Returning to the Fold
Kindred Spirits Are Here
I posted for a while at Substack and retired when I realized they didn’t post YouTube files, which I use for fun. Otherwise, I’m a natural candidate even for a subscription service because I have 30 years of content to share in the “pay for” part below the bar.
But I’m cynical about Internet fads. Belatedly, I have discovered that there are some very fine writers here in whose company I would be proud to be a member. The first one I knew of was a Mr. PrettyProse Brit who was wont to go begging for subscribers. When I saw him exclaiming his neglected genius in tears, I signed off.
So I’ll begin by proclaiming my fondness for the Substackers titled Chris Bray, John Carter, Eugyppius, and Science is Not the Answer. They’re interested in the same crises I am, and I urge everyone to read what they have to say. I wish I could afford to subscribe full boat to them, but I am in that community which the Lords of the Internet are trying to shut down, and I am old and unflush with cash. Why, I guess, I was reluctant to ask others to bet a subscription on my ability to be amusing day in and day out, even though that has been my avocation for half my life.
When I first started, I followed instructions, laid out my argument for getting read the way they asked, but I’m not following instructions anymore in any realm. Let me tell you something about who I am in dribs and drabs, like normal people do.
I’m a writer. From the age of seven on. I’ve had a lot of good times and bad times, also like normal people. But my life has also been pretty unique. Something wrote not long ago to a Facebook friend who found me troublesome as a correspondent:
Imagine this. If you were going to attempt a fictional iconic portrait of the Baby Boom generation, what might you dream up as a starting point for a narrative that would cover everything? A rural birthplace less than an hour from the nation’s birthplace but with its own documented roots to the Revolution, including its own Tea Party and game-changing local combat with elite British troops. A birthplace that would also be almost impossibly diverse, ranging from NY 400 society elites to a frozen-in-time colonial village just a mile from the impoverished shadow village where the church Harriet Tubbs used as her anchor for the NJ stop on the Underground Railroad was born. Then you pick your point of focus, a guy from a family with generations of American combat experience — from Revolution to Civil War to WWI, and WWII — who will grow up to come of age at the exact cusp of the difference between Baby Boomers who are old enough to be draftable for Vietnam and young enough to escape that draft. A guy with two sets of living grandparents, one from Philadelphia commercial aristocracy sans trust funds, one from the real Ohio part of Ohio, both of whom played a major role in his upbringing. What I’m conveying here is a background so absolutely symbolic that it wouldn’t be believable as a novel, except that it’s the truth, and even more iconic than that because it was populated by so many larger than life characters.
And then imagine he wrote a book called The Boomer Bible that sold nearly 100,000 copies.
The dog is the ghost of my Scottish Deerhound Raebert. I’m of Scottish descent. Deerhound Diary is the name of the most recent blogsite that’s been censored by the Lords of Chaos. But it’s still (mostly) available at the Wayback Machine. Among other crimes, the site was the source of a book titled Sighthounds and Other Strangers, still available at Amazon.
That’s all the autobio for today. What I’m going to do. Check in on a regular basis and build on the free stuff. If anyone finds it worthwhile, I may start sharing big chunks,of stuff on a subscription site. But I’m in no hurry. When you’re old, you start realizing time is not really an issue. You’ll be here tomorrow or you won’t. Everyone else can wait while you have your milk and cookies