I accidentally read the Reddit thread. The one about YGH. Thought I was going to altmpls, which is the sub for people who think the main sub is stifled by groupthink, but also for people who want to use code words that indicate a particularly illiberal mindset. (And I use “liberal” in the classical sense.) (He said, pretentiously.) (But then again, when don’t I.)

One particularly atomic-level examination of my work suggested an “olympian self-interest” or something like that, and to illustrate the observation he cited last week’s depiction of the Licorice Struggle. I think there was a mention of OCD.

See, the thing about the Licorice Struggle was the meaninglessness of it all IN THE GREATER SCHEME OF THINGS, and how almost nothing we do to fill our hours matters to the Scheme, right? Can I get an amen? No? Fine.

It’s like this. I don’t have to do this. Life would be easier if I didn’t, because I wouldn’t be cursing at myself at 11:30 for typing in the wrong path for a video file or finding a typo or tearing out my hair because I cannot figure out why the type size is shifting around in the Motels names index. None of these things are difficult, and they certainly don’t matter IN THE GREATER SCHEME OF THINGS, but who needs it? There’s absolutely nothing essential about any of this.

But do you want an internet where everything, every post, every picture, every thought, is terribly essential? I mean, I know it’s all ridiculous. I’m a 5’4” puffed-up martinet who spends his spare time adding drop-shadows to cut-up matchbooks, so I think any claim to cosmic importance is prima facie absurd.

But those matchbooks aren’t going to drop-shadow themselves.

Anyway. Everyone has their version of the Licorice Struggle. And while I don't have to do this I can't imagine not doing it. I like it. It's been a part of my life for almost three decades. These matchbooks, these motel postcards, the old comics, the interminable parade of Cellophane ads - it's history.

Another remark - perhaps it was the same post - said I was struck by about 30 moments of pained nostalgia a day, or something like that. Obviously that overstates the case by a factor of 2. Perhaps it’s a function of getting older. And a result of spending a lot of time researching things in old papers and magazines. But it’s also a necessity to staying grounded in your particular place in time, in the culture. It’s like driving: you’re always checking the rear view mirror and the view up ahead.

But that varies depending on the individual, I suppose. The volume at which you hear the past is not constant from person to person. The most boring people are the ones who have no interest in the past at all.

I wonder if the indifference - and of course anyone who isn’t as interested in certain parts of the past to the same level as myself is indifferent, and anyone who is interested more is obsessed - has to do with general dismissal of the past as a settled thing, inasmuch as it was Bad, Mostly, and that’s really all you need to know. It produced all the problems we inherited - us, so noble and good-hearted, unjustly saddled with the sins of this regrettable civilization. It is an act of charity to ignore its particulars, because if anyone brought up its virtues they’d have been schooled on all they omitted. Or, put it this way: if you’re among the proper people who know, you can say cars from the 50s were stylin’. If you’re among people who hold retrograde ideas, and they say cars from the 50s were stylin’, you wince a little and want to mention the terrible stereotypes about women drivers, and how POC faced difficulties in getting fair loans.

All of which is true. Everything has an asterisk, I suppose. Everything has a footnote.

Anyway. Day Three of the COF, the Cluck of Fustering, seemed to draw it all to a conclusion. Onward, excelsior, et cetera.

It’s 1941.

You might ask “military paper?” And you’d be right. Although you didn’t actually give an answer, you asked a question, but you know what I mean.

		Yes, I imagine that would happen.

		The text is too blurry for OCR to render. So: “Crown Prince Koko came Mike II reigning monarch of all Camp Barkeley dogdom and mascot of the Medical Regiment, in a stirring ceremony on the postoffice lawn in Abeline Thursday morning.

I hope you’re getting the picture: the mind thinks “1941, US Army” and thinks “oh everyone’s at war now right.” Nope. War games and dog ceremonies.

See?

Ha ha I’m sick! But it’s okay

Last time I checked, in 2023, Woodard H. Lackey is alive and living in Florida. I prefer not to investigate the matter now and assume he is hale and happy.

And here he is, on the editorial page! He replaces his brother, who - well.

Lead editorial: mistakes were made.

They were getting better, though! Well, good:

The 45th Infantry Division guardsmen saw no major action until they became one of the first National Guard units activated in World War II in 1941. They took part in intense fighting during the invasion of Sicily and the attack on Salerno in the 1943 Italian Campaign. Slowly advancing through Italy, they fought in Anzio and the Beachhead breakout to the capture of Rome. After landing in France during Operation Dragoon, they joined the 1945 drive into Germany that ended the War in Europe.

As for the camp: named after . . .

David Bennes Barkley (also known as David B. Barkeley Cantu; March 31, 1899 – November 9, 1918) was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during World War I in France. After successfully completing a scouting mission behind enemy lines he drowned while swimming back across the Meuse River near Pouilly-sur-Meuse.

Dismantled after the war and “returned to original landowners.”

Obligatory service cartoon, from Mauldin, with the conventions of the era, shall we say.

		Practice up your wolf-whistles, boys, Dotty’s going to be tossed up on the sheet soon.

		Approval from an interesting person.

About her:

Thompson's most significant work abroad took place in Germany in the early 1930s. While working in Munich, Thompson met and interviewed Adolf Hitler for the first time in 1931. This would be the basis for her subsequent book, I Saw Hitler, in which she wrote about the dangers of him winning power in Germany. Thompson described Hitler in the following terms: "He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man.”

Later, when the full force of Nazism had crashed over Europe, Thompson was asked to defend her "little man" remarks; it seemed she had underestimated Hitler.

She was married to Sinclair Lewis.

That'll do! See you hither / yon. Cellophane ads await. It never ends

No, wait, it does! This is the end of the Cellophane collection!