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Slow Time in Fat City™.

Started by Doktor Howl, August 19, 2010, 07:54:30 PM

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Doktor Howl

I grew up in Slow Time.  As information was largely restricted to mail, 3 TV stations, half a dozen AM radio stations, and word of mouth, my older relations talked to me.  I had an immediate connection to events stretching back as far as WWI.  Hell, WWII - in Canada - was still fresh in everyones' minds in the mid 70s.

As a result, I had an appreciation for history that can't be garnered from a textbook.  Primary source material, if you will.  I remember my great-great uncle "Chick" (Charles) telling me and my brother about gas attacks in the trenches.  You had to listen closely, because he spoke in a whisper...And his skin was as white as a sheet, as he had about a quarter of a lung left.

I remember my (recently deceased) Uncle Bill, who wouldn't talk to us about WWII until we'd done our own time in the service, except when he had a little too much of my grandfather's homemade wine at Christmas...And then he'd tell us tales of the Falaise Pocket, of being surrounded by fleeing Germans, and of trying so desperately to relieve the Poles who were keeping the pocket shut.

My grandfather, who didn't serve due to not having a right eye (Childhood accident.  He tried and tried to bullshit his way into the military until they threatened to have him arrested as a nuisance.), told us stories of the horrible years of the great depression, and of the labor struggle, of fighting with Pinkertons (To this day, he spits if you say that word) with axe handles.

Back then, in Slow Time, I was a child surrounded by story-telling giants.

But time has sped up...As the man said, Charley stole the handle, and the train won't slow down.  Kids are raised by the internet and the TV, and they have precisely zero connection to anything older than 10 years ago at best.

It makes me wonder why we even keep track of what year it is, any more, you know?

Some say it's for the best.  The first half of the last century was hardly a picnic, and is there really any point to showing kids the awful horrors of Nazism and gas warfare?  

I disagree, but I don't think there's much to be done about it.  You can't turn back the clock, and you can't instill a sense of history in people that are just about physically wired into the present.  My generation is effectively the last bridge to the past, in a nation that doesn't want to hear stories that don't end in 120 minutes, wrapped up all nice and tight, with no annoying loose ends...And most of my generation is too drunk or spaced out in front of the TV to tell you any of that shit, anyway.

You'll find out, soon enough, anyway.  As some old wiseass said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it", and you can already see that happening, with the wave of nationalism and religious nutjobbery that dominates a nation "led" by Weimar Republic-esque wimps who don't believe in anything at all.

And those of you who survive will tell your children and grandchildren about it, and time will slow back down.  Or maybe not.  Maybe they'll just stare at you while you talk, watching the mpeg video that's playing on their cornea implants.

So let me bid you an early welcome to Slow Time.  Well, slow for you, anyway.

Okay for now,
Dok
Molon Lube

Adios

I grew up exactly the same way. Stories of union railroad strikes and being shot at. My Uncle James survived the Battle of the Bulge, he was a machine gunnery sargent. And so much more that will be lost when our generation dies.

In my day we respected what our elders had to say, it was like living history to listen to them.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Charley Brown on August 19, 2010, 08:46:17 PM
I grew up exactly the same way. Stories of union railroad strikes and being shot at. My Uncle James survived the Battle of the Bulge, he was a machine gunnery sargent. And so much more that will be lost when our generation dies.

In my day we respected what our elders had to say, it was like living history to listen to them.

It sounds corny, but it's true.  I never listened to a word my folks had to say, but I could - and did - sit for hours on end listening to the oldsters.

As a side benefit, they really seemed to appreciate it.  Especially Chick.  What was to him the Worst Thing Ever had largely been forgotten.
Molon Lube

Adios

Corney? Not to me. Like you I could sit and listen for hours. Even if it was the adults talking, if you were very still and quiet they would you stay.

Juana

I wish I had had that as a kid. No one told me stories and I would have listened.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

Storebrand

I listened.  They both died before I was old enough to have an inkling about what it all meant and ask questions, but I listened.  My father would silently signal for me to sit at his feet, hidden by his legs once my great uncle was a few beers in.  I'd nestle into his blanket and stare at the stars while uncle Ken got drunk enough to talk about Korea.  My father would nurse a beer and sit there, tightlipped.  He wanted me to know.  I appreciate that. 

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Hover Cat on August 20, 2010, 12:51:56 AM
I wish I had had that as a kid. No one told me stories and I would have listened.
You're too young.  They were all gone.
Molon Lube

Freeky

My grandpa Wally was a veteran. I only know because I remember seeing the purple heart he got. In our family,it wasn't done to talk about such things. I think.

I miss my grandpa. :(

Dysfunctional Cunt

WOW Dok, hitting the heart tonight eh?  I have to have a "real" keyboard to properly respond.

Damn my friend, this is great. A new series? At the knees of remember?

More later. Just had to say awesome!

:mittens:

Adios

Dok Howl and I remember. Will you listen?

Juana

"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

Adios


Hoser McRhizzy

Quote from: Mistress Freeky, HRN on August 20, 2010, 01:48:45 AM
In our family,it wasn't done to talk about such things. I think.

It was the same in mine.  Loads of books, 2 TV channels, 3 radio stations, but shhhhhhh!


Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 19, 2010, 07:54:30 PM
You'll find out, soon enough, anyway.  As some old wiseass said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it", and you can already see that happening, with the wave of nationalism and religious nutjobbery that dominates a nation "led" by Weimar Republic-esque wimps who don't believe in anything at all.

And those of you who survive will tell your children and grandchildren about it, and time will slow back down.  Or maybe not.  Maybe they'll just stare at you while you talk, watching the mpeg video that's playing on their cornea implants.

So let me bid you an early welcome to Slow Time.  Well, slow for you, anyway.

Okay for now,
Dok

:mittens:
It feels unreal because it's trickling up.

Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.

I wish I hadn't been fucked up when I was a kid . . . I would have listened.

My grandpa only talked about WW2 once that I can recall but he had pictures and mementos of his time spent bringing people out of concentration camps - huge piles of bodies and the look on people's faces . . . I wasn't suppose to see the pictures and after that everything disappeared.

I felt like I've been robbed of that tie to history and to people, when I found everything gone.

I had a real good buddy a year older than me who was a Marine and a Discordian. He did all kindsa stuff. I listened to his stories for hours at a time, when he'd talk about it. He had this habit of rubbing his scars when he talked about it. I knew which story was riding high on his mind by which set of inadvertent body mods he was touching, before he ever spoke. Then he went nuts and ran off to California or Oregon to marry some Jehovah's Witness and I haven't heard from him since.
Weevil-Infested Badfun Wrongsex Referee From The 9th Earth
Slick and Deranged Wombat of Manhood Questioning
Hulking Dormouse of Lust and DESPAIR™
Gatling Geyser of Rainbow AIDS

"The only way we can ever change anything is to look in the mirror and find no enemy." - Akala  'Find No Enemy'.

Adios

Quote from: curiosity on August 20, 2010, 05:00:51 AM
I wish I hadn't been fucked up when I was a kid . . . I would have listened.

My grandpa only talked about WW2 once that I can recall but he had pictures and mementos of his time spent bringing people out of concentration camps - huge piles of bodies and the look on people's faces . . . I wasn't suppose to see the pictures and after that everything disappeared.

I felt like I've been robbed of that tie to history and to people, when I found everything gone.

I had a real good buddy a year older than me who was a Marine and a Discordian. He did all kindsa stuff. I listened to his stories for hours at a time, when he'd talk about it. He had this habit of rubbing his scars when he talked about it. I knew which story was riding high on his mind by which set of inadvertent body mods he was touching, before he ever spoke. Then he went nuts and ran off to California or Oregon to marry some Jehovah's Witness and I haven't heard from him since.

I mourn your loss.