Saturday, March 5, 2022

Memories, memories...

 


You’ve got yours and I’ve got mine and sometime, as they say, the twain may just bring us together!  While walking our dog (new dog, mind you, Tobi has taken to the sky), in any case, while walking Stella this morning, it occurred to me that memories are things I should be concentrating on.  The main problem with that, though, is the brain I’ve been given seems to be losing it.  Alzheimer’s anyone?  I think that may be the reason, but I’m not positive.  In any case, that’s my thinking on the subject (like that?) and I’m sticking with it. 

 

Alzheimer’s or no, memories are what they are.  Their usefulness is limited, though, if while writing something like this one keeps getting just a bit lost.  It is hard to write on any topic when you keep losing your train of thought.  What to do?  Well, I guess all anyone can do is continue to do what they think they were trying to do, which, for this topic, is pretty easily done. 

 

My thoughts gravitate to a time when I was playing with a small plastic jeep in my sandbox.  This would put me at about 5 years of age in Orangeburg, South Carolina.  We had been in Orangeburg for about a year at that point in time and the sandbox was my place of comfort (often) whenever I was playing alone.  A good thing, at the time, and a good place to start this work.  Someone, dad or mom, bought a box of small plastic soldiers to go along with my sandbox sorties, and that brought a new dimension to my time there.  It would have helped if the soldiers had come in more than one color (olive drab was fine,) but, come on, the soldiers on both sides of the demarcation line all looked the same. 

 

In any case, having provided a few sand hills for cover, the soldiers on one side would always be on the attack and those on the other side would be on defense.  My side, it seems, was always on the attack, and those soldiers on the other side just had no chance when the pecans (did I say my sandbox was beneath a pecan tree--well, that was the case) began to rain on their parade.  Fun was fun in those days.  Playing alone was a skill I mastered early in my career with the sandbox and my small soldiers.  Somewhere along the line I stopped playing these games. I guess I had other things to do once I started my career as a student in elementary school. 

 

Given this background, one thing one might consider would be why I chose army ROTC when I first went to college.  All I can say is the army seemed to fit in with my thinking at the time.  Then, again, it could be by starting my collegiate career in the summertime there wasn’t much else available.  I really don’t remember what the situation was. (Memories a problem?)  In any case, ROTC was the one course that I could always count on to provide aces for my lot.  A good thing, no?  So I took that course and even joined an additional military group, the Pershing Rifles, to boot!  Which was a good thing.  I met quite a few other newcomers to our school who were just like me when it came to military preparedness, and we made friendships that I wish I still had.  Pretty sure that would be the case if we hadn’t scattered the way we did when we left school.  I left a bit early due to a lack of academic involvement.  I just wasn’t ready to leave home.  In any case, that’s my best guess.

 

What to do now?  Writing is easier when you remember a bit about what you wanted to do when you started.  Wish I did, but I don’t.  Guess I’ll quit while I’m just a bit ahead and try again later.  If I can only remember.  Ciao!

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