watching ukraine war
watching and waiting for what …
for that shoe to drop

Me and my brother Pete were just over a year apart in age.

We were brothers.

We fought a lot.

And often.

There is a famous scene in our childhood when my future sister-in-law, Judy Beach was visiting us.

Judy had grown up in a nice, calm family with one brother.

She dated my brother Paul who was and is a nice, calm guy.

I suspect Judy was surprised if maybe not overwhelmed when she was at our house ‘to meet the family’ and me and Pete got into it, MMA style.

It wasn’t until we were a little older when we got into Junior High that we learned about wrestling and trying to use our weight (which neither had very much of) to hold the other down.

Nope.

This was brawling.

This was we-watched-them-do-this-on-tv cowboy in the saloon bar fights.

This was Three Stooges, sitting-on-you-while-trying to bash-your-head-through-the-floor slugfests.

We swung and kicked and bit as best we could.

Screaming all the time.

And no one paid much attention to us.

But it caught Judy’s attention and she was distraught and anxiety gnawed at her.

Was no one going to say anything?

Was no one going to stop this?

I was 9 and Pete was 8.

After a while, my Mom took notice.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it.” said Mom.

Judy later told how relived she was that finally this was over.

She felt she could breathe again.

Then my Mom said, “Give me your glasses.”

Pete and I both wore glasses that got broke often.

We took them off and gave them to Mom who put them on the kitchen counter.

“Okay, get it over with,” she said as she turned back to Judy and we got back to brawling.

It must have been something to see.

I remember another time one of these fights took place in front of my Grandfather.

He stood over saying, “Here here, here here.”

Which struck both me and Pete so funny that we stopped fighting just to laugh.

For a long time we could make the other laugh in church by leaning over and whispering, “Here here.”

SO we watch the war in Ukraine.

The world stands by and says, “Here here, here here.”

The world stands by and says, “Now stop that.”

The world stands by and says, “Now look out for that nuclear power plant.”

We know we aren’t going to do anything.

They know we aren’t going to do anything.

Well, we are going to cut off their allowance if they don’t stop.

What to do?

What can you do?

So we wait for this war to be over.

Though I am not sure what over means.

I think I want Mr. Putin to come to his senses and say, “My bad – So sorry – We are leaving.”

I also want a million dollars (tax free).

I know Mr. Putin is not going to come to his senses.

Mr. Putin wants to make Russia great again.

So what do I want?

Let’s go the movies.

Do I want to be Richard Blaine?

Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and get back into the fight, a fight I know this time our side will win?

Do I want to be Sam Spade?

Humphrey Bogart in Maltese Falcon and say to Putin, “I won’t play the sap for you! I won’t play the sap for you because you’ve counted on it.”

I have to admit I think a lot of problems that people have could be avoided if they had said to themselves, “I won’t play the sap for you.”

On the other hand …

It just occurred to me.

In Maltese Falcon, Bogart wears black suits.

In Casablanca, Bogart wears the white dinner jacket.

How long will it take for the shoe to drop?

Cities bombed.

People killed.

Now here here.

March Madness is about to start and we would really like to just watch it okay?

Boy I wonder who Joe Biden has in his bracket?

I think, in the end, the movie will be the old John Wayne standard, Chisum.

You know the line.

Finally John Wayne has been pushed too far and he is asked what he is going to do and John Wayne says, “What I’d have done 25 years ago.”

at four a m Kyiv
was bombed, in the spring, the time
when kings go to war

There was a time when school kids learned the verses,

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

In Russia, I am told, school kids learned the verses,

Dvadtstat’ vtorogo iyunya, rovno v chetyre utra,
Kiev bombili, nam govorili, chto nachalas’ vojna

Which is translated,

On June 22, exactly at four in the morning,
Kiev was bombed, we were told that the war had begun

It is from a Russian song about the start of World War 2, when the Germans attacked Russia on June 22, 1941.

This morning, I picked up my Bible to start my day and my reading took up at the book of 1 Chronicles, Chapter 20.

“In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, Joab led out the armed forces. He laid waste the land of the Ammonites and went to Rabbah and besieged it, but David remained in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and left it in ruins.”

I guess the world grows older, but the world never grows up.

I am reminded of the lines of Robert Conway, played by Ronald Colman in the movie, ‘Lost Horizons’ when Conway talks about how he would run Foreign affairs:

You see, the trick is to see who can out-talk the other. Everybody wants something for nothing, and if you can’t get it with smooth talk, you send an army in. I’m going to fool them. I’m not going to have an army. I’m going to disband mine. I’m going to sink my battleships – I’m going to destroy every piece of warcraft.

Then when the enemy approaches we’ll say, “Come in, gentlemen – what can we do for you?” So then the poor enemy soldiers will stop and think. And what will they think? They’ll think to themselves – Something’s wrong here. We’ve been duped. This is not according to form. These people seem to be quite friendly, and why should we shoot them?” Then they’ll lay down their arms. You see how simple the whole thing is?

Centuries of tradition kicked right in the pants — and I’ll be slapped straight into the nearest insane asylum.

Is it any wonder that Frank Capra movies were labeled, Capra Corn?

I grew up enamored of war and the study of battles and the romance of it all.

I am reminded of the scene in the book, Gone with the Wind.

A scene not in the movie.

It takes place at the opening barbecue at the Wilkes Mansion, Twelve Oaks.

Talk of war breaks out and in the movie the only one who speaks out against the war is Rhett Butler.

But in the book, Margaret Mitchell wrote this:

Under the arbor, the deaf old gentleman from Fayetteville punched India.

“What’s it all about? What are they saying?”

“War!” shouted India, cupping her hand to his ear. “They want to fight the Yankees!”

“War, is it?” he cried, fumbling about him for his cane and heaving himself out of his chair with more energy than he had shown in years. “I’ll tell ‘um about war. I’ve been there.” It was not often that Mr. McRae had the opportunity to talk about war, the way his women folks shushed him.

He stumped rapidly to the group, waving his cane and shouting and, because he could not hear the voices about him, he soon had undisputed possession of the field.

“You fire-eating young bucks, listen to me. You don’t want to fight. I fought and I know. Went out in the Seminole War and was a big enough fool to go to the Mexican War, too. You all don’t know what war is. You think it’s riding a pretty horse and having the girls throw flowers at you and coming home a hero. Well, it ain’t. No, sir! It’s going hungry, and getting the measles and pneumonia from sleeping in the wet. And if it ain’t measles and pneumonia, it’s your bowels. Yes sir, what war does to a man’s bowels–dysentery and things like that–“

The ladies were pink with blushes. Mr. McRae was a reminder of a cruder era, like Grandma Fontaine and her embarrassingly loud belches, an era everyone would like to forget.

“Run get your grandpa,” hissed one of the old gentleman’s daughters to a young girl standing near by. “I declare,” she whispered to the fluttering matrons about her, “he gets worse every day.

Maybe I’ll just go back to bed and crawl under the blankets.