Memorial Day, 2012: Contemplating All the Tributes I See to the Military

As a child, in the 1950s and 1960s, I grew up on U. S. military bases.  By the time I was 21, I had lived on (or next to) military bases for...12 or 13 years.  If I count the baby years that I can’t remember, maybe it was 15 or 16 years!  But I wasn't in the military.  My father wasn't in the military.  He worked for the American Red Cross, serving the military.

So I grew up in the military environment, but not actually military, and not a military family. 

The Red Cross is a humanitarian organization.  The military is not.  The international Red Cross movement offers “neutral humanitarian care to the victims of war.”  The American Red Cross offers “support and comfort for military members and their families.”

I grew up as a Protestant Christian.  In military setting, that meant I attended generic church services designed (so I've heard) not to offend any of the many Protestant denominations.  The other choices for church services would have been Catholic or Jewish.  The same chapel was used for all three.

I read the synoptic gospels and believed in loving my enemies and blessing those who cursed me.  Every day, on base, the American flag was raised and lowered as the National Anthem was played.

I knew an Air Force major who disappeared over North Vietnam in the 1960s.  And a military doctor who made mysterious (to me) visits to Iran in the 1970s.  I knew an alcoholic officer.  I knew Red Cross workers:  One who loved classical music.  Another who was a naturalist and had married a Japanese woman after World War II.  I knew the children of the military, the wives and mothers of the military.   I knew the loneliness and the worry of the military.  On the other hand, thanks to the military, I've lived in Germany and Japan, and traveled to over twenty countries.  My family's housing and medical expenses were subsidized.  Food, clothing, and entertainment were subsidized.

It was a very different life.  Growing up, I lived nowhere more than five years.  It was the same for everyone I knew (except for the few scattered years when I was “off-base.”).  I was very connected to the military, but was not military.  I was disconnected, in any deep sense, from the localities in which I was living.

All of this has left me with, shall I say, some "internal conflicts"...

Celebrating Wagner: My Annual RingDay Party

As many of you know, I host an annual party on Memorial Day Sunday.

This annual Baldwin Wagner-RingDay Party is now approaching -- this coming Sunday from sunrise till  sunset.

If you haven’t heard about RingDay before, here is a little information.
 
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“What is RingDay?”

A celebration of Richard Wagner’s (German composer, 1813-1883) birthday (May 22).  A celebration of his most massive work, The Ring of the Nibelung.  A chance to see/listen to the entire Ring.  A chance to ignore the entire Ring.  I’ve done this every year since about 1974 (except for 1984).  It has been described in the book All Around the Year—Holidays and Celebrations in American Life, by Jack Santino.


“How Do You Do That?”

At approximately 5:50 a.m. (sunrise?), in my living room, I will turn on a video recording of the first of the four Ring operas.  The entire Ring will then play straight through until whenever we finish.  We’re usually done around 9:30 p.m.


“But I Hate Wagner”

No problem.  You can really only see/hear it in the living room.  If you don’t want to hear it, just wander into the dining room, the computer room, or the patio/backyard.  Socialize and party.


“But Doesn’t Ignoring Wagner Defeat the Purpose?”

Well, yeah—kinda.  But the actual purpose of RingDay isn’t to listen to the Ring <gasp!> I’ve probably heard the entire thing fifty or more times!  The real purpose is to get together with friends—you.
   

“But...  What do you do for fifteen hours?????”

Not too much, in the morning.  Light breakfast (bring yours along).  Mixing up and baking the four “ring” (ie. Bundt) cakes.  The traditional Walkure shower (for me, anyway).  And the rush to prepare the baked cakes with candles.

The lighting of the birthday (ring) cakes with the appropriate number of candles, during the playing of the Magic Fire Music.  Okay—We fake most of the candles now.  This year, we’d theoretically cram 199 onto the cake.  We’ll just stuff on as many as feels safe.  This should all happen around 12:30 or 1 p.m.  We generally then send someone out for lunch subs (or bring your own lunch).  Sometimes, however (when no one is around for the Magic Fire Music), we postpone the candles until the fire scene in the third act of  Siegfried (around 3:30 or 4).

Afternoon?  The traditional Siegfried snooze.  Some people find Siegfried boring(?!).  Some people prefer playing board (bored?) games.  But then, this is when we usually have the children begin the construction of the small cardboard Valhalla for later.

We’ll fire up the barbeque around 5:30 or 6 p.m for the potluck dinner.  By now the children should be well along on Valhalla, and drawing or pasting images into it.

Amazingly, as we approach the final act or two, people actually being filtering into the living room and watching the performance!

Around 9:30, we light the Valhalla sitting on the barbeque grill, watch it burn—and return to the living room to watch Bugs Bunny in “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “The Rabbit of Seville”… and possibly listen to Anna Russell explain the Ring.

By then we’re usually ready for a good night’s sleep!


“So What Do I Need To Do?”

Show up, if this appeals to you (preferably let us know ahead).  Socialize.  Bring food.  Hang out.  That’s about it.  Don’t have to do much else.

The Ride Awaits Us!

I was at a local theater recently, watching an HD documentary about the Metropolitan Opera’s latest production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Surprisingly (for me), one of the Met’s executives talked about how the Met had fallen two decades behind in its staging technology, until they attempted this Ring.  How can that be? I thought.  I remember when the Met moved to Lincoln Center; the technology was state-of-the-art.  But of course that was 1966!

We lose track of time.  I once worked in Youth Programming at a Unitarian summer institute.  I decided I’d dazzle the teenagers with stories of Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets.  But this was 1980.  I was old, so old:  Twenty-nine!  My source-books lay unused in my dorm room; the teenagers had disappeared to who knows where.  They didn’t care about the rebellions of earlier times.  We all lose track.

That film about the Met give me a visceral “punch” in several ways.  First, sheer physical amazement:  Cirque du Soleil-style acrobatic-stand-ins ascending an eighty-degree wall that resembled Yosemite’s Half-Dome, at the end of the first Ring opera; and the soprano Brunnhilde hanging upside down from a similar precipice at the end of the second.

But equally visceral was the mental punch delivered by that executive who declared (I’m paraphrasing) that “art cannot stand still.  It has to change and move forward, always.  If it stops changing, it becomes irrelevant and dies.”

It’s good to remember that.  And I ask myself, not without misgivings:  Will you climb on the Bus of the Future?  Will you buy into the Age of Change? 

It’s always hard to break with our habits.  But the ride awaits us—the journey into the Future.  Come aboard and let’s embark!

Ebb and Flow: War On Sex or War On…?

In the cover story for the Silicon Valley Metro (May 9), “The War On Sex,” Palo Alto therapist Marty Klein suggests that both Right and Left are attacking sex as something dangerous and unhealthy.  Whether it’s restricting adult sexual expression or protecting children from supposedly harmful influences, many powerful forces conspire to suggest that sex is principally a threat—not a hope or a joy or a promise—to us all. 

Meanwhile, in the San Jose Mercury News (Sunday, May 13), a letter suggests that once “the biological unit of reproduction is removed,” marriage becomes meaningless.  “If two men or two women can marry, then who are we to deny marriage to three or more people who have a ‘loving, caring, committed relationship?’”

Indeed, who are we to deny it?  If it is a “loving, caring, committed relationship,” why should we deny it?

But, to the letter-writer, such a marriage would mean nothing.  One wonders…or at least I wonder:  If a loving, caring, committed relationship, of whatever configuration, is not holy, what kind of relationship is?

Contrary to what some people believe, we do not require loving, caring, committed relationships to spawn.  Spawning does not sanctify a relationship; love, care, and commitment do.