From Linda Lee
Greene, Author & Artist
The
clocks fell back on November 1st, bringing down the sun well before
6 PM. Until next spring, the sun will slip out of sight even earlier with each
passing day. Still and all, the days are very long—they are very long, because
if we are sensible about the current status of the coronavirus pandemic, there
is no place to go, and no one to see—isolation and loneliness stretch each day
to gargantuan proportions.
My days are anemic, my tasks pale
gestures to a bygone era! I wash the clothes I wear, clothes that nobody but I
ever see—I rearrange the toss pillows on my sofa to a prettier composition—but
only for me now. Where are my children’s hugs—my girlfriend’s chatter across
the square of card table—my sister’s arm around my shoulder? My stomach throws
back at me almost anything I eat or drink. Things drive me to tears that didn’t
before. My doctor has put me on an anti-anxiety medication. I will see a
cardiologist next month to pin down what’s behind this wild pounding of my
heart. But despite all this, the sun rises and sets on what I can only
gratefully describe as my relative peace and comfort, for the reason that I get
to stay home and out of the way of the virus, my money arrives automatically in
my checking account by way of Social Security, and other than my local gas and
electric providers and a few other creditors, I am financially responsible to
no-one but me.
But the brave, self-sacrificing essential
workers, the election poll workers, and persons submitted to the Covid-19
vaccine trials—those people don’t have my kind of built-in protections. I’d
like to express my admiration and gratitude for them. I’d like to tell their
story—their real, unapologetic, untouched-up story, about how it looks and feels
and sounds inside their world. But anything that comes to my mind seems so
unoriginal to me. I turn for help to my gurus who never fail to uncoil the
knots in my writing voice. My search is rewarded by John Steinbeck in his book ONCE
THERE WAS A WAR.[1]
In this slim book, first published in
1958, Steinbeck’s dispatches from battle fronts in World War II to the NEW YORK
HERALD TRIBUNE, are collected. He
bedded down, ate, drank, talked with and listened to the soldiers and attached
personnel. His essays brim with inside looks at the people rather than the
fighting. They are human interest stories, essentially. This topic of
self-sacrifice moved him, as well, I think, and he witnessed it aplenty over
there, back then. The sense I get when reading it again is the universality,
the timelessness, of this thing I call “the gold of human qualities.”
Steinbeck’s stories could well be set in the now, in Covid-19 days.
In an essay titled NEWS FROM HOME…BOMBER STATION IN ENGLAND, JUNE 28,
1943—Steinbeck writes that after mess, he and the crew of [the American B-17F] MARY
RUTH take a bus into town and end up at a noisy and crowded pub. The men are
solemn. They are solemn all the time while awaiting orders for a bombing mission
[the MARY RUTH along with the famed MEMPHIS BELLE and others, bombed German U-boat pens in Lorient,
France]. A waist gunner in response to one of his comrades mentioning that he
had seen a newspaper at the Red Cross in London, says, “It seems to me that we
are afraid to announce our losses. It seems to me that the War Department is
afraid that the country couldn’t take it. I never saw anything the country
couldn’t take.”
The airman who saw the paper at the Red
Cross, replies, “This paper I saw had some funny stuff in it. It seemed to
think that the war was nearly over.”
“I wish the Jerries thought that,” the
tail gunner says. “I wish you could get Goering’s yellow noses and them damned
flak gunners convinced of that.” [The leading-edge of German planes was painted
yellow to distinguish them from rival planes].
“…It seems to me that the folks at home
are fighting one war and we’re fighting another one,” the waist gunner puts in.
“They’ve got theirs nearly won and we’ve just got started on ours. I wish
they’d get in the same war we’re in. I wish they’d print the casualties and
tell them what it’s like…”
Another crewman says, “I read a very
nice piece in a magazine about us. This piece says we’ve got nerves of steel.
We never get scared. All we want in the world is just to fly all the time and
get a crack at Jerry. I never heard anything so brave as us. I read it three or
four times to try and convince myself that I ain’t scared.”
The conversation rolls on and on, and
finally the first speaker says, “”But anyway…I wish they’d tell them at home
that the war isn’t over and I wish they wouldn’t think we’re so brave. I don’t
want to be so brave…”
Eventually, they head back outside. It
is still daylight and before they pile onto the bus, each one raises his face
to the sky. “Looks like it might be a clear day,” the radio man says. “That’s
good for us and it’s good for them to get at us.”
…“I hope old Red Beard has got a bad
cold,” the tail gunner muses. “I didn’t like the look in his eye the last
time.” *(Red Beard is an enemy fighter pilot who comes so close that you can
almost see his face).*Steinbeck’s note
Given the choice, they would rather romance pretty girls at the pub, or better still, ship out for home to Kenosha or Kalamazoo or South Bend. But they could do no other thing but their allotted duty, because they had obligations to their country, their family, their crew, their conscience. The way I see it, that’s the definition of self-sacrifice. It is the same today with the people who keep us afloat during Covid-19.©
Note from Linda
Lee Greene…At the time I wrote my novel CRADLE OF THE SERPENT, I didn’t
recognize that I was writing about self-sacrifice. I only understand that
element of it now. While my novel is an award-winner, judging by a couple of
its reviews, it is also controversial. Those reviewers were uncomfortable with
its aspect of self-sacrifice. It makes me wonder if self-sacrifice is more
palatable to some people when applied to large-scale, humanitarian efforts but
less so when confined to individual concerns. WARNING: My novel isn’t about
essential workers or World War II. If you are interested in finding out what it
is about, my CRADLE OF THE SERPENT is available for purchase at goo.gl/i3UkAV.
Another enjoyable post. Thank you.
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