of her stories firsthand; oh yes, they were told over and over again the older I got; when I heard her tell them I was only 5 years old. I do remember hearing her talking about remembering hearing about Abraham Lincoln being elected president and then the night he was shot and killed--though and I do remember this, it was several weeks after it happened before my great-grandmother, then 8, heard about it.
I remember very clearing when I was that age and President Roosevelt died and I remember standing with my mother on the curb in front of our house and all the cars passing us had their headlights on--at mid-day. I asked my mother why the lights were on and she said, "Because President Roosevelt died last night." Then I started noticing how in funeral processions the cars turned on their lights even though it was high noon. My dad told me one time that's so cars pulled over to let the funeral pass could tell when the procession was over.
Oh but I could have remember so much more about my great-grandmother than I did. A lot of memories of my ancient family are lost now. Oldtimers; and I put them down as fossils--only now that I am approaching ancient times in my life do I wish I had documented that old witchy woman's tales--and god she had so many of them. My brother wrote a series on her for a Western American magazine--but I know all the stories he told about her in that series as well as he did; it's those other stories that are lost forever--like our bees.
asentimentalgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler
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