It's August and even the prolific Michelle Scott is struggling to put words to screen. I belong to a writers group on Linkedin where someone started this thread of 'tell me the first two lines of the book you're currently working on." Which sounds a whole lot easier than actually writing those two lines. But personally, I don't think two lines - even great ones - can sell a book, but a paragraph? That's another story. So, since I'm as stuck as Michelle, let's see if this already written opening paragraph does the trick. Just fill out the little comment thingie at the bottom of the post. And I hope you and your dog have a real nice August.
Nightfall in Neuilly
SYLVIE DELACOURT USED HER MOBILE PHONE five times the February night she was killed. France Telecom logged the calls at 2:17, 2:23, 2:29, 2:46 and 2:51 in the morning. The calls were placed from her car as she sped down the A-1 from Charles de Gaulle to her apartment in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the chichi suburb that abuts the 17th arrondissement, separated from Paris only by the Périphérique, the insanely clogged highway that circles the city. The first call was to her audit colleagues in Ciudad Juárez, the second to her office in La Defense, the third to the agency that handles her apartment, and the last two to Christopher Reardon, her lover. She told the auditors she was not returning to Mexico, her boss that she was resigning immédiatement, the agency that she would be out of town for an indefinite period, and she twice begged Reardon to take an earlier flight to Paris. All five calls rolled to voice mail. The auditors were at dinner, the boss asleep, the agency closed. And Reardon? He was in an outdoor hot tub on the snowy shores of Lake Michigan, making love to a tall blonde named Karen
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
POLITICAL THEATER
AND POLITICAL COWARDICE - my own, I'm afraid. Tuesday was primary day here in Michigan and Pat and I trooped on over to Riley Junior High after work to cast our votes. (They call it 'middle school' now, an artsy fartsy affront to the millions of us who suffered through JUNIOR High School in our brush cuts and dorky banlon shirts and musical corduroy trousers (and don't mistake them for pants, 'cause they weren't pants... no sir, pants were cool, the Beatles wore pants, trousers were what our fathers wore, and goddamnit, that's what they made us wear, us poor little geeky twelve year olds in black corduroy trousers with flecks of bright color in the fabric like maybe there were little red fire ants crawling up our legs, and there you were, these innocent little ex-elementary school kids mixing in with fully hormonal fourteen year olds - girls with honest to god breasts, and guys like John W (I don't even dare write his name because even though he's got to 70 by now, he will come and find me and beat me to a pulp) who was in his mid-20s and enjoying his fifth or tenth trip through 9th grade, and he drove to school - DROVE TO SCHOOL! in a car with more horsepower than all the teachers' cars combined, and he reeked of cigarettes, and had a girlfriend who was way way beyond training bras, and who gave us poor little twelve year in corduroy trousers a brain freeze so bad we'd either smash into the walls, or into John the W himself, who'd growl at you and then toss your body through the nearest window. That my friends, was JUNIOR high school, so don't give me any of that middle school crap!)
But I digress.
We found the end of the gymnasium where our precinct voted and we stood in a not very crowded line and the nice poll workers had us fill out the voting cards - and there it was down in the left bottom corner. Two fill-in-the-ovals asking me if I was a US citizen. Ruth Johnson, Michigan's Secretary of State, is apparently so concerned that illegal aliens are going to hijack our elections and maybe, by god, vote democratic or something, that she needed one final check to ensure that only god fearing US citizens are stumbling through the ballets, despite the fact that even George W. Bush couldn't find any creditable evidence of voter fraud, and that our Republican governor, Rick Snyder, told her to knock it off.
So, I decided to get on my high horse and not fill in the circle. I handed over my driver's license and the card and the license proceeded down the line of pole workers until this middle-aged woman pointed to the card and said I had to fill it out. And I said 'no', very loud and distinct, saying I was a US citizen and this was unconstitutional. She looked confused and said, no, I need you to sign the card. Upps. So, I signed the card. And then she said, I needed to fill in the circle, yes or no. Then I repeated myself, standing on principal. She allowed as she could call 'headquarters' (wherever that was) and check. I thought that a fine idea, but people were starting to come in and I was holding up the line, so I said, fine, I'll sign. I voted (solidly democratic) and we left. But I felt like I let myself down.
Many of my liberal brethren seem to think this whole voter fraud issue was designed to keep down the Latino vote. Me, instead, I think this was specifically designed for the white, middle-class, middle-aged voter, to remind him (usually it's a him, women being a heck of a lot smarter than us guys) that there's all these Mes'cans and 'others' out there and they vote for the Democrats, so don't be an idiot, vote the party that looks like you - Republican.
So, later I was at home nursing a middling Cabernet when my daughter Susie called and said she'd voted, and when they told her to fill in the circle, she told 'em it was illegal and she wouldn't do it. The poll worker said she'd call headquarters. Susie said, go ahead. The worker did, and the worker said, 'you're right.' No circles were darkened.
I went to bed feeling that my daughter was a better freedom fighter than I was. I later read in the online versions of the Freep and the Detnews some comments to the effect of 'come on, it's just one little line, quit with the political correctness'. Yeah, it's a little thing, but I seem to remember all the Rush and Sean wannabees saying never to give in! The road to the Kenyan, socialist, hate America, gay, black, basketball shooting dictatorship is lined with giving in on little things. So, no more giving in. So, a warning. Don't be in line behind me if those little circles are still there in November.
Now back to doing the damn laundry
But I digress.
We found the end of the gymnasium where our precinct voted and we stood in a not very crowded line and the nice poll workers had us fill out the voting cards - and there it was down in the left bottom corner. Two fill-in-the-ovals asking me if I was a US citizen. Ruth Johnson, Michigan's Secretary of State, is apparently so concerned that illegal aliens are going to hijack our elections and maybe, by god, vote democratic or something, that she needed one final check to ensure that only god fearing US citizens are stumbling through the ballets, despite the fact that even George W. Bush couldn't find any creditable evidence of voter fraud, and that our Republican governor, Rick Snyder, told her to knock it off.
So, I decided to get on my high horse and not fill in the circle. I handed over my driver's license and the card and the license proceeded down the line of pole workers until this middle-aged woman pointed to the card and said I had to fill it out. And I said 'no', very loud and distinct, saying I was a US citizen and this was unconstitutional. She looked confused and said, no, I need you to sign the card. Upps. So, I signed the card. And then she said, I needed to fill in the circle, yes or no. Then I repeated myself, standing on principal. She allowed as she could call 'headquarters' (wherever that was) and check. I thought that a fine idea, but people were starting to come in and I was holding up the line, so I said, fine, I'll sign. I voted (solidly democratic) and we left. But I felt like I let myself down.
Many of my liberal brethren seem to think this whole voter fraud issue was designed to keep down the Latino vote. Me, instead, I think this was specifically designed for the white, middle-class, middle-aged voter, to remind him (usually it's a him, women being a heck of a lot smarter than us guys) that there's all these Mes'cans and 'others' out there and they vote for the Democrats, so don't be an idiot, vote the party that looks like you - Republican.
So, later I was at home nursing a middling Cabernet when my daughter Susie called and said she'd voted, and when they told her to fill in the circle, she told 'em it was illegal and she wouldn't do it. The poll worker said she'd call headquarters. Susie said, go ahead. The worker did, and the worker said, 'you're right.' No circles were darkened.
I went to bed feeling that my daughter was a better freedom fighter than I was. I later read in the online versions of the Freep and the Detnews some comments to the effect of 'come on, it's just one little line, quit with the political correctness'. Yeah, it's a little thing, but I seem to remember all the Rush and Sean wannabees saying never to give in! The road to the Kenyan, socialist, hate America, gay, black, basketball shooting dictatorship is lined with giving in on little things. So, no more giving in. So, a warning. Don't be in line behind me if those little circles are still there in November.
Now back to doing the damn laundry
Monday, August 6, 2012
THAT GODDAMN ISLAND
Guadalcanal. A name that means very little nowadays except to historians, military buffs and those honored few who remain of the greatest generation. It was a name that resonated through the '40's, '50's and early '60's, but now "sounds distant on the ear," as James Michener observed, "like Shiloh and Valley Forge." The battle for Guadalcanal began seventy years ago August 7th, when the leathernecks of the 1st Marine Division waded ashore on that dark, sodden, pestilential island in the middle of the south Pacific to deny the Japanese an airbase that could threaten Australia. Doing so commenced a six month campaign of unrelenting misery and savageness that became a war within a war, fought by every branch of the US military - Marines, Navy, Army, Army Air Force, and Coast Guard, which had its only Medal of Honor winner in Douglas Munro, Signalman First Class, who sacrificed his life to rescue a battalion of marines pinned down on the beach by Japanese fire. Guadalcanal was the beginning of the end of the empire of Japan, although it would take another two-and-a-half years and two atomic bombs before that fact was clear to the Japanese.
It was a close run thing, to borrow a phrase from the Duke of Wellington. It was a campaign of attrition and supply - especially supply. American convoys tried to resupply our troops by day, Japanese convoys tried to resupply theirs by night. There were seven naval engagements in the seas around Guadalcanal, the first, the last and the one in the middle clear Japanese victories, while the others - save one - were American victories mostly in the sense that they kept the Japanese from resupplying their troops. Between the two sides, three aircraft carriers, two battleships, 12 cruisers, 26 destroyers and six submarines were sunk. It was not for nothing that American sailors nicknamed those waters Iron Bottom Sound.
The air battle lasted almost the entire six months. Relays of Japanese planes - Bettys and the dreaded Zeros - from the Japanese airstrip at Rabael, flew 650 miles down 'The Slot' daily to plaster the ex-Japanese airbase, now named Henderson Field. The make-shift Cactus Air Force of Marine, Navy and Army Air Force fighters rose to challenge them, losing scores of planes and pilots in combat, and even more planes and pilots trying to take off and land on that rutted, shell holed dirt field.
And then there was war on the island itself. Most of Guadalcanal was - and remains - uninhabited, an ancient, festering tropical jungle growing on top of sharp rocky ridges and plunging ravines, except for a narrow grassy plain on the northeast coast that seemed perfect to imperial planners as the site of an airfield. Japanese construction crews landed on June 8th. The Americans wouldn't have it. Two months later the Marines waded ashore. The 1300 Japanese escaped into the jungle, and despite the convoys and transports that boosted their numbers to almost 30,000, despite three major nighttime battles and scores of minor actions, they never took the air field back. The Marines, and later the Army, held - and they held in spite of being placed on a ten mile long defensive front around Henderson Field. It was, in a way, like the western front of World War One, except that instead of 100,000 or so men crammed into ten miles of damp, cold trenches, there were 20,000 Americans strung out in a weakly defended line, sweating in fox holes and little depressions in the ground, on half rations from Day One (the Marines landed with only four days of ammunition and 17 days of food), staring out into the jungle, never quite knowing where the enemy was or when he would attack.
But whereas the Americans were hungry, the Japanese were starving. This I didn't know when I was growing up. The John Wayne movies never mentioned that. I wouldn't have known it either, except for the book 'Guadalcanal', the definitive work on this battle, authored by Richard B. Frank, a young, ex-army officer and lawyer who published this book in 1990. My friend, Ken, gave me the book years ago. It sat in my basement bookshelf for several more years when, for reasons unknown, I started reading it - at night, in bed, all 800 pages of it held at arm's length over my head. It was fascinating - horrific and fascinating. Frank not only told the familiar story of America's experience on the island, but he also researched the other side, and as a consequence, half of the book explains what the Japanese did. And what they did mostly was get sick and starve.
The Japanese soldiers were forced to live in those pestilential jungles, often on the dark, damp reverse slopes of ridges to avoid American artillery fire and attacks by the aircraft of the Cactus Air Force ('Cactus' was the allied code name for Guadalcanal). The Japanese navy never quite managed to supply their army with enough ammunition or food - due to our habit of sinking their supply ships. Their soldiers nicknamed Guadalcanal 'starvation island'. Of the 30,000 soldiers eventually posted to the island, only 13,000 were capable of duty. Capable of duty was generously defined - if they were too weak to walk, but could man a gun, they were capable of duty. The Japanese navy eventually managed to extract about 10,000 of them, leaving 20,000 dead behind. Those rescued were a spent force. Franks quotes a report to Admiral Yamamoto that the evacuees were "so undernourished that their beards, nails and hair had all stopped growing, that their joints looked pitifully large. Their buttocks were so emaciated that their anuses were completely exposed, and on the destroyers that picked them up, they suffered from constant and uncontrollable diarrhea."
Another thing I didn't know was the grudging respect many of our military had for the Japanese. I knew all about Admiral Bull Halsey and his strategy of: "Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs!" What I didn't know were the other thoughts. From Admiral Willis Lee, who sailed the last battle-worthy American ships into night action against a Japanese fleet determined to bombard Henderson field into oblivion, and won a smashing victory, "... we have no edge on the Japs in experience, skill, training or performance of personnel," to John George, an army officer who served on Guadalcanal "... most of us who have fought in the Pacific are ready to admit here and now... that for sheer, bloody, hardened steel guts, the stocky and hard-muscled little Jap doughboy has it all over any of us."
A grinding, bloody, savage fight in and around a bloody, savage island in the middle of nowhere. Fought by boys, now wheel chair-bound old men with mottled skin and fuzzy memories. Honor them while you still have the chance.
It was a close run thing, to borrow a phrase from the Duke of Wellington. It was a campaign of attrition and supply - especially supply. American convoys tried to resupply our troops by day, Japanese convoys tried to resupply theirs by night. There were seven naval engagements in the seas around Guadalcanal, the first, the last and the one in the middle clear Japanese victories, while the others - save one - were American victories mostly in the sense that they kept the Japanese from resupplying their troops. Between the two sides, three aircraft carriers, two battleships, 12 cruisers, 26 destroyers and six submarines were sunk. It was not for nothing that American sailors nicknamed those waters Iron Bottom Sound.
The air battle lasted almost the entire six months. Relays of Japanese planes - Bettys and the dreaded Zeros - from the Japanese airstrip at Rabael, flew 650 miles down 'The Slot' daily to plaster the ex-Japanese airbase, now named Henderson Field. The make-shift Cactus Air Force of Marine, Navy and Army Air Force fighters rose to challenge them, losing scores of planes and pilots in combat, and even more planes and pilots trying to take off and land on that rutted, shell holed dirt field.
And then there was war on the island itself. Most of Guadalcanal was - and remains - uninhabited, an ancient, festering tropical jungle growing on top of sharp rocky ridges and plunging ravines, except for a narrow grassy plain on the northeast coast that seemed perfect to imperial planners as the site of an airfield. Japanese construction crews landed on June 8th. The Americans wouldn't have it. Two months later the Marines waded ashore. The 1300 Japanese escaped into the jungle, and despite the convoys and transports that boosted their numbers to almost 30,000, despite three major nighttime battles and scores of minor actions, they never took the air field back. The Marines, and later the Army, held - and they held in spite of being placed on a ten mile long defensive front around Henderson Field. It was, in a way, like the western front of World War One, except that instead of 100,000 or so men crammed into ten miles of damp, cold trenches, there were 20,000 Americans strung out in a weakly defended line, sweating in fox holes and little depressions in the ground, on half rations from Day One (the Marines landed with only four days of ammunition and 17 days of food), staring out into the jungle, never quite knowing where the enemy was or when he would attack.
But whereas the Americans were hungry, the Japanese were starving. This I didn't know when I was growing up. The John Wayne movies never mentioned that. I wouldn't have known it either, except for the book 'Guadalcanal', the definitive work on this battle, authored by Richard B. Frank, a young, ex-army officer and lawyer who published this book in 1990. My friend, Ken, gave me the book years ago. It sat in my basement bookshelf for several more years when, for reasons unknown, I started reading it - at night, in bed, all 800 pages of it held at arm's length over my head. It was fascinating - horrific and fascinating. Frank not only told the familiar story of America's experience on the island, but he also researched the other side, and as a consequence, half of the book explains what the Japanese did. And what they did mostly was get sick and starve.
The Japanese soldiers were forced to live in those pestilential jungles, often on the dark, damp reverse slopes of ridges to avoid American artillery fire and attacks by the aircraft of the Cactus Air Force ('Cactus' was the allied code name for Guadalcanal). The Japanese navy never quite managed to supply their army with enough ammunition or food - due to our habit of sinking their supply ships. Their soldiers nicknamed Guadalcanal 'starvation island'. Of the 30,000 soldiers eventually posted to the island, only 13,000 were capable of duty. Capable of duty was generously defined - if they were too weak to walk, but could man a gun, they were capable of duty. The Japanese navy eventually managed to extract about 10,000 of them, leaving 20,000 dead behind. Those rescued were a spent force. Franks quotes a report to Admiral Yamamoto that the evacuees were "so undernourished that their beards, nails and hair had all stopped growing, that their joints looked pitifully large. Their buttocks were so emaciated that their anuses were completely exposed, and on the destroyers that picked them up, they suffered from constant and uncontrollable diarrhea."
Another thing I didn't know was the grudging respect many of our military had for the Japanese. I knew all about Admiral Bull Halsey and his strategy of: "Kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs!" What I didn't know were the other thoughts. From Admiral Willis Lee, who sailed the last battle-worthy American ships into night action against a Japanese fleet determined to bombard Henderson field into oblivion, and won a smashing victory, "... we have no edge on the Japs in experience, skill, training or performance of personnel," to John George, an army officer who served on Guadalcanal "... most of us who have fought in the Pacific are ready to admit here and now... that for sheer, bloody, hardened steel guts, the stocky and hard-muscled little Jap doughboy has it all over any of us."
A grinding, bloody, savage fight in and around a bloody, savage island in the middle of nowhere. Fought by boys, now wheel chair-bound old men with mottled skin and fuzzy memories. Honor them while you still have the chance.
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