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In February, 1944, Lt. Ed Charles was a Navigator in the 336th Squadron, 95th Bomb Group out of Horham, England. One night he was sleeping in the barracks when the door flew open and the C.Q. (Charge of Quarters) went probing through the darkness with a flashlight. “Is there an empty bunk in there? We have a new arrival and he needs a place to sleep.” Ed told the CQ the bunk next to his was vacant. He sat up. He offered to help the new guy unpack his gear and get squared away. “No thanks,” the new guy said, “I’ll do it tomorrow…I feel very tired, and I think I’ll hit the sack.”
Many years later, Ed wrote:
“I didn’t even get a good look at his face as we shook hands. He took the bunk next to mine saying he was a replacement navigator and that his name was Spencer. We all went back to bed and were soon asleep…About two o’clock the following morning we were again awakened by the CQ with his flashlight. He said, ‘Lieutenant Spencer, you’re to come with me. We need a navigator for today’s mission, and you’re on the list to fly.’ Lieutenant Spencer dressed and left for breakfast and the early morning briefing…Later on that day we…went up to the flight line to watch our returning B‑17s peel off and land. It became obvious that the 95th had experienced a rough mission…We later learned that Lieutenant Spencer’s B‑17 237971 was one of those that had been shot down. He had only spent one short night as a member of the 95th Bomb Group at Horham and from that day forward he was known as ‘the man who came for breakfast.’”
In a sense, that’s all of us. On the Big Earth Timeline we show up, find a rack for a few hours, get called out early, grab a bite to eat, endure a lengthy and mostly inaccurate briefing, take off into the sky and eventually get shot down over BFE. I’m not trying to be morbid but there it is in the raw.
One reason the desert appeals so deeply to me is that millions of years of weather and sun have exposed what the artist Andrew Wyeth called “the raw bone structure” of the earth. He saw that in the Pennsylvania winters and painted what he was seeing. Also, Wyeth’s long-secret project — paintings, watercolors, and sketches of Helga Testorf are a singular achievement in the history of American arts.
I mentioned that I’m not trying to be morbid but the pandemic has pushed morbid, or at least dour, thoughts into my orbit. My disappointment with the character and behavior of American government – and many millions of my countrymen — is thorough and probably terminal. Whatever thin strand of credibility Congress and the Presidency were hanging from — in my mind— has now snapped. It’s probably true that I am an enemy of the state because I refuse to trade freedom for comfort. Because they lack both imagination and actual principles our government insists on that approach, and our fellow citizens by the millions upon millions seem to agree.
Who am I to get in the way of that colossal machine?
One result of my sudden apostasy is that I’m left quietly without a country which, if you look at it closely, can be its own kind of freedom.
I would love to question the legal basis for executive “orders” but who, exactly, would I ask? My representative? The Mayor of Tunetown? My Magic 8 Ball? The Fourth Estate in America — who are meant to play an important role in this sort of thing — is an absolute disaster and seems to have collectively eschewed journalism for digital celebrity and political marketing. And did I mention pandering? That’s one thing Trump is actually right about even though the guy is really just a bowl of poisonous jello wiggling around in an oversized suit.
One excellent development is that my wife and I renamed our standard breakfast burrito the Ronarito which is spicy chorizo from Idaho Market – a Basque meat shop in my hometown run by the Urruttia family – with eggs, potato, onions, cheese, and salsa on a hot flour tort. One Ronarito is enough to power a man through two hours of shoveling 3/4 minus gravel into various corners of the Figure 8 Ranch, which I’ve been doing, one tractor bucket at a time.
Another excellent development is that some of the cold weather plants in my garden are up. I’ve got spinach, peas, and buttercrunch lettuce coming into life and tomatoes and squash started in the greenhouse. I’ve got rows of bush beans under plastic just starting to sprout but I’ll have to leave them under there until after rodeo weekend when it always snows. That would be the second week in June but this year the rodeo is cancelled which is another hard blow to the local economy.
I’ll be heavily focused on gardening and preserving this year because I believe food shortages are in our future.
In the meantime, thanks to you who have stuck around the Running Iron campfire during this mess. It’s been good to have you here. And thanks to you who bought a hat and stickers to help us fly the flag in the middle of a pandemic.
In the spirit of Andrew Wyth’s “raw bone structure” of the earth, I’m offering up a video here from the new Figure 8 Ranch YouTube channel. This is the visual version of the series of essays I started – it remains unfinished – here called “The Road of the Dead”. I hope you enjoy it.
One more thing…The Man Who Came to Breakfast happened to leave his new A‑2 leather flight jacket behind when he flew off to meet his fate. Lt. Charles scooped it up before the graves people collected his belongings. It is now on display in the Memorial Air Museum at Framlingham, Suffolk, England.
FRANK JENSEN says
Great video . Hang and rattle Craig.
Grabbin’ leather! Thanks Frank.
Jim says
Great post. I was stationed near Horham at RAF Lakenheath and recall that story. Word has it Spencer survived the war in a Stalag Luft but a great metaphor for life. We are only passing through and when we go it might be good or it might be bad but we can demand nothing more.
It seems to me so much of the angst from this thoroughly overblown human crisis is the inability to accept that death is actually a part of life. I think the early warning for this situation is the snowflake culture that requires not only a safe environment, but one that is free of insult or even feeling bad. Everything must be guaranteed; health, luck, happiness and a long if not endless stress free life.
For instance, what started out as “flattening the curve “ has devolved into erasing the curve. The concern was supposed to be permitting hospitals the time to manage the outbreak. Now we must remain locked up so no one gets sick. WTF!! I’m in the 7th least populated state in the country and “they” treat opening up they economy like it’s a decision on who to kill first. I just saw a news report that said that US deaths have surpassed the deaths in Vietnam. Well I should hope so!
Still not wanting to sound too positive, cause I ain’t no Pollyanna, there is a certain amount of natural pushback that is developing. While conservatives hate this lockdown on the most basic Constitutional level, even leftists hate it because of their bent toward licentious libertarianism. (Until they have power) Nobody likes party poopers or petty tyrants.
This: “It seems to me so much of the angst from this thoroughly overblown human crisis is the inability to accept that death is actually a part of life. I think the early warning for this situation is the snowflake culture that requires not only a safe environment, but one that is free of insult or even feeling bad. Everything must be guaranteed; health, luck, happiness and a long if not endless stress free life.” The relentless pursuit of immortality has done us few favors.
One long term problem is going to be that governments at every level just eyewitnessed how easy it is to bring Americans to their knees.
I sure hope Spencer survived. What a story. I’m going to try to dig deeper on that…Thanks Jim.
Bob Fuller says
Liked the story and the video.
Thanks Bob, and thanks for being here.
Valarie J Anderson says
Loved the video. Our archaeology group met at the Adel store before we took off into the desert. That area hides many treasures, not the least of which is solitude for the soul. Thanks for bringing me peace today.
It is the reflection of my soul. Thanks for hanging out around our campfire 🤠
lane batot says
Man, don’t think of yerself as “left without a country” just because of the human guvmints in “power” presently(and they have no idea what REAL Power is! As many a shaman could relate.…)–you are OBVIOUSLY a citizen/denizen of THE LAND where you are living, so you most decidedly have a “country”! And this has had to be the philosophy SO MANY displaced, culturally interrupted indigenous peoples all over the world, throughout history. Remember the Edward Abbey quote; “A patriot must always be ready to defend his COUNTRY against his government”! Another favorite Abbey quote: “The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow’s reality.” But to survive these crazy wasichus, it’s best to keep as low a profile as possible, and be a citizen of Nature, as any coyote knows(even the coyotes living in town!). The selfish, greedy, egotistical human guvmints will come and go(as they always have), but the Earth will remain.……
J.F. Bell says
The idea of impermanence is a tough one, moreso for some than others. A good deal moreso lately given the…interesting spectacle of watching a first-world nation shake itself apart. Doubly so considering, as our intrepid and heroic fourth estate scream from the rooftops, the ease of transmission and difficulty it spotting symptoms of this latest dragon to haul itself out of the abyss and give our pampered asses a scorching.
Hope is difficult, but essential.
Which is troubling, seeing as so few seem to grasp what those four magical letters mean.
Modern America has no shortage of hope, mostly as a concept equal parts glitter and bullshit. This is the hope of winning the lottery, or marrying into royalty, or at last being recognized for one’s oft-overlooked genius, or losing twenty pounds with no change in diet or exercise, or…you get the idea.
An entire industry peddles a warm, soft, sugary mass that heals all wounds, rights all wrongs, and smoothes all rough patches. This may be available in chemical form (I hear cocaine is really something) but anybody who’s spent day in modern society willing to see the world as it lays rather than how it ought can mark the falsehood easy enough.
The church down the street sells it. Daytime television is awash with it. Same for the self-help section at the bookstore. Hollywood exports this shit by the metric ton. This is the lifeblood of advertising in any form. The idea that happiness is available pre-packaged with an option for next-day delivery.
Thing is, hope isn’t bright. It’s not cheerful or uplifting.
Hope is what you run on when there’s nothing left in the toolbox. It’s the guy who misses a step and rolls off the side of a mountain, then puts himself back together with paracord and safety pins so he can hobble back to civilization if the wolves don’t get him. It’s the guy loading loading his rifle knowing those war whoops in the distance outnumber the number of cartridges he has left. The guy with frozen hands clinging to the gunwale of the boat in North Atlantic gale, too weak to haul himself over but too determined to let go. In a less dramatic sense, the guy who drags himself to work every morning to deal with incompetent management and a job he can’t stand so his kids can eat.
Hope doesn’t get you a golden world without troubles. Hope gets you another day in this one. The popular practice is, for some, to lump it in with faith and love. Both are fine animals in their own right, but I’ve always felt hope was more akin to grit and determination. The glimmer of a chance rather than anything promised. Past that, the oft-unfounded expectation you’ll be around to see an end to whatever’s got you now.
Incidentally, the kind of thinking that gets a man out of bed at 0400 for breakfast, mission briefing at 0500, and takeoff with the dawn in a an armed machine made of beers can to plaster a railyard or a factory or an oil refinery a couple of countries away.
This is spot on: “Modern America has no shortage of hope, mostly as a concept equal parts glitter and bullshit. This is the hope of winning the lottery, or marrying into royalty, or at last being recognized for one’s oft-overlooked genius, or losing twenty pounds with no change in diet or exercise, or…” Also, a pill can solve any problem you might have…Your comment caused me to remember To the Last Cartridge, Robert Barr Smith’s excellent tome. I think I’ll read it again.