Life Matters

As a 10-year-old, I was thrown into a life of the unknown. I was a military brat, following my Dad from Arizona to Colorado, to Florida, and then Georgia as Dad was training on guidance systems maintenance of the mace missile, one of our first nuclear-tipped cruise missiles based in Germany, our final destination. We did this all in one school year. I was also being trained, the new kid in school five times in one year, then moved into a small town in Western Germany above a casket builder’s shop, overlooking a cemetery where nobody spoke English. I couldn’t be more of a new kid than that. I was quickly becoming a fairly serious kid. I had insisted on being baptized before I flew on my first plane for fear of crashing into the ocean. My Dad, with his family, was deployed to defend the German people against Communism. To my good fortune, a school bus pulled up to the corner of my village one morning. The bus had English written on it. There was a boy at the bus stop, and his name was Johnny. He didn’t say ‘Guten Morgen,’ but “Hey.” I found my tribe. Johnny and I got acquainted on our hour-long ride to our Air Force base school. We both loved baseball and the desire to be a soldier. We didn’t have much in common in our demeanor, but Johnny was the best friend a boy could have right then. . We were in a rural area with the thickest forests I had ever experienced. They were as dark as night, and a foggy mist was always in the woods. It was time to find our fort, our safe house from this foreign land. It didn’t take long to find a small but dense cluster of trees that ran along a dirt road. We could sit just a few feet away from people walking by, but they couldn’t see us. I didn’t know what stealth meant then, but we were stealth. A few days passed, and the third crew member showed up. She was a scraggly and very pregnant black dog. She was hungry and thirsty and cold. Johnny and I jumped into action. Every day after school we would run from the bus stop to see if she was still there. She would greet us every day, her tail wagging. A week had passed. We named our dog Tilly after Johnny’s Mom. The day came when Tilly delivered eight baby members of our tribe. There was more work to be done. Tilly’s shelter needed to be bigger and more secure. She would need more food. The anticipation of returning to the fort daily was ripe with wonder and hope. After the third day, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. Even to the point of sharing our secret hideaway, but we didn’t. We jumped off the bus, walking toward the fort with confidence in our step. Tilly would usually meet us at the entry to our little oasis. She wasn’t there, no big deal, probably feeding the pups. As we approached the shelter, there was an unfamiliar noise. A Blackbird came flying directly toward us from the ground, it was big and scary. We ran to the shelter, but there was no Tilly in sight. There were blackbirds everywhere. We had homemade spears to run them off. When we arrived at the shelter, all of the puppies were hideously mutilated and dead. It was the first time I would experience looking at the stark, unforgiving feeling between life and death. First there was the pain and grief. The birds kept coming to interrupt our mourning. We had a task to do. We dug a hole with my fold-over army shovel and buried our little friends. Anger grew with every inch we dug. We were going to kill every crow that ever existed. I was living in my own parable. I still have a problem with birds to this day, but I am willing to co-exist with birds. The human condition is less complicated about some things more than others. When I witness the sanctity of life treated with such a gruesome disrespect, It takes me back to that place, that moment I first saw life taken away from me. It took decades for me to realize, I needed to build a better shelter. We have the finest example of civilization the human condition has ever known. So many believe it is impervious to destruction, and they ignore it. It can’t be ignored. It isn’t self-containing. Without truth, it won’t survive . Thanks for reading The Redneck Anthropoligist! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Pledge your support The Redneck Anthropoligist is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell The Redneck Anthropoligist that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments. © 2024 dbobway 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104