Memorial Day 2008

Memorial Day has always before been a parking meter holiday for me. The banks are closed, there is no mail, and I usually choose not to go into the office even when I have work demands.

We are not a military family. My Kimball grandfather registered with the Selective Service when it was created in 1917 after the U.S. entered the war in Europe. He was found perfectly fit, but was not called up and armistice was signed the next year. My uncles Spencer, Grant and Andrew all served in World War II, all in the Navy on the Pacific front. They all came home. My father was too young for World War II, and would have been exempt in any event because of his polio disability.

I’m sure there are other relatives who served in one war or another. But there is nobody else whom I know well enough to have heard stories from or about, and I'm not aware of any deaths in war, among family members.

I grew up with the war in Vietnam always present. Just today I checked the dates (using Wikipedia and subject to whatever flaws the “Vietnam War” entry contains), and confirmed this.

I was born in 1955. Vietnam was partitioned in 1954, in what was supposed to be a temporary partition pending national elections in July 1956, except that the U.S. never agreed and the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, declined to hold elections. Instead, in 1955, Diem launched a “Denounce the Communists” campaign, and in October declared the new Republic of Vietnam.

I was four years old in 1959 when North Vietnam’s Central Committee issued a secret resolution authorizing an armed struggle, and the southern Viet Minh began large-scale operations against the South Vietnamese military.

I was eight years old in 1963 when some policy makers in Washington concluded that Diem was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. Apparently the CIA was in contact with generals planning to remove Diem and told them that the United States would support such a move. President Diem was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on November 2, 1963.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated three weeks later, on November 22, 1963.

I was ten years old when U.S. involvement in Vietnam War was escalated, starting officially on the morning of January 31, 1965, when orders were cut and issued to mobilize the 18th TAC Fighter Squadron from Okinawa to Danang.

I was sixteen when the wind-down began, when the U.S. troop count was reduced to 196,700.

I was nearly eighteen, a senior in High School, when Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam and a cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam.

My birthdate was assigned number 11 in the draft lottery. Had there been an active draft in 1973 I almost certainly would have been drafted. However, for the first time in my young memory, in 1973 nobody was drafted.

From 1956 to 1975, essentially the first twenty years of my life, almost 3 million Americans served in Vietnam and at least 58,193 Americans were killed in Vietnam (other counts put the number at 58,209 or 58,217). (I'm thinking of men almost exclusively, but of the casualties 8 were women.) Vietnamese military dead on both sides exceeded 1.3 million, and civilian deaths are estimated at 2 million.

We visited Tom and Michael last weekend, stopping for an evening and a morning on the way up to Northfield, Minnesota, to see Chase at school. Every time I see Tom I’m aware that there is a part of him I can’t know or reach. That part served in Vietnam. It was a long time ago. We are getting to be old(er) men now. But surprisingly there is an always present “I was there” mystery and depth to Tom. I have the same feeling with Doug Braithwaite, with whom I’ve discussed this directly. Doug tells me that there are a few stories he can tell, more that he can share with and will only make sense to other men who were there, and some that he will never tell anywhere.

But today I’ve been thinking more about all those who did not return except as a body in a bag or a casket. They would have been the men just older than me. They would have made my world a livelier, better, richer place. But they didn’t come back, and I never knew them.

The Vietnam war was a mistake in sixteen different ways. So is the current action in Iraq, whatever it is rightly called. But the young men who went to war are not to blame for the mistakes of the leaders. Those young men serve where they are called. I wish they all had come home. I wish I had known them. I mourn them, and honor them.

There’s no great mystery about why this Memorial Day for me, and not any of the 51 Memorial Days that came before. This Memorial Day I am alive, after learning that I had cancer that was fatal if not treated, and for which the treatment was only a little less extreme than the disease. A year ago today I was 11 days post surgery and still in very intense care. Linda celebrates May 15 or May 16 as a new “birth” day for me. However, I slept pretty much all of May 15 in an operating room, I was barely conscious on the 16^th, and for some days after I wasn’t sure I would survive the night. It was more like Memorial Day one year ago today when I started to believe that I might live another day.

I am glad to be alive. I celebrate every single day, every hour of every day. And yet by the time I was diagnosed I had three adult children and a partner in Linda with whom I had already made a life together for nearly thirty years. I had had three significant careers and was working on the fourth. I had lived well and long. Morbid as it sounds, I had probably done all that was needed for me to do.

Those young men who went to Europe and to the Pacific and to Korea and to Vietnam, and now to Iraq, but didn’t come home, those young men did not get to live out the full measure of their lives. They are gone, and we are the lesser for it. I remember them today.

Bigger than a duck.

In December I ordered a pair of hiking boots. They were out of stock so I received a pair made for me in late January, just before I went into the hospital.

These days it is easy to find hiking boots that are built like running shoes with ankle support. They can be relatively inexpensive and certainly do the job for casual hiking. They have lots of plastic parts and don’t change at all until, at the end of their useful life, they simply fall apart. They either fit right the first time you put them on, or they never fit at all.

I discovered that it is also possible to have hiking boots made to order. Some of the best have a backlog of more than a year and cost thousands of dollars. I expect they are wonderful to walk in. I hope they are indestructible. I'll probably never know.

What I wanted was neither the hydrocarbon-intense running shoe with ankle support, nor the turn-out-your-pockets custom built. I wanted boots like the ones I eyed in the store and envied on my older friends’ feet when I was 15 years old. Sturdy leather boots with serious waterproofing, with a lug sole stitched to the upper so it can be replaced. The kind that are too stiff and give you blisters when they first come out of the box, but after a few weeks mold to your feet and from then on fit perfectly. The kind that will take you through any terrain in all kinds of weather, so you don’t even check the weather first. You just pull on your boots, confident they’re the right choice whatever it’s like outside. The kind you resole three or four or five times because the uppers last forever and once they’re broken in they feel better than anything else you’ve ever worn.

Surprisingly I couldn’t find what I wanted in the stores, even places like REI that I thought would cater to that kind of interest. Thanks to the internet, I did find them online and ordered a pair (Irish Setter Countrysider Style 1885, from Red Wing Shoes). I’ve been using them every day since I got out of the hospital. With well over 100 miles on them, they are starting to feel good.

Almost every evening I go out for a walk. Around nine o’clock I put down whatever I’ve been working on, turn off the television if it’s been on, and start into my nightly routine. I pull on the boots, choose the appropriate coat for the weather, start up an audio book on my iPod, grab my walking sticks, and head out for a walk. The walking sticks keep my upper body involved and keep me walking at a fast pace. They also help when my balance is off; I’ve lost some of the feeling in my feet, my left foot in particular, and sometimes I miss a step. These days a brisk 30 minutes is about right for a good walk without strain.

I like to look at the houses. Most are lit from the inside at that time of night, so I can see all the different colors people use in their living rooms, and who has interesting art work hanging. Because I’m walking I know where there’s a house surrounded by tulips. Where the construction sites are. Which houses are for sale and which have sold (houses around here are in fact selling). Which yards are kept up and which are already going to seed, if that’s possible in May.

The air smells a little different every night, especially in the Spring when there’s always something new blooming.

There are almost no adults on the streets at 9 or 10 o’clock. The adults seem to be home, or in a car, or rushing from car to house. I do see teenagers, mostly in packs. Mostly having fun, but sometimes mischief. I can usually tell by how they look at me. The open eyes, “hello,” “nice evening,” “I like your walking sticks” kind of look is kids having fun. The “what are you looking at?” And “why don’t you just go away?” kind of look is kids engaged in some kind of mischief and feeling guilty. Like the time they were setting a fire just outside the municipal tennis courts.

After the walk I get ready for bed and then play the piano for 30 or 40 minutes, finishing with a random and different every day medley of hymns.

All together, the walk, the smells and sights and sounds of the night, the audio book, the piano, all serves as a celebration and reminder of life. I’m alive. I hear and see and smell, walk and think and praise. It’s a good day, one that ends with walking and making music.

Oh, the title to this entry: “Bigger than a duck”? It’s my favorite line so far from “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman, the book I’m listening to right now:

“To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but would fail to give the full picture. It would be like describing the planet Jupiter as bigger than a duck.”

Marriage

I’m told that a key indicator of getting better in my circumstances is when you stop thinking all the time about your body and the location of the nearest toilet. On Thursday and Friday last week I had hours when I didn't worry. Two days in a row with hours free of worry is great progress. Of course Saturday was a reminder that recovery isn’t simple. For about 12 hours I sat and napped and read in my easy chair, 10 steps away from the bathroom. I made that trip many times.

More than enough said on that front.

Last Monday my sister Sarah and Kevin Whisenant were married. They seem to be a great couple, both in love and very clear headed and smart, all at the same time. It probably helps that they are both in their 40s. They each sold their living alone houses, and together bought a living together house. That’s a kind of financial wherewithal and security that Linda and I couldn’t imagine when we got married, almost two decades younger than Sarah and Kevin, and with less than a thousand dollars between us before we bought wedding rings for about $100 each and our first car for $425.

The wedding was very normal seeming from a secular point of view, but quite unusual from inside a Mormon worldview. My daughter’s wedding in June will also be unusual from a Mormon point of view, for a different reason.

From a Mormon point of view, there are three kinds of marriages:

1. The premier, how it’s supposed to be, marriage in the temple, referred to as a “sealing for time and eternity.” This is for a man and woman who are both card-carrying by-the-book orthodox Mormons who follow all the rules.
2. A civil or religious service by a judge or minister or Mormon bishop, for time (“till death do you part”). This is for non-Mormons, and a Mormon marrying a non-Mormon, and two Mormons one or both of whom is not quite the card-carrying by-the-book orthodox obey-all-the-rules type.
3. Not legal marriage. Two men. Two women. More than two, as in plural marriage or polygamy, which was good for Mormons in the 19^th century, but illegal in the United States and forbidden by the LDS church in the 20^th and 21^st century. (The group in Texas is referred to as an FLDS group, the F being “fundamentalist.” The distinction is important. The FLDS haven’t been part of or tolerated in the LDS church for more than a century.)

My sister’s wedding wasn’t any of these. From all I can tell, and others confirm, Sarah and Kevin are both card-carrying by-the-book orthodox Mormons, and they really wanted to be married in the temple. In my opinion, they should have been married in the temple. They were prevented from doing so by an arbitrary ruling that relates to Kevin’s having been married before and divorced at least 10 years ago. As I understand it, the ruling was that they could wait another year and be married in the temple, or get married now in a civil service and be sealed in the temple in another year. They took option 2.

So the two card-carrying by-the-book loyal committed Mormons are making do with a “lesser” marriage, one which is perfectly legal, but not what they really wanted, for at least a year. I don’t understand. I can’t even make up an explanation that is coherent. It is arbitrary.

My daughter’s wedding isn’t any of these either. My daughter is Mormon in the sense that she was baptized and confirmed in a Mormon ceremony, and grew up--at least until her late-teens--as a Mormon, with all the education and activities and experiences of a Mormon girl. In some important ways she will always be Mormon whether she likes it or not. On the other hand, Evan is not Mormon and never has been. So one might categorize their wedding in the second group, a religious service where a Mormon is marrying a non-Mormon.

What makes their marriage different is that Britta and Evan did not meet as Mormon meeting non-Mormon. The “Mormon” part of the pair isn’t making do with a “lesser” marriage because she can’t have the temple sealing with a non-Mormon spouse. Britta chose a church long before she met Evan, and followed that choice from college to Boston to Brattleboro to Belmont to Cambridge, and then met Evan, a fellow choir member, under the yellowwood tree over punch and cookies in the fellowship hour after services. They will be married in their church, with their choir around them, with their minister Mary solemnizing their commitment. They are home, getting married in the very best way they know, and they and we are celebrating from beginning to end.

I was asked to say a prayer at the end of my sister’s wedding celebration. It was short. I offered thanks that we were all able to celebrate their wedding, and prayed for a long, happy, healthy marriage for my sister and new brother. That was it. Some people commented positively on the short prayer. I thought it was enough, and best short and to the point. Furthermore, what nobody knew was that the next phrase, the one I cut off, would have been a petition for the day when any two adults who want to be married can celebrate a legal and lawful marriage in the same way. But that wouldn’t have been fair. While I am confident the first two phrases were shared by the group, I know that my third phrase would have been met with opposition, for reasons I cannot fathom.

My views about marriage are on the record, and have been since 1998. It turns out that a speech I gave in 1998 at an Affirmation conference was recorded and is available on-line. One view of that talk is that I was ahead of my time, advocating for same-sex marriage. Another view is that I made everybody upset, telling Mormons that same-sex marriage should be legal, and telling gay men that they should get married if they wanted to have sex. It was not quite the message anybody wanted to hear (and it isn't quite what I said). A third view is that I once told my daughter (when she was 24) that we had never had the infamous “birds and bees” conversation, and since she already knew all she needed to know about mechanics, the rest of what I had to say was in this talk.

The talk lasts 47 minutes and it isn't a comedy. If you are interested, click here for an mp3 version.

The talk has been available for years at http://www.affirmation.org/audio/09_1998/chris_kimball_copyright.shtml, but that version is coded for Real Player which I dislike and refuse to use.