Wait… I’m a Boomer Too? Part Two.

A short time ago a book called The Generational Puzzle was published.  It is a chapter book of sorts written by various guests and put together by Joyce Knudsen.  Joyce asked me to contribute as so I tried but, in the end she passed on my effort.  Why?  How should I know?  Perhaps I’m not really baby boomer material.  I will post a page or two of my 7000 word entry once a week.  Have a look.  Then read some of what Knudsen accepted.  http://www.amazon.com/The-Generational-Puzzle-ebook/dp/B00A1I0VGY.  Then let me know what ya’ think. 

You can also catch my blogging on Digital

Part Two:

Oh, I would learn, and be sad.  Sad for the loss and sad as his presidency became the focal point in my life of the differences in political theology.   When my father came home that night he was sad for the loss of the man, my father was very religious, but not sad for the potential change in leadership.  I thought this odd.  Everyone could hear the wave of media pundits telling us the loss of the man would destroy the idyllic happiness he was establishing in our poor county.  A country which for too long was run by republican theocrats.  All of the plaudits hitting us as we watched the evening news were well before Jacqueline coined the ‘American Camelot’ phrase.   My father, I would eventually learn, was politically conservative.  Many call this ‘Republican’ but is it so these days if he abhorred gun ownership to the same extent he detested liberal government spending?  He also liked to keep his religion and politics separate as he told me many times. “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to…”

I was only six; I didn’t understand ‘Camelot.’  Thinking back, I would wonder how one administration could get us into the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs, but at that moment those thoughts were not on my mind.  I was sad because everyone else was sad.  Later, these aspects of the Kennedy administration would encroach upon by cognitive machinations, along with the nepotism issue.  I mean, how many people in today’s world can bring their brother in as an attorney general?  Of course we cannot forget Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to him, but in the days post-assassination we were not thinking of her, we were honoring the war hero, the statesman who was stopped cold while trying to bring a brighter future to us all.  How he was going about this task wasn’t important at the time.

I was growing up and therefore not directly affected by all the changes.  For the most part I didn’t have any idea about what was changing and what wasn’t.  But boy was it changing.  I did begin to understand we were at war and this was war, not conflict, as my father’s time in Korea had been.  I paralleled the war efforts with my developing interest in history.  Being a young male this meant military history.   I wanted to hear about all of the victories our armies brought home, but the evening news did not bring this information.  Instead, the news bombarded us with body counts.  This information received plenty of air time as the war dragged on and the concept of victory changed.  We did not see US troops marching through Paris with crowds cheering them on.  Instead we saw images of the My Lai massacre and the anti-war movement not cheering, but screaming for change. 

From 1964 to 1972 the American dream built up in the 1950’s by the generation before was undergoing a massive overhaul.  These changes had less to do with the war effort and more to do with society itself.  Music was there and if you could carry the tune you were probably not dancing anymore but marching, marching along with the program.

So bye, bye Miss American Pie

Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry

Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey in Rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die

                                                                -- Don McLean

Wait… I’m a Boomer Too?

A short time ago a book called The Generational Puzzle was published.  It is a chapter book of sorts written by various guests and put together by Joyce Knudsen.  Joyce asked me to contribute as so I tried but, in the end she passed on my effort.  Why?  How should I know?  Perhaps I’m not really baby boomer material.  I will post a page or two of my 7000 word entry once a week.  Have a look.  Then read some of what Knudsen accepted.  http://www.amazon.com/The-Generational-Puzzle-ebook/dp/B00A1I0VGY.  Then let me know what ya’ think.

Saverio

One of my websites is called ‘comicfictionnoir’ and the chapter postings can also be found there http://comicfictionnoir.com/blogging_info.php

You can also catch my blogging on Digital Journal or follow my tweets @Author_Saverio

Part one of:

Wait… I’m a Boomer Too?

There’s something happening here

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

                                                                --- Steven Stills

Hey, that’s what I say.   It ain’t exactly clear what being a boomer really is.  I never think of myself this way.  Others do, which leads me to ask: What is a Boomer?  

Anyone ever take a basic class in statistics?  Teachers in this field definitely don’t want the blame cast on them so one of the opening lines is usually this:  Correlation does not imply causation.  Then you are told the story about how alcohol consumption leads to pregnancy.  “What?” You say.  “I always thought it was…“  This was the problem in 1946 and 1947, no one could understand the statistical implications with the rise in beer consumption (let’s forget per capita for a moment).   Beer consumption in the USA rose dramatically in the years right after WWII, relative, that is, to the previous five years.  Along with this increase in alcohol sales was a large change in the number of births in the USA.  Alcohol consumption goes up, pregnancy rate goes up… ergo; alcohol consumption leads to pregnancy.  It is quite simple.

Now my mother was, more or less, a teetotaler; she hardly ever drank, so she told me.  But my guess is she did drink, slowly.  She drank so slowly in fact it was the late 1950s before I came onto the scene. 

Of course there are changes associated with the boomer gang, lots of changes in fact, but these changes were already posted on the boomer bulletin board or were in full swing when I was still a toddler.  Let me be perfectly clear on this.  The day the music died was the same day I turned two years old.  So don’t blame me, I had nothing to do with it (remember correlation does not imply…).  And, what did all these changes mean to me if I was just growing up?  I had no idea of what the existing structure was so how could I separate the actions leading to change from the popular norm?  

My first recollection of this time period was one of those days that would be jotted down with an asterisk, or two, as all infamous events are.  It was Friday, November 22, 1963.   I was six and a half years old and I was in first grade.   I didn’t exactly hear the news.  It was 1:30 in the afternoon, Eastern Standard, and I was in school.  I did watch as someone walked into my classroom and whispered something into the ear of the nun who doubled as my teacher.  Then I saw the teacher burst into tears.  A few minutes later school was let out.  On my way to the buss I noticed all the nuns and support staff crying.  It wasn’t until the bus dropped me off and I was walking up the street to my house that one of the older students passed the word around.

 “The president has been shot.” 

I didn’t really know how to respond but I gave it a go.  “Who’s the president?”

Stay tuned for Part II which I will, hopefully, post next week.

Writer in Residence

I was in The Book Garden (https://www.facebook.com/frenchtownbookgarden) a few weeks back when a guy came in and told me his name was FAB.  Now, stay with me, this isn’t a joke. 

“Okay,” I bit, “what is FAB short for?”

“Mr. Fabulous.”

Right, just what I needed, another lemming who gives himself a moniker and thinks he’s someone, has some talent or who knows … whatever.   But he did have a nice smile and dreadlocks that made my balding pate envious.  So I relented, gave him the benefit of the doubt and conversed.  This was easy, and I was extremely fortunate to have done so.

Now FAB is like a resident artist at The Book Garden.  He has a story to tell and the telling is what he is good at.   The story brings to mind a song I am very fond of written by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) and used in one of my all time favorite movies (Harold and Maude). 

And if you want to be me, be me
And if you want to be you, be you
'cause there's a million things to do
You know that there are.

I have spent a great deal of my life wondering what it would be like to change tack, you know, put on a different pair of shoes.  Wondering what I would see from a different angle or, even better, to easily swing from one state of being to another, just because … I can.  Now I’ve met someone who has done this via his own choosing and, it seems to me, he really understands ‘There’s a million things to do.’   Mr. FAB has realized that if you sit and ponder instead of get up and walk, well, there will still be a million things you haven’t done tomorrow.

Other people have traveled along different paths in their life but the question is, simply; did they do so on their own volition?  Many, like me, have landed in strange new worlds by accident but like Mr. FAB, if you put your foot out and test the new water you will grow fuller with the experiences.  And, in that journey comes new friends which allow you to build your own community grander than it was before.

Mr. Fabulous was a name given to him early on in his Appalachian Trail journey.  If you want to know why just stop by The Book Garden anytime Mr. FAB is in and … talk with him.  It is a very interesting experience.

Saverio Monachino

Saverio is the other ‘writer in residence’, the one who is relegated to the basement.

Saverio's web page

Legend vs. History

It will be necessary to focus on time.  When the wounded Arthur left the coast of Britain in 542 to be ferried to his hidden island for surgery or ancient burial practices we will never know for sure where he went or how he traveled.  The dark ages were upon this section of the world.   In that sense he was a last Roman, as historians have frequently observed, a last king of the ancient world.  Arthur fell as Rome itself was falling.  Eastern England had already submitted to Saxon rule, there an admirable, efficient new race of Saxon kings – who never succeeded for long in conquering Arthurs’ kingdom before or after his death – rose to the fore.  They soon subscribed even more ardently than the older Celtic kings to King Arthur’s legend.  They were pleased by the thought, however, erroneous, that he was buried in Glastonbury, a Saxon town. 

Dr. Goodrich says:  The purpose of my search for King Arthur was to solve several of the problems handed down through the ages and in stripping the legend to thereby present a fully authenticated portrait of the king and his kingdom.  At its most exciting the search yielded the day when I opened an Ordnance Survey map and moved my finger to the spot where so many centuries ago the Grail Castle stood, at its most enchanting it offered the day, a year later, when my husband and I stepped from the punt onto the little island and saw before us the soft-colored orange ruins of later fortresses.  Within minutes, the sun disappeared behind rosy clouds and a deluge of driving rain obscured even our hands before our faces – just as the medieval manuscripts said happened daily on the Isle of Avalon in the middle of those dangerous, dark blue western waves.

But behind the desire to bring a lost Golden Age to light, there lies my strongly held belief that such discoveries are infinitely enriching, that they amount to more than just setting the record straight.  From King Arthur –from his bravery and daring action, his charisma and dynamism, his dignity and his honorable life – we can draw renewed hope.

The time has come for the legend to take a back seat to the historical King Arthur, a superior leader of the ancient world.

The Regnal List

Part IV: The Regnal List

Part 4:  Many English historians became discouraged with the myths and mystification of the Arthurian literature.  And, only a specialist of medieval languages can read the manuscripts in their original form anyway, a task compounded in difficulty by the fact that one must figure out each writer’s idiosyncratic style and vocabulary.  There were neither grammar texts for Old French, nor dictionaries in the Middle Ages.  One was free to write as one liked – this of course complicates the reader’s task no end.

Confronted with swan knights, tyrants, giants, dragons, and sword bridges, and weary of imputations of incest, adultery, and treachery, many historians must have willingly handed both King Arthur and his supposed kingdom back to the Old French writers of romances. 

Therefore, a good knowledge of medieval French is essential to the understanding of the manuscripts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  This is when Old French was the official language of Britain.  It will prove to be the key that opens the doors to discovery and allow us to pierce not only the upper level of the texts but their hidden, secret language.  This is where someone like Dr. Goodrich steps in as her command of this language and interest in the relationship of language to Anthropology helps one see through the cryptic messages.

Another key lies in the approach.  I have positioned Arthur as living in Britain at a time for which there are virtually no extant records or chronology or annals.  Thus, when it comes time to seek his probable birthplace, the search will be not for ruins of a medieval castle but for a barely discernible castle mound of piled earth – a construction characteristic of the Dark Ages.  I think of Arthur being not in those territories which he could not have conquered but in those which the Saxons failed to overrun.  This is why, with Goodrich’s help I will forgo looking for him in Cornwall, or in England for that matter, or modern Wales, where his name does not appear in the regnal lists. 

Regnal chronology is, specifically, the study of king lists or more generally put: sequences of governance in the history of a state, and the organizing of such data.

How to Find Truth within Legend

Post III May 15, 2012

Many books based in modern day romance, or history itself for that matter, will tell you how Arthur successfully defended all of Britain from invasion by Saxons, Engles (Angles) and Jutes.  We are told Arthur halted the Saxon invaders for a considerable period of time and won all his engagements except the last one, in which he as fatally wounded.  Up to this point, a point which is extremely generalized, everyone is in concordance.  Then it becomes interesting.  Very few scholars still insist that Arthur fought in Cornwall or that he was born there, for the simple reason that the Saxons were not invading Cornwall during Arthur’s lifetime.  The Welsh have never claimed that he was born and raised in what is now Wales -much less that he came from Brittany.  However, it becomes muddled as the translation of Brittany itself is argued.  Now, of course historians have wandered far and wide in ascribing some English city as the site of one or another of the battles there is some agreement he fought, especially that of the great victory of Mount Badon.  Some used to say that Badon was Bath, which is not exactly a mountain.  They also used to say that Avalon was Glastonbury, which is not exactly and island in the middle of the sea!  Some also would write that Arthur must have landed on the coast of southern England near Portland Bill, where the ancient Romans came ashore at various times.  Or that, as Malory had it, he came ashore at Dover where the Romans left a lighthouse.  Sometimes Arthur’s forest of Brocéliande in Scotland, where ancient Ptolemy had put a little picture of the Caledonian Forest on his map, and where Geoffrey of Monmouth had also put Arthur’s forest.  But the French are still hunting for the forest of Brocéliande somewhere inside Celtic Brittany, but so far they haven’t found a trace of it.  Their problem seems to be that they think Brocéliande is a French name and not, as Dr. Goodrich demonstrates in her book, actually a poor translation from the original Celtic and British place name.  The word Brocéliande thus gives one a fairly simple problem in phonetics.

Historians of the Anglo-Saxons say that Arthur could not have won his battles in England because the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that the Saxons conquered England in King Arthur’s lifetime and that it has been English territory ever since.  It this is true then, if Arthur fought a battle in “Salisbury,” near “Winchester,” he did not fight at the Salisbury in southern England or at that Winchester either.  And Malory was wrong to write “Westminster,” referring to the city on the Thames River in London, for what the French text had called King Arthur’s fortress, or “Snowdon West Castle.”  Meanwhile a historian at Winchester has denied categorically any connection between that ancient city and King Arthur.  Nor does Winchester claim that its relic, of a wooden table is the Round Table of King Arthur. 

This Anglo-Saxon Chronicle premise, you see, opens the discussion wide, doesn’t it?  I mean; with so little written and so many differing points of interpretation, it becomes difficult to get at the truth. 

Two more posts for the Introduction and then on to the specifics. 

Who was this guy named Arthur?

This is the second part of the blog originally posted on http://saveriomonachino.wordpress.com/ April 22, 2012: 

One more carryover posting and I will have the two sites in sync (yeah)!  So, stay tuned, and read 'em as they come.  Soon I'll dig into the specifics.

Part II:  Who was this guy named Arthur?

“Much of it is simply ridiculous,” Goodrich continued, speaking of the various takes on the legend of King Arthur. “Arthur was not a figure of the Middle Ages or of the Age of Chivalry, when knighthood was in flower.  His 150 or so warriors were not gallant knights gaily bedight.   He was not born at Tintagel Castle, which was not built until the age of stone castles, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  And the rest of the above-mentioned geography will have to go by the board, including Glastonbury (though it is an ancient and holy site), Bath, Dover, South Cadbury, Winchester, Salisbury, London, York, the Cornwall sites, and Brittany.”

But still finding the truth is difficult because the Arthurian legends are not easy to counter.  They have had centuries to swell and be embellished upon, like in the hands of Sir Thomas Malory, who recounted the collapse of his own fifteenth century under the guise of a rise and fall of King Arthur’s ancient Celtic realm, or Alfred Lord Tennyson who, among others, has swept aloft Arthur’s real life and deeds into high tragedy.  The worst part in any attempt to find out what really happened in that time period was the dearth of written history. 

Romance and modern comedies have served further to obscure the real Arthur from view, that he may have lived on the earth and reigned is, for most people, not even a question.  This is where Dr. Goodrich’s expertise came into play.  She was a professor in French and Comparative literature with a PhD in Romance Philology and had a command of more than 20 ancient and modern languages.  Her studies helped a great deal in opening new avenues of interpretation to the little which is really know of this time.   I do not think this is a cruel fate for someone who was for so long a renowned warrior, a defender of the Celtic realm, the greatest and best of kings.  He was said to have been brave and powerful, valiant and resourceful, honorable and beloved- and ideal, just ruler.  Historians used to think that he once ruled all of Britain.  It is just that now, those referencing Arthur, the Dux Bellorum, will have to be more careful with their superlatives. 

As I wrote above:  Stay tuned for specifics.

Really now, who was this King Arthur fellow?

Carry over from my other blogsite: http://saveriomonachino.wordpress.com/
This is part one (posted April 16 2012) of a long essay on King Arthur, the history and the legend both of which were used extensively in The Lost King. 

When I am writing it is very hard for me to focus in on one particular topic because there is so much going on in the world, and inside my head, that I wish to discuss.  It is even harder though to pass useful storyline information along without trying to delve deep into explanations.  This is a problem when stitching together pieces of a story for a book, and even harder when blogging because with my background in research I know how hard it becomes to convey truth.  But here, on this blog I will give it a try.   As mentioned in all of my books it is hard to focus on one topic and this is obvious in The Lost King.   I will not delve into all of the issues/storylines I used except to lay out a few at this time and over the course of these musings I will try to delve into them a bit deeper than in the book itself.  For example, what would you consider the biggest bio-terror threat we have today?  How about the difference between religious fundamentalism and terrorism?  And, are either new concepts?  How different can ones interpretation of events be if viewed from a different point of view?  And, of course, there is Arthur, The Dux Bellorum.

Since growing up and reading the Once and Future King, the romance of King Arthur legends has always had a place in my heart.  Growing up and taking on a liking for History and Anthropology I had become even more enthralled by the gaps in our understanding of the time period when the Romans pulled out of Britain and the Ingles and Saxons moved in.  Then one day I picked up a copy of Norma Lorre Goodrich’s book King Arthur and I just knew I would find a way to meld it into my storyline.

The lure of King Arthur began drawing me in when I was preteen.  It was also drawing tourists into Britain by the middle of the twelfth century.   Monks and friars from every monastery on the continent, it would seem, swarmed over the terrain, particularly that of Cornwall.  Everywhere in Britain sites bear the name of King Arthur, he is a point of national pride for the British.  Yet some of these sites date from the second millennium B.C. !  I, too, have loved clambering over the headlands at Tintagel, counting off the monoliths at Stonehenge, and peering out to sea from Merlin’s cave.  I have tramped the farmer’s pasture above the Golden Valley of Wales, even thought the site called Arthur’s Grave is plainly labeled Neolithic, or New Stone Age.  I have walked through the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and gazed up at the Tor wondering whether Lancelot could have ridden his horse up its steep sides to pray at Guinevere’s tomb.  And I have come away from all of this with one response: not likely.

Much of it is simply ridiculous.  Arthur was not a figure of the Middle Ages or of the Age of Chivalry, when knighthood was in flower.  His 150 or so warriors were not gallant knights gaily bedight.   He was not born at Tintagel Castle, which was not built until the age of stone castles, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  (In Arthur’s day the site of Tintagel Castle may have been occupied by a Celtic monastery for hermits, however.)  And the rest of the above-mentioned geography will have to go by the board, including Glastonbury (though it is an ancient and holy site), Bath, Dover, South Cadbury, Winchester, Salisbury, London, York, the Cornwall sites, and Brittany.

The legend has not been easy to counter, it has had centuries to swell and be embellished upon.  In the hands of Sir Thomas Malory, who recounted the collapse of his own fifteenth century under the guise of a rise and fall of King Arthur’s ancient Celtic realm, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, among others, Arthur’s real life and deeds have been swept aloft into high tragedy.

Romance and modern comedies have served further to obscure the real Arthur from view, that he may have lived on the earth and reigned is, for many,, not even a question.  What a fate for someone who was for so long a renowned warrior, a defender of the Celtic realm, the greatest and best of kings.  He was said to have been brave and powerful, valiant and resourceful, honorable and beloved- and ideal, just ruler.  Historians used to think that he once ruled all of Britain.  Now they are more careful with their superlatives.