The Lost Commander

This is a whine, sort of. It just started building a day or so ago, and i decided i would just put it out there instead of letting it boil and fester inside. This time. Probably shouldn’t. Someone will take offense. So have at it.

i confess. i’m lost. Don’t know where i fit in this crazy world any more.

i feel emasculated, put down by association, burned by general accusations, and escorciated by flawed perceptions.

You see, it seems there’s a whole lot of grouping going on when it comes to people hating. One of the most reviled groups is the white (sic) American male. That’s me, folks. But it ain’t me.

i’m not white. As expressed previously, my old skin is scarily multi-colored, paler than many other humans, but it’s definitely not white. Besides, this sounds like a racial slur to me. i mean if we can’t call others black or red or yellow or brown (or green in some rare instances), how come we think not only it is okay to call me white, but even put it on forms  for me to check as my lineage.

i am American. But because i’m an American “white” male, i am labeled as a racist, a misogynist, an abuser, and someone who spouts derogatory terms about everyone. This generalization including me is doubled down because i also come, quite proudly i might add, from the South.

Also because my background is Southern, i am labeled a gun-loving member of the NRA, a fundamentalist, a conservative, a member of the alt-right, and a believer in white male superiority, a  fanatic college football fan (although i haven’t shot anyone like the ‘Bama idiot fan who shot the Auburn fan last week arguing over which team was best), and a car racing nut. Sometimes that even includes being really dumb.

i am not a racist, not by any stretch.

(i will discuss my relationship with women a tad later.)

i belong to no political party because their platforms make no sense to me and i agree with some issues on each side. i despise the ignorance and the hatred of any group that hates or shows signs of hate against any group of people.

i own two pistols but haven’t had any ammunition for them since 1985. i only fired one like one of them once, and that was in 1975 off the fantail of a ship. i often think of getting  a shotgun and a rifle to hunt for food if there is a cataclysmic disaster cutting off our food supply, but i’ve put that off for about twenty years. i also have thought about getting ammo for the pistols in case of someone tries to break into our house and harm my wife, but i keep putting that off as well. i don’t begrudge hunters hunting but don’t understand the pleasure they get from the sport (sic). i think believing we have a right to own weapons intended to kill many people is downright insane. But i fired guns bigger than anything any individual owns, and i loved it.

i used to be the “Figure 8 Racing” editor for a newspaper, and thought it was the craziest funny thing i had ever seen. Still do, but i think car racing is really boring and am amazed at the draw. If people want to do that, fine, but it doesn’t make sense to me.

i loved football and remain a fan of the college game, but that interest in dwindling. i enjoy Vanderbilt sports because i think they are trying to win the right way, but worry if they do, they will become too much like all of the other major college sports teams. i root for San Diego State because Sarah and Maureen are alumna, i live here in the Southwest corner, and they play an entertaining brand of football, basketball, and baseball.

And as far as that dumb thing goes, i’m not the brightest bulb on the lamp, but i think, therefore i am…not dumb. And even so, as Mose Allison intoned in “Jus Like Living,” “The smartest man in the whole round world really don’t know that much.”

i am lost because i just don’t seem to fit the mold ascribed for me.

Now about women:

Like most men, i don’t understand them or even attempt to try and understand them. However, i have the greatest appreciation and respect for them. i think there should be no limitations on women doing what they want to do (unless that doing infringes on the freedom of others).

i have worshipped them, put them on a pedestal all of my life. i probably have been to bed with more women than most men outside of star athletes, movie and television stars and moguls, sexual predators, and politicians. However, i have never ever tried to coerce any woman into a sex act of any nature. Every relationship i have had with a woman has been to make love in the most beautiful sense possible. i find anyone who mistreats a woman, coerces her, forces her, manipulates, threatens, or blackmails her for any form of sexual abuse is a deviant who should have his balls cut off, no questions asked with no legal recourse.

Yet i don’t understand all of the hullabaloo about what i should call them or how i should act towards them. i don’t understand why i can’t call them “lady,” or “ma’am” or other words to show my respect. Some women like that, but some would castrate me, if they could, if i used those terms around them.

i am amazed how far we have gotten from the family unit as i knew growing up. Or at least knew it even though my mother, in fact all of the women in my family were redefining it. The ideal was the mother of the house stayed at home, cooked, took care of household requirements, raised the children, and shopped for groceries. In their free time, they played bridge, went to teas, were members of women’s clubs, and did wonderful things for children. They dressed immaculately, and always looked good, smart, and i don’t mean sexy.

As i noted, my family’s women didn’t quite fit that mold. They all, except for my paternal grandmother, had jobs, mostly full-time. But the ideal was to not work in the business world and do all of the things i would find satisfying like doing all of the household tasks, taking care of the children, even cooking. i could have gotten into that kind of life.

But not with an abusive or demanding mate. And i don’t begrudge women wanting to do things that historically have been in the man’s purview if that’s what they want to do. They have that right as do all of those with different sexual preferences to mine. i just don’t why they feel (or any group of people who feel, usually warranted) they need to disparage other lifestyle choices.

And i like to make fun, tell a joke, be a little sarcastic or ironic. i think life is very sad if you can’t laugh about most of it. But i am afraid to open my mouth, or in this case, write something down that strikes me as funny. Somebody, somewhere is going to take offense, and offense today is tantamount to legal suits or being drawn and quartered in some public forum.

My watchword has been my guide for living for as long as i remember but only articulated by my close friend Peter Thomas several years ago as “Do the right thing.” But more and more, i find doing the right thing as a perplexing conundrum.

So i am lost, a lost commander.

But i am also old, so i really don’t have to worry about it. i can write, say, do almost anything i want, and people will just write me off as an eccentric, even crazy old man. And if they disassociate themselves from me because of what i said, wrote, or did, then i will miss them, but it will be okay if it makes them feel better.

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