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En Garde, whole no. 4, Winter 1942
Page 10
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page 10. little to with their spare time but read comic books (!) play pool, drink beer, ot ... er! I don't find much intellectual companionship around here, but, then, I don't especially require it; I've plenty to do with any time I may get to myself. Here's one that killed me. From my dear Grandmother, and how typical of loving Grandmothers: "Take good care of your health, Blue Birdie, as you know you have never been very robust. Don't be too energetic and work harder than necessary." Received at a time I thot I was gonna drop dead at any second from exhaustion. And the Sergeant just laughed and laughed and laughed... A reaction to my War Lock letter: "Good for you!! Hurrah, hurrah!!! Mouse bites cat!!!! Weaver gets tough with carping fans!!!!! ** We've been waiting for years for you to finally get sore at some of the mean, useless whining, fault-picking idiocy of some of that gang. Having once reached a boiling point you may get hep to a bunch of the rest of 'em." Fan "B": "Just about time to answer your last two letters before I catch the bus for the club meeting. I guess that's cruel, tho, reminding you of something like that, when you're imprisoned in the equivalent of the fourth dimension -- the land of no shadow, no stf, no fantasy, no nuthin' -- for a guy like you. ** But on the other hand you gotta get a grip on yourself. I feel sorry for you, and no doubt I would feel just as sorry for myself, were I in your place, but you're there and I'm here, and you can't go on feeling sorry for yourself very long, or you'll get yourself into a psycho-mess. And I don't mean pork and beans. ** X felt rather tough for the first week or so, when he was put on the garbage detail, but he has perked up nicely, now, and seems to be becoming well-adjusted. And that is what you'll have to do." But I somehow feel a sorement against I know-not-what, that a fellow like my friend should be wasted on a garbage pail detail. It seems so useless and degrading, a stinking shame, and no pun meant. X is capable of such greater things. His hands are an artist's and his brain a scientist's and his heart a scientifictionist's. It doesn't seem right, somehow... "You don't have to be a flag-waver of a sycophant, but do the way I did in CCC. For the first three months or so -- I was the mostest miserablest critter in existence. Then one day I got to thinking, and I told myself: 'Look here, Y, there's absolutely no sense of you battling upstream against this thing. Feeling resentment and self-pity every time you catch something disagreeable is just gonna make you more and more miserable until you crack. And that ain't good. ** And just drifting along with the current is still a negative attitude. Ya gotta get over the positive side.' So I quit battling the whole army, which was a very sensible thing when I look back on it. So I drifted along with the current but I managed to put in a lick toward the shore on my own account, now and then. ** I realized that there must be something about the place which I could enjoy -- somebody I could make friends with. When you've got a friend, and you're troubles seem to be halved. So I mixed in with the crowd, even tho their thinking ran 50% or more to plain filth, which was repellent to me. I entered a clique with five other guys, individualists all, yet we could cooperate enuf to keep our barracks pretty well under control. We weren't picked on by the non-coms and the rest of the guys held us in as much respect as they did the sarge and the cor-
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page 10. little to with their spare time but read comic books (!) play pool, drink beer, ot ... er! I don't find much intellectual companionship around here, but, then, I don't especially require it; I've plenty to do with any time I may get to myself. Here's one that killed me. From my dear Grandmother, and how typical of loving Grandmothers: "Take good care of your health, Blue Birdie, as you know you have never been very robust. Don't be too energetic and work harder than necessary." Received at a time I thot I was gonna drop dead at any second from exhaustion. And the Sergeant just laughed and laughed and laughed... A reaction to my War Lock letter: "Good for you!! Hurrah, hurrah!!! Mouse bites cat!!!! Weaver gets tough with carping fans!!!!! ** We've been waiting for years for you to finally get sore at some of the mean, useless whining, fault-picking idiocy of some of that gang. Having once reached a boiling point you may get hep to a bunch of the rest of 'em." Fan "B": "Just about time to answer your last two letters before I catch the bus for the club meeting. I guess that's cruel, tho, reminding you of something like that, when you're imprisoned in the equivalent of the fourth dimension -- the land of no shadow, no stf, no fantasy, no nuthin' -- for a guy like you. ** But on the other hand you gotta get a grip on yourself. I feel sorry for you, and no doubt I would feel just as sorry for myself, were I in your place, but you're there and I'm here, and you can't go on feeling sorry for yourself very long, or you'll get yourself into a psycho-mess. And I don't mean pork and beans. ** X felt rather tough for the first week or so, when he was put on the garbage detail, but he has perked up nicely, now, and seems to be becoming well-adjusted. And that is what you'll have to do." But I somehow feel a sorement against I know-not-what, that a fellow like my friend should be wasted on a garbage pail detail. It seems so useless and degrading, a stinking shame, and no pun meant. X is capable of such greater things. His hands are an artist's and his brain a scientist's and his heart a scientifictionist's. It doesn't seem right, somehow... "You don't have to be a flag-waver of a sycophant, but do the way I did in CCC. For the first three months or so -- I was the mostest miserablest critter in existence. Then one day I got to thinking, and I told myself: 'Look here, Y, there's absolutely no sense of you battling upstream against this thing. Feeling resentment and self-pity every time you catch something disagreeable is just gonna make you more and more miserable until you crack. And that ain't good. ** And just drifting along with the current is still a negative attitude. Ya gotta get over the positive side.' So I quit battling the whole army, which was a very sensible thing when I look back on it. So I drifted along with the current but I managed to put in a lick toward the shore on my own account, now and then. ** I realized that there must be something about the place which I could enjoy -- somebody I could make friends with. When you've got a friend, and you're troubles seem to be halved. So I mixed in with the crowd, even tho their thinking ran 50% or more to plain filth, which was repellent to me. I entered a clique with five other guys, individualists all, yet we could cooperate enuf to keep our barracks pretty well under control. We weren't picked on by the non-coms and the rest of the guys held us in as much respect as they did the sarge and the cor-
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