Chateau Lloyd

A year ago I was preparing for my final Veterans Day observance in uniform.  I had a fresh haircut, shaved and showered, and played "Taps" at the Veteran's Memorial west of the state Capitol.

When I go today, I will still wear my field jacket, but it has a "retiree" patch added to it.  I will also have a beard.

My military retirement was not something I thought about much.  It always seemed over the horizon, something I would deal with when it got closer.  As I reached my 20th year of service, I realized that it was closer than I thought, and began to think about when I would leave.  I began some tentative planning, but the military's illogical (and illegal) reaction to Covid forced a rapid acceleration of my plans.

Hence the repeated applications.

I'm becoming used to civilian life.  I particularly enjoyed the lack of drill requirements during the summer and fall.   I finally cut my hair in September, and growing it out was partly a rebellion against grooming standards, and partly curiosity to see how much I still had left.  Turned out, it was more than I thought.

It was a strange sensation, and for much of this year I felt as though I had awakened from a long (and not entirely unpleasant) dream.  Retirement was something of a time warp - you get in as a young man and come out old.  My children have no recollection of me being a civilian and for the vast majority of our marriage, my wife has been a military spouse.

Almost a year later, we're mostly settled in to the new routine.  Today marks one of the last "firsts" in the retirement calendar, which is entirely appropriate.

I'm hoping to go deer hunting this year.  I'm not sure it will happen because I take nothing for granted.   I've got a plan, have lined up some dates, but one never knows.

I'm old enough to remember when there was a strong anti-hunting movement centered on the notion that it was a form of animal cruelty.  This was always a false.  All animals will die, the only question is how it happens.  There is no reason to believe that a lingering death by starvation or disease is better than being shot.  Highway collisions can likewise be instant or debilitating.  Last winter I saw a deer with three legs - the forelimb likely torn off by a passing vehicle.  It was ravenously hungry (eating shrubs the other deer left alone), and struggled to keep moving.

And then there are predators, who will not hesitate to start their meal before the prey has died.  Being eaten alive sounds a lot worse than being shot, no?

I'm increasingly seen people talking about hunting as a humane, sustainable and natural way to obtain organically-fed meat.  All of this is true.   Taking a healthy buck provides a bounty of nutrition, connects people with nature, and it opens space for the next generation of deer to grow.  Far from being Elmer Fudd, the modern hunter is acutely aware of proper safety techniques and is deeply concerned with shot placement and minimizing animal suffering.

I think people are also realizing that eating fake meat - made using energy-intensive processing techniques to create a strange simulcrum of animal tissue - is not the big environmental win it was assumed to be.  Every year a certain amount of game animals need to be culled in order to maintain the ecological balance.   Why let that nutrient-rich food feed people (removing pressure from production agriculture) rather than simply decompose on the roadside?

To date, I've taken one deer, and that was with a late-model sedan.  Here's to hoping for something more humane.

This year marks the first Halloween when there are no children in the house.  Everyone is now 18 or older.

Okay, that's not technically true - the grandchildren will be over, starting the cycle anew.  Still, this fall has been quieter than any in more than a quarter century - no back to school, no marking periods, parent meetings, report cards or dances.  It's very relaxing.

Autumn is a nostalgic season, and a year ago there was an air of reflection and memory.  This year, the emphasis is on looking forward, as the kids continue to discover the joys (and pains) of independence and the grandchildren being to find their voices and understand the world around them.  The elder has memories of last year, so she had anticipated this moment.  The younger is taking it all in for the first time.  Next year both will be veterans.

I'm looking forward to Mass tomorrow, which is itself a sign of my spiritual growth.  Candy, scary movies and costume parties are all fun, but in my case they have become a bridge to something far more profound.

Once again, I spent the first weekend of October in Mackinaw City, savoring the fall color and the fun of Fort Fright, an annual two day event at historic Fort Michilimackinac.

Last year's event was big, but this was even bigger.

The staff seems aware of it, and it is now possible to pre-pay for tickets, which cut the lines down considerably.  Another interesting development is that more people are showing up in period costumes, adding to the historical flavor.

For the park, the event is a big deal, likely the biggest weekend of the year.  While it has its amusing aspect (the entrance to the Demon Walk has signs pointing to "Demons" and "No Demons" so folks don't wander into the scare by accident.

Halloween is second only the Christmas in retail sales, and over the years it has been heavily secularized.  I think that is changing as people become more aware of the spirit world, which increasingly becomes the only way to explain what is going on in our world.  Other than the haunted walks, much of the event is simply sitting around the fire hearing the ghost stories told there centuries ago, many of which originated in rural France.

Just as last year, there was a presentation in the reconstructed church about funeral customs, though this year the priest (or person dressed as one, it wasn't clear), seemed to stress the changes in the liturgy from present practices.  I notice a lot of that lately, and certainly Pope Francis seems worried about it, all but banning the Latin Rite.

At any rate, next year I will be sure to book my hotel weeks in advance, as I sense word is spreading and accommodations may be harder to come by.

As it customary, Chateau Lloyd put up its Halloween decorations at the turn of the seasons.  Halloween may be spooky, is certainly commercialized, but it is in the main a celebration of autumn, and it is rich with its symbolism.

While religious in origin, for most Americans it's merely about candy, costumes and varying degrees of schlock horror tropes. 

It is the second biggest "retail holiday," with Christmas still reigning supreme.  Unlike Christmas, it is less emotionally fraught because there are fewer associations with family gatherings and/or religious associations.  For the vast majority of Americans, it's about pumpkin spice everything, dress-up and trick-or-treat.

Autumn is my favorite season, no doubt a function of living in a state where the change of weather is welcome but fleeting.  The humid heat of August is yielding to the warm days and cold nights associated with early fall.  Later, the air will take on something of a bite, but stay above freezing.  Halloween itself has seen everything from balmy temperatures to snow flurries.  That's part of the excitement of this time of year.

There is also the brilliant display of color before the trees go bare.  Every year the cycle is a little different, which is why it is so special.  The older I get, the more I appreciate it.

I suppose it is no accident that J.R.R. Tolkien chose to set his epic tale against the arrival of fall.  I'm sure I won't be alone and re-reading his classic as autumn takes hold.

The triumph of social media has destroyed the old way of celebrating anniversaries.  In previous generations, the arrival of a significant date would be commemorated with some sort of reunion.  Because such things happened at intervals of five or ten years, people would anticipate them, and make plans for travel, etc.

Alas, in our benighted age, people think that 'following' on various social media platforms fulfills this function.  It does not.  Partly because of Covid, there was no 30th year reunion for my high school graduating class, and the 20-year festivities had abysmal attendance.  Easier to just send messages on Facebook or something.

The problem is that social media is not real life.  People inherently seek attention, and so they manipulate the information they share about themselves, inflating accomplishments to bolster their self-esteem or highlighting challenges to gain sympathy.

Either way, social media serves as a form of performance art, and is no substitute for human contact.

Indeed, it amplifies the worst aspects of human behavior.

Happily, there are still places where people gather to meet face-to-face, and yesterday I participated in one of them.  My exact contemporaries were few, but the fact that multiple generations gathered and could still share common experiences and relate to one another in terms of life rather than politics or a need to find scapegoats was wonderful.  Indeed, attendance was unusually high, particularly among the younger crowd. 

This gives me hope that perhaps people are realizing that online relationships lack the fullness of a personal touch.  Far better to spend a few hours talking face to face than simply clicking thumbs up  or offering commentary.

Human were built to be together - to hear, to see and to touch one another.  After the lockdowns, maybe people are more sensitive to his.  We can only hople.

Six years ago I contemplated how my plans to cultivate raspberries completely miscarried, and yet ultimately succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

I'm now experiencing a similar phenomenon in regards to my garden.

This year I planted three crops within the fenced enclosure: carrots, snow peas and green onions.  The green onions never stood a change, the snow peas produced a little but are now on death's door.  The carrots seem to be doing well, but I'm in no hurry to harvest them.

But there's another crop that seems to be flourishing, and that is yellow squash.  I planted this outside the fence to act as something of a buffer.  Squash plants have tiny prickers so having a line of them (I reasoned) would reinforce my defensive line.

I also knew that one of the first crops I planted was squash and it did really well, with trivial losses to animals. 

Thus the irony: plants that I had no real investment in are now the primary hope for a successful year.  They germinated late because of the drought and I'd actually given up hope on them but now they're just taking off.  Last time we had so much squash that I had to give it away.  I'd love to have the same problem this years.

A new author at Bleedingfool.com has thrown shade at Underworld, which is one of my favorite films. 

Naturally, I shall respond forcefully.  Strong column to follow.

This was the bit that really set me off:

Selene’s inexplicable, unearned combat prowess reveals her as a Mary Sue: a character whose flawless abilities leave so few genuine challenges as to make everyone else irrelevant.

What utter nonsense.  Selene is an interesting character precisely because of her vulnerabilities.  She's handy with a pistol, but while she does well in the initial encounter, she has to flee for her life, leaving her partner behind.  That's hardly "flawless."

Similarly, her attempt to secure Michael doesn't succeed because she thumps all the werewolves effortlessly, she barely manages to drag him into her car and even then Lucien gives her a vicious wound that causes her to lose consciousness and wreck her car.  Michael, who she treated like baggage, ends up saving her life.

Selene wins, but she takes damage and is clearly not invincible.

There is also the emotional aspect of her character.  She has grown up with a set of assumptions that she slowly realizes simply are not true.  She must therefore struggle to make sense of the lies she has been fed, and make her own way.  This includes recognizing the humanity in werewolves and even teaming up with Michael against her mentor.

A Mary Sue character, by contrast, has no real struggle other than to fully appreciate her own awesomeness. 

Naturally, I will have to link on my Geek Guns article on the film as well.

The larger point is that this fellow is striving for a hot take without apparently understanding the lingo or the genre.  Underworld is not a taught psychodrama, it is an action film set in the vampire genre, and it is very good at what it is trying to do.  The mood, the look, the music, it's all superb.

It's one thing to say "I don't like vampire films," or that the aesthetic didn't work.  But it is another to claim a certain flaw - in this case Mary Sue - where there is none.

Effective June 20th, Amazon raised the prices for print versions of their self-published authors.  I'm sure many authors are also looking at raising their e-book prices simply because everything else has gone up.

Inflation poses a unique problem for people who don't have major publicity behind them.  Such folks can charge a premium for their work.  Lesser lights, on the other hand, rely on a lower cost to help entice readers.  While inflation is distributed across the board in the book market, people still have a sense of what is expensive and what is not, and there can be a disconnect when prices rise as sharply as they have done over the last couple of years.

I supposed that - had I been market-savvy and seen it coming, I could have announced a big sale before the price hike.  I may do that anyway, offering "retro" prices over a big weekend.

The fact remains that when everything gets more expensive, that includes books.

I think Memorial Day is the only holiday that has something of a ticking clock included with it.   Independence Day also has temporal significance insofar as it there can be important anniversaries of the date, but that's mostly based large, round numbers.  The bicentennial was a big deal.  The years afterwards, 201, 202?  Not so much.

With Memorial Day, the passage of time is more sublime.  I'm old enough to remember when World War I veterans were honored guests at the parades and ceremonies.   The World War II veterans were well into middle age, but still active.  The veterans of Korea and Vietnam were somewhat ambivalent, and the latter group was struggling to define both their identity and relationship to military service as a whole.

Slowly, inexorably, the demographics changed.  The Great War generation faded away, making its last stand in nursing homes or with single representatives.  The "Greatest Generation" started to slow down, and behind them the "conflict" veterans became more organized and strongly represented.

Today, the Vietnam and Korean War veterans are the old guys, and the World War II survivors are so scarce as to render their reunions pointless.  My Gulf War/War on Terror generation is now moving into the familiar position of recent service, but this time it has a strange twist because our wars took so long.  In my case, "serving for the duration" took 20 years. 

Our losses were also comparatively light, which was probably why the wars were able to drag on as long as they did and end so ignobly.  

All of which leads to feelings not unlike those of the Vietnam generation.  I joked with one of my uncles (who was in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive) that he'd manage to lose only one war; my generation lost two of them