Memoir Sidestepping

In which I offer a childhood reflection

Photo by Vasilios Muselimis on Unsplash

Hello again. If you follow this newsletter, you know that I’m focused on my memoir, My Own Private Waste Land, and my quest to get my memoir traditionally published.

I’ve consulted with an editor and am revamping my query letter. I’m confident that this revamp will lead to better responses from agents.

As we gear up for Thanksgiving week, I want to provide a different subject, still memoirish. The follow is based on an article I published in Mind Cafe on Medium - “A Peace of Mind in a Chaotic World.”

I’m preparing an edited, shorter version (my 9 minute essays must be reduced to 5 minutes) for reading at Open Mic tonight at Hugo House in Seattle. Hugo House is a place for writers and offers classes and support, many free events, for the literary arts community. It’s a fabulous resource and one I’m availing myself of quite fully. I hope soon to teach a class or two there or become a full-time staff member.

Thank you for your support. This is the place where I would normally (and will in the future) put up a paywall - the part where I share my original writings and teaser portions of my memoir. For now, the paywall is voluntary - please sign up for a paid subscription so I can continue my quest for traditional publication. Thank you so much!

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A Peace of My Mind in a Chaotic World

“Listen …” the deeply resonating voice said.

The television showed scenes of calm: a prairie with birds singing in the distance; quiet streets in a normally crowded city; snow-capped mountains in the distance; a desert floor with saguaros standing guard.

The voice said:

“On this day, American soldiers are not engaged in conflict anywhere in the world. After a period of long bitter fighting, we now have peace. There is no guarantee this will last. We may be drawn into a conflict tomorrow. But for now, there is peace. Listen…”

One Sunday morning, sitting on the carpet in my pajamas eating cereal with milk near enough to the TV so I could turn the dial, I received the message.

The voice belonged to Charles Kuralt, who for years headed “On the Road” a news show featuring America as seen from a motor home.

Mr. Kuralt offered his sermon on the road: Listen to the peace.

And I did. I worshipped that silence. This was my church.

* * * * *

I may have made it all up. I have not been able to locate a transcript of that episode.

* * * * *

Summers as a kid in the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s were glorious, bright and glittering with sunshine. Our house drowned in news—newspapers, car radio, TV news. When the television showed images of the Vietnam War, I was quickly ushered out of the room. I still have brief flashes in my mind: a cameraman’s tilted camera at ground level; the tops of green netted helmets; the sounds of rapid gun fire; lifeless bodies on the ground while palm trees blew silently in the distance.

At 7 years old, I shared a room with my brother, 10 years older than me, until he grew his hair long, moved to the garage, hung tapestries on the wall and listened to his records. He hung a yellow poster that said “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” When he went away to college, I remember my parents and he had a serious talk at the kitchen table about what he would do if his draft number was called. He would go to Canada. He didn’t believe in the war, and he wouldn’t fight.

* * * * *

I was 11 years old when I saw those images of peace on the television. Up until then, I had known only a world at war. My friends and I played with little green army men in a variety of action poses. All of our games were violent, good guys vs bad guys, us vs. them.

I remember once when Lonnie, filled with boundless energy, the son of my family’s best friends, shot us all with his finger and threw us onto a mattress that he had dragged out of the house to play on the front lawn. He was 13 or 14 at the time, and we were eight years younger. He tore up t-shirts and made slings for our arms and poured ketchup on them, our bleeding wounds.

Not long after that, Lonnie created a homemade firework, stuffed a CO2 cartridge with match heads. He got the materials from his dad’s bullet making supplies, on the stand in the den underneath the mounted deer heads and pheasant on the walls. We didn’t have guns in our house.

When Lonnie lit the firework in the street in front of his house, the cartridge exploded and a piece of the metal pierced his heart.

I was inside at the time, occupied by one of my many collections: coins, baseball cards, stamps, or rocks.

Brandon, one of my neighbor friends, knocked on the door. He was a special case, not very bright, always in trouble, a thief in the making.

“Did you hear the ambulance?” Brandon said.

“What ambulance?”

“Lonnie exploded a firecracker and it hit his chest. It was so cool!”

At 7 years old, a year older than Brandon, I knew this wasn’t cool. I yelled for my parents. Lonnie died. He was 15 years old. His parents were away on vacation. It took us a week to find them to tell them the news.

I realized the permanence of death when I saw Lonnie in his coffin at the visitation.

For me, it was like the images from the television had reached through the screen and entered my life. The same images that could take my brother away.

So when I saw those images of America at peace on television, it’s that image I wished most to have in my life, a world where I wouldn’t have to worry about my brother going away.

Later, my brother was born again, gave up his hippie ways, joined a fundamentalist sect and became a preacher. I never developed a taste for church. For me, Charles Kuralt’s proclamation of peace on earth was the closest I would ever get to a Sunday morning religious experience.

* * * * *

These days, my parents would be proud. My news habit is rabid. I am enthralled by the news, from science and technology to social media and gossip, from civil rights and social justice to obituaries of dead celebrities. But nothing gains my attention more than the break down of American society. How did we get to this point? How did we get from the images of peace I saw on television, my awakening into this world, to the fractured, frenetic, fighting existence today?

What is happening to our world? Where is the peace?

Every week, my iPhone says that my average screen time has increased.  

I make an art form of doomscrolling.

* * * * *

The day after hearing the voice and seeing peace on the television screen, there was a news report that fresh fighting had broken out in the world and troops were being sent into battle. At least that’s what I remember.

We had one day of peace.

Today, when I’m overwhelmed by the news, by the violence and incessant lies, I conjure those images of peace that I saw on television when I was a child, and of Charles Kuralt’s deep, reassuring voice.

Images of a peaceful world pass across my eyes: scenes of a pristine wilderness, songs of birds in the air, animals slowly grazing, small quiet towns, bright blue skies with light wispy clouds.

Someday, the fighting will stop. Someday, I’ll hear those words again:

“Listen …”

Someday, the world will experience that kind of peace again.

For now, those images, that peace, exists . . . inside my head.

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As always, thank you for reading. Have a lovely Thanksgiving week, good food and fun with friends and loved ones. Stay warm! Let me know what your holiday plans are. Also, watch for chat on the substack! It’s a great way to interact with all your favorite newsletters.

As for me, I’ll . . .

Just keep writing!