It all started a bunch of holidays ago. No one consulted me, of course. They never do. Just barge right ahead, why don’t you? So they did. There’s a lot of ways to do this, and I can’t begin to total them, being an English major and all. But it was rumored I (have to say “rumor” because everything about this is hearsay. No, not heresy. Hearsay, though that might be heretical as well. But I digress.
Assuming that we are counting by the Gregorian, not the Julian, Calendar, it started on the 11th of December. If you used the Julian, I might still be the same age, but being an English major and all, it’s not clear. The Julian Calendar adds a day to the calendar every 4 years. The Gregorian calendar does the same, except when the year is divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400. Then the leap year is skipped. Different Level of Accuracy: The Julian Calendar was off by 11 minutes every solar year. So let’s assume we’re in a Gregorian world. After all, Gregory was a pope and Caesar a mere emperor. It may seem trivial, but these are important matters, and if we are laboring under misapprehensions from the beginning we could be off by a century or two, which could be not only inconvenient but injurious. But back to the main subject, which is the beginning. My beginning, I think.
I don’t know the hour or the minute, but I do according to aforesaid rumors know the day. It was the eleventh of December. That would put my arrival ten days before the winter solstice of that year. 1941. It was an eventful month already. 4 days earlier, was Pearl Harbor. The day of my arrival fell four days later, on the very day that the U.S. declared war on Germany. I am told a mighty explosion shook my infant crib and brought a light fixture tumbling down on my covers. No injuries, but plenty of fright. Some thought the Japanese had attacked. As it turned out, the explosion was due to the mishandling of some live ammunition being loaded for duty in what shortly became World War II. The incident became something of a war crime in itself. The men loading the explosives were laboring under sub-par safety conditions. 256 men died instantly. Survivors refused to return to work and were courtmartialed and convicted of mutiny. Some served time. Some were dishonorably discharged. Only a few years ago were those involved exonerated. All but one was already dead. A tumultuous beginning for a lad. It amounts I guess to being born under a sign and kept in ignorance about it. knows how it affected my life and psyche? Certainly not to the extent that it affected the lives of the victims and their families.
So, that was the beginning. Christmas #1. They’ve come one after the other since then. More than you have fingers and toes to count for sure. How many? Well, you do the math if you feel like it. I don’t. It’s more than 80 less than 100. And let them keep coming if they dare. I’m ready. I would say “ready and waiting,” but I cant afford to wait around.
Can you?
