Common Sense	Common Sense Archive

Do you ever imagine what it would be like to run into yourself as you were 20, even 30, years ago?

Some people change a lot over time; some stay the same and just get older. I really can't remember what I was like in 1986. It's useful that I have kept journals over all these years, as at least I have some documents, even though I find them oddly unsatisfactory when I reread them. Why did I leave so much out? Why did I spend so much time chronicling the adventures of people I knew who were only marginally interesting? It's the choices we make.

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What if I had chosen another road in the woods? Where would it have taken me? I have watched as others have taken different roads in the woods and they are on their own personally-formatted journeys. I think if I met my younger self today, I would be impressed by the adamantine quality of the person, though "adamantine" may be a little inexact as it implies an inflexible quality. I've always tried to be open-minded, welcoming to other opinions, but still with a fixed star in my view. Perhaps Saul of Tarsus is my role model, though perhaps a better letter-writer, even if one wonders through how many editors Paul's epistles went through before final publication. Editors matter.

What is the serendipity of acquaintanceship? How does it come to happen you meet the folks you do in life? Is it ever easy? Is it easier when young or when mature? Easier when young because that's the way it is. Mature adults make acquaintances on a more finely-honed shopping-list basis. As well they should. I recall reading James Merrill's wonderful book, A Different Person, a memoir. Merrill was a distinguished poet who lived an interesting life. I believe he was Poet Laureate of Connecticut, though I may be wrong about this; I am unfamiliar with the job qualifications for the position of Connecticut Poet Laureate. Anyway, if he was, I'm sure he was a fine one. His memoir takes us back in time, when JM was just 24. He went off to Europe, where he recounts his various adventures, some rather harrowing, and, as he notes, when he returned to the USA he was a different person, having achieved his mission. It's nice to find out who you are to become. I wish I could finally finish Merrill's masterwork, The Changing Light At Sandover, a very long poetic work derived from his talk with the dead, through the Ouija board, with his companion David Jackson, whom, I think, is still with us. (Merrill died back in the 1990s.) Jackson himself wrote a wonderful novel, privately published in Greece (though in English) about his experiences as a US soldier in Germany right after the end of World War Two. It had about it the feel of Billy Wilder's classic film, A Foreign Affair, particularly the Dietrich part, what the Germans were going through after the Allied conquest. I don't know whether David Jackson wrote much after that, but I wished he had. I loved his novel.

Now I'm distracted by memories of gay men who served in the US military and my thoughts turn to my friend Skip. He was an MP in the army during what I think was called the "Korean Conflict." For some reason, he wound up doing sex policing-- collaring the guys caught in intimate situations in outposts in Korea. I found Skip's job interesting. I asked him to tell me all about it, and he did. Skip noted that he found it sad and a little bit crazy. He told me that the experienced officer-type who was blowing the young serviceman would get hauled up and completely deny everything-- wasn't there, didn't do it, complete fabrication. By contrast, the young grunt-- fresh from the wheatfields of Kansas, perhaps getting his first blow-job and completely intimated by military authority-- just caved and admitted his transgressions and on and on, only to be disciplined or drummed out of uniform and shipped back to the wheatfields, unless he decided to linger at San Francisco after being discharged. Are the MPs in Baghdad any different than Skip and his colleagues were in Korea 55 years ago? Can't there be another way? Must it always be the same old song? Never the B Side? A situation that the counter-culture of the 50s, 60s and 70s tried to correct with a lot of road kill along the way, but there's even more road kill-- what did Thoreau call it?-- in lives of quiet desperation on the A Side. Not pretty to see, in either variety.

What formats us for the A side? Family. Class. Education. Region. Access to information. When did we each learn there was a B side-- and I know I am being presumptuous, but for those of you who did not grow up in the time of the 45 vinyl single, the "B" side was the other number they recorded on the verso just to carry the hit, but as many of us discovered, sometimes the B side had an alternative allure and could lead down a different path in the woods, though the path was often more brightly lit than dark night, though dark nights played their part, if memory serves, aided by the tiny light of a cigarette. Where is the romance of yesteryear? Or is that supposed to be the snows?

Having done the A side and exited left, and having lived in the B side with a certain amount of satisfaction but some restlessness, I am perhaps enough of a dialectician to expect the C side. Can you tell me where to find it?

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com