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Thread: Of vice and fate

  1. #1
    Inactive Member oldasdirt's Avatar
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    On a long,snakey,hilly strecth of county road in north Georgia,not far from Atlanta, a young man of 16 was joy riding in a model "A".The year was 1934.They had been drinking the family recipe all day and were passing the jug around as the driver was pushing the pedal to the medal as his friends shouted,"see how fast it'll go,Peter Rabbit!" That's the last thing the young man remembered about the incident.He and the driver of the car he collided head on with were the only survivors.The young man's friends had died,as had the other driver's wife and daughter.Yet the man took pity on the youth and did not press charges.The state of Georgia,however,was not so forgiving.He faced vehicular manslaughter charges,yet at that time,a youthful offender could have a chance at redemption by enlsiting in the military.His father signed him into the US Army and he ended up in the Panama Canal Zone for most of his Army hitch.He made good at his shot at absolution,earning his high school equivalency diploma as well as the equivalent of a business degree and at the same time climbing in rank.He served on the color guard when President Roosevelt vistied the Canal Zone.

    When his hitch was up,he and his best friend found themselves back at Fort Benning,amazed at the display of the then experimental 101st Airborne practice jumps.Military life had been good to the young man,and he wanted to re enlist.The recruiter talked the 101st up really big,extolling the advantages of flight pay and hazard pay,and after all,it was still peace time.The year was 1940.He and his buddy were told to be back at 8 AM to re enlist.That night,however,the two young men got rip roaring drunk and decided to party with a couple of hookers into the daylight hours.They forgot all about the 101st.Instead,the young man took his military career into another direction and served the entire time during WW2 in the US Coast Guard on the Destroyer Escort USS Savage.In 1942,shortly after the war broke out,he met and fell in love with a beautiful young woman,who was singing at the VFW club in Jacksonville,Florida.After the war,they got married and one of the kids they had was me.
    Wartime duty for anyone in the service is not fun and it can be extremely dangerous.Had my dad and his friend not gotten sidetracked in 1940 and had gone into the 101st,chances are they would've parachuted into Normandy on D Day where over 60% of them didn't survive.
    So while drinking alcohol to excess and cavorting with hookers is considered a vice,I think I can say with some assurance based on laws of probability that mine and my sister's existence can be owed to indulgence in two of life's vices.Namely massive amounts of alcohol and two hookers who came along at the right place and time.

  2. #2
    HB Forum Moderator Alex's Avatar
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    Why You Don't Have the Right to be Angry About the Past, aka before you were conceived.

    I remember watching a public speaker angrily rail about events and travesties that occured over a 100 years ago. The speaker was passionate about past social injustices and it was almost as if they were reliving the injustice themselvers while they spoke. "OK, you are right", I said to myself "and that shouldn't have happened, but if it had not happened, YOU AND I WOULD NOT EXIST TODAY!"

    Imagine Clint Eastwood with a gun to your throat, asking you, "well punk, do you want to change the past so badly that you would have never been born, well do ya!". I am not brave enough to answer yes to that scenario, how about you?

    I consider it stealing from the past to relive the distant past with present day anger and rage about a situation that if it had never happened, would mean you would never have been born.

    If you were conceived after Hitler's rise to power, would you be willing to instantly disappear and never have existed in exhange for Hitler having become a painter? That is why I can never take someone too seriously if they rail about past injustices as if they themselves were injured by it. That injustice before you were born is the very reason you exist today!

    Educating oneself about the past is a noble path to take in life, but lets not cling to the distant past as an excuse to carry a life long chip on ones shoulder in the present. The injustices from long ago are part of an undeniable truth, our own present day existence rely on them.

  3. #3
    Inactive Member oldasdirt's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Alex:

    If you were conceived after Hitler's rise to power, would you be willing to instantly disappear and never have existed in exhange for Hitler having become a painter? [/QB]
    <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unless of course the Everett/Wheeler model of the universe is correct and there are alternate realities.So far,though,I kinda like the reality I'm in now.

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