150 years ago today, the war started

Three months later, a soldier who was about to go into battle wrote the following letter to his wife.

July the 14th, 1861
Washington D.C.

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. And lest I should not be able to write you again I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I am no more.

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the government and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me with mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield. The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them for so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes and future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.

If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name...

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been!...

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they love, I shall always be with you, in the brightest day and in the darkest night... always, always. And when the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath, or the cool air your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again...

Sullivan


A solid shot from a Confederate cannon tore off Sullivan Ballou’s right leg a few days after he wrote the above letter, and he died a week later. Soon afterwards, rebel soldiers exhumed and mutilated his body, which was never recovered. Sarah didn’t receive the letter until a year later when the governor of his state traveled to Virginia to bring home the remains of Rhode Islanders who died in battle.

Tell me, when you consider the history of warfare, which wars would you have been willing to die for? I wish I could look at what my nation has become and consider the 620,000 lives we lost in the Civil War alone to have been worthwhile, but I can’t. On one level, I envy the love that people like Ballou hold for this country, but on another, deeper level, I just consider them to have been suckers, well-meaning and heroic suckers to be sure, but suckers nonetheless. We don’t deserve what they gave. We never did.

America’s new IQ test

Test directions:

This is a pass-or-fail multiple-choice test that can be completed during a single TV commercial unless you’re a slow reader in which case it might take two.

So that you can get a higher score, most of the answers are correct, but where only one answer is correct, it’s so screamingly obvious that you’ll know it right away if you’re not a godless atheist, a bleeding-heart Democrat, or a smart-alecky foreigner.

There are eleven questions. That way you can throw one of them out if America's Most Eligible Bachelor comes back on before you’ve completed the test.

If you’ve ever voted for a president named Bush, you’ve already passed.

If you need to see the answers to know how you did, it means you failed.


Where are you most Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m.?

1) Trying to find the door so I can leave the party.
2) Reading the Communist Manifesto.
3) Attending services at Calvary Baptist Church.
4) Having sex with my neighbor’s wife while he attends services at Calvary Baptist Church.
5) Listening to a preacher on the radio while driving to the Monster Truck Rally.

Which country do you hate most?

1) All of the ones that have a lot of ragheads.
2) France because the men talk like queers.
3) England. See France.
4) Canada because they think they’re better than us even though they waste their money on education and health care instead of investing it in nukes.
5) Australia because they have all those neat critters that can kill you, and all we have are a few candy-assed rattlesnakes and a half-dozen grizzly bears.

Which size should a patriotic American order no matter what the product?

1) Small
2) Medium
3) Large
4) Larger
5) As big as it gets

How many material possessions are enough?

1) No amount
2) An environmentally responsible amount
3) Twice as much as my stupid brother-in-law
4) One of every kind of gun, a two-ton Dodge Ram 4x4 with women on the mud flaps, and a lifetime supply of Coca Cola and Jack Daniels
5) Hugh Hefner’s house and broads

Which candidate would Jesus vote for?

1) Faggoty-ass Commie
2) America-hating Democrat.
3) God-fearing patriotic Republican
4) Green Puke Party slimeball
5) That Nader S.O.B.

Which of the following countries would Jesus nuke?

1) Monaco
2) Africa
3) France
4) Canada
5) All of the above because they don’t love him like America loves him

Which of the following might fit into a Glock?

1) M80
2) 9cm
3) 12 gauge 00 buck
4) .45 ACP
5) F-150

Who died for your sins to pacify a seriously pissed-off deity?

1) Oprah Winfrey
2) That heathen Arabb guy what the sand-niggers worship.
3) Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior and the Only Begotten Son of God
4) Nobody
5) All of the above

What do you love most about nature?

1) Having a place to dump old refrigerators for free
2) Shooting Bambi
3) Hugging trees
4) Driving my ATV over endangered wildflowers
5) Having a place to party where the neighbors won’t call the cops and where I don’t have to pick up the empty cans, bottles, and Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes

Where will you be when Jesus comes again?

1) Rising to meet him in the air
2) Sleeping in
3) Smoking dope while pouring beer over my Fruit Loops
4) Looking at Internet porn
5) Worshipping that heathen Arabb guy

What good is an education?

1) It helps you to find the word Republican on the voters’ ballot.
2) It’s a lot harder to read your Bible if you don’t know how to read.
3) Having an education means that you can make out the story that goes with the pictures.
4) Being educated is bad because atheists and evolutionists wouldn’t be that way if they hadn’t gone to college.
5) If you can’t read the menu, how are you going to get a job at Mc Donald’s?

Surgery day

I told the nurse that the patient whose room she had sent me to wasn’t Peggy. She said that it was Peggy, but I still had to look at the old, pale, and puffy woman in the bed for awhile to be sure (I had told Peggy just before her surgery that she looked sexy in her purple hospital gown--which she did). My advice to you is this: if you’re supposed to be in a beauty contest one night, don’t have surgery earlier that day.

While I sat by Peggy’s bed, I pictured us when we were in our twenties, holding hands while we ran for joy across the prairie in Saskatchewan (I remember that day because we were nearly struck by lightning). Now, we hold hands while we hobble into doctors’ offices. Well, we don’t exactly hobble, but we’re getting there.

The universe never promised us an easy life.

The universe never promised us a happy life.

The universe never promised us a peaceful end to life.

The universe doesn’t even know that we exist.

We live for no purpose, and then we die, and the fearsomeness of this thought is why people believe in god.

I’m scheduled for my first of four joint replacements, which means that Peggy and I will be one-armed together. The surgeon and I all but argued—over Peggy’s bed, no less—about which hospital to use for my surgery. I said I wanted to go to Sacred Heart because I could have a private room at no extra charge, and he said he could use his influence to get me a private room at McKenzie Willamette at no extra charge (I have good reason for wanting a private room). “Besides,” he said, “I can give you far better care at McKenzie Willamette.” “Then it sounds like a no-brainer to me,” I said.

Peggy is resting now. I held her hair out of her face while she threw up. How many times have I done that over the last four decades? I’ll tell you. Many.

I just took two stiff drinks. I hurt so much that it’s hard to care anymore what I take or how much I take as long as it stops the pain. I’m not supposed to take narcotics until after my surgery because if I do, they won’t work when, presumably, I need them most. Well, hell, they don’t work that well now. Nothing works that well now, but if I pile pill atop pill and use ice, I can at least sleep a little bit before I have to get up and do it all again.

You don’t think I complain too much, or that I complain without a good reason, do you? Pain is such a private phenomenon that I often wonder where I am on the scale of having a justifiable response. This might surprise you, but I think I handle pain better than most people, but it’s hard to know for sure.

I read from Camus’ The Stranger while I sat by Peggy’s bedside (the morphine made her doze, so I had a little time on my hands).

“He was wearing a soft felt hat with a round crown and a wide brim, a suit with trousers that corkscrewed down around his ankles, and a black tie with a knot that was too small for the big white collar of his shirt. His lips were trembling below a nose dotted with blackheads. Strange, floppy, thick-rimmed ears stuck out through his fine white hair, and I was struck by their blood-red color against the pallor of his face.”

When I was young, such passages were about someone with whom I had nothing in common. Now, they’re about how I will be in fifteen years. Sometimes, I wonder if I will even live another fifteen years. Come to think of it, that’s about the length of a dog’s life—if the dog lives to be fairly old.

Nurses can tell that I adore Peggy, and that touches them. I asked one of Peggy’s nurses today if she will be my nurse when I have surgery, and she gave me her home phone number so I can be sure she’s working that day. She said that if she’s not working that day, she’ll refer me to someone who is. Now, I have my surgeon, my anesthesiologist, and one of my nurses all picked out. My advice to you is this: if someone is good at what they do, stick with that person, and let them know that you respect them. You get better service that way. As you know, I was kidding about the beauty contest, but I’m being serious now. While I’m giving you advice, I’ll also suggest that you praise good workers to their supervisors. One reason for this is that they’ll feel beholden to you, and the other is that you owe it to them.

Do ever feel when you’re writing that, after every paragraph, you could go in a dozen different directions. How do you choose? I choose really fast because otherwise I get too bogged down.

Those two drinks—taken on an empty stomach—were too much. I thought they might be, but I found it hard to care. Now that I feel as if I too could barf, I do care, but it’s too late. Most wisdom comes after the fact, but since the rules about a lot of things are forever changing, after-the-fact wisdom isn’t necessarily better than no wisdom at all.

Upon cursing those who so richly deserve it

I rarely curse anyone, but have done so twice in one week. The first time was when I saw a man picking a bouquet of flowers in a public park. The second time was twenty minutes ago when I cursed Heidi, the medical office manager who lied to me last month about my insurance company and the federal government requiring her to collect mine and Peggy’s Social Security numbers (I refused to give them, so she had me pay upfront for an appointment I had waited two months for).

I can think of a few downsides to cursing people, but the one I find most influential is that, if they have the power to thwart me, they might be more likely to use it. This didn’t apply to the thief or to Heidi. As I told Heidi, I would be delighted if she didn’t refund my money because I would love to haul her lying ass into court. If there were a hell, it would almost be worth going there just to see some people I know getting what they so richly deserve. Of course, if Tertullian was right, one of the things that makes heaven heavenly is that "the saved" get to gaze into the fiery pit at souls writhing in agony.

The painting is Paul Gauguin's “Eve—Don't Listen to the Liar"