HILLBILLY J.D. FOR V.P !!!

J.D. WHO ???

All men and women were born with an “original sin”
that was transmitted from generation to generation through sexual intercourse
(So say’s J.D.’s Confirmation/Patron Saint, St. Augustine… 354-430 A.D.)

 

Your Honor… I just finished the excerpt of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy (below). Thank you for sending it along.

J.D. Vance, a recent convert to authoritarian, right-wing Catholicism (his description), is not someone I would hang around with, growing up in my, old Detroit neighborhood. I ran across my fair share of authoritarian, right-wing, Catholics during my many (still ongoing) decades as a “back row” Catholic. But, I have also run across some great, “Followers of Jesus” Catholics. I spent eight years with the Dominican Nuns at St. Scholastica (God bless ’em for their love and educational guidance), four years with the (non right-wing) Basilian priests at Catholic Central (God bless ‘em for accepting me) and six and a half years with the (non right-wing) Jesuits at the University of Detroit undergrad and Law school (God bless ‘em for showing me that the Message of Jesus is paramount). For the record, your Honor, remember, I distance myself from authoritarian, “right-wing” Christians only… not all of my Christian Brothers and Sisters. See Love One Another

While reading the excerpt of Hillbilly Elegy (along with other source materials), I noted J.D. Vance’s, recent selection of St Augustine (354-430 A.D.) as his Confirmation (Patron) Saint. Based on that alone, I must immediately part company with J.D. But, I hear you, your Honor… who am I, a sinner and a lightweight… to challenge the great Saint Augustine ??? But, I ask??? By my birthright, haven’t I been invited to the discussion ???… to partake with my own, God-given free will, logic, deductive reasoning and critical analysis ??? What’s the alternative ??? Simply rely on the theory that I purchase salvation (whatever form it may take) by being a “follower” who lets others do my thinking for me ??? Or, do I simply throw my hands up in fear and choose to become a “True Believer” and give in to “unprovable” right-wing, Christian dogma and the A to Z “indoctrination” of right-wing Christianity ??? And, further on topic… what about the Holy Books ??? Do they provide answers (or support) to “unprovable,” right-wing dogma ??? I think not. See Zealot by Reza Aslan. See Christianity’s Dangerous Memory (A Rediscovery of the Revolutionary Jesus) by Irish Priest, Diarmuid O’Murchu). See also Truth in the Holy Books

St. Augustine, after a rather raucous and rambunctious “youth of the flesh,” eventually got religion (with the help of his Mother, St. Monica). He then poured all his, residual energy into “developing” and “supplementing” the evolving, Roman Catholic philosophy and theology … including St. Augustine’s “unprovable” theory, that all of humanity was born with an “original sin”… an original sin that was transmitted from generation to generation through sexual intercourse. Wow !!! That “original sin” theory doesn’t evolve anything. It just devolves from one unprovable theory to more unprovable theories, (1)requiring the virgin birth for Jesus and (2) supporting the genesis of woman’s, second class citizenship because “that woman” Eve was the temptress who tempted Adam with her Apples, and (3) magnifying Paradise Lost (Milton) for the rest of us Patriarchal males… who, but for Eve, would still be hanging around in Paradise, today, playing golf, fishing, hunting, and watching NASCAR, NFL, NBA, NHL and Wrestle-mania on our 80″ T.V.s in our man caves, while celebrating our “Manliness” by high five-ing our hero, Hulk Hogan. Thank you very much, Eve of Destruction !!! For an excellent, historical analysis on J.D.’s Patron Saint, St. Augustine, see The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt. Me thinks, J.D.’s adulation of St. Augustine shows that, all these years later, J.D. is still living in the Appalachian “time zone” he was raised in… despite his subsequent travels and his Ivy League, Law School degree.

Me also thinks that J.D. has a rather sophomoric grip on history and the balance of world power. Just yesterday (7/29/2024) on the radio, J.D. tell us Americans that, during George W. Bush’s Iraq War II, he (J.D.) was in Iraq (doing interviews for Marine media coverage), and he knows, therefore, that it would be a waste of American resources to give any further support to the Ukraine. What a distorted sense of reality and history. The only equivalency between Iraq War II and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that both America and Russia were the imperial invaders of other people’s countries. When George W. invaded Iraq to get Saddam (and Saddam’s non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction and for Saddam’s non-existent role in 9-11), America’s aggression was similar to Putin’s imperial-power, invasion of the Ukraine. Wake up J.D. I know you were not around during Neville Chamberlain’s “appeasement” policy with Hitler. I know you were not around during the the Cold War and the Berlin Wall, but surely history teaches both of us that Dictators in general and Russia in particular are the arch enemies of the American Dream… Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Supplying the Ukraine with weapons to stop the Dictator Putin and the aggressor Russia (without putting our boys in harm’s way) is (at a minimum) a reliable strategy to make it too costly for Putin and Russia to destroy the NATO Alliance and steamroll Europe. No wonder the Marine Corps kept you out of the firing line and away from Officer Candidate School. Your mercurial “quick change,” opportunist philosophy is dangerous to America in times of both… War and Peace.

Open Mind…

Despite some early misgivings on J.D. Vance, I tried keep an open mind when reading a part of his Hillbilly Elegy. I tried my best to check my Doubting Thomas persona with the hat check lady at my go-to, lap dance emporium, Trumps, on East 8 mile Rd in Detroit… where my older Brother Marty and I once held forth as Senior and Junior Bouncers, respectively (even if not so respectfully). For me, the best way to strive for an open mind is to look for common ground with J.D. At age 14, I did take a solo, all night train ride out of the Michigan Central depot (in Detroit) to the Ozark Mountains in Missouri to play baseball for three weeks in Salem, Missouri (from Sun-up to Sun down). But, I can’t lay claim to the Appalachian mindset of J.D. because, like you, your Honor, I grew up a City kid… not an Appalachian Hillbilly like J.D. Nonetheless, I was able to find some fertile, common ground in the “ignorance” and “dysfunction” I once shared with J.D.

Familial Ignorance…

Common ground ??? I immediately sympathized with J.D. and his Grandmother (Mamaw) as they were peering into the EWWP (Esoteric World of Word Puzzles) college scholarship forms. Those forms would have defeated my family from jump street, including my Greatest Generation parents… (1) My oh so smart and strong-willed, 8th. grade educated, Irish Mother and (2) My oh so brilliant and kind, 9th. grade educated, bookie Father. Thank heaven I had a football scholarship for undergrad, and I didn’t have to fill out any forms… except the form that says, You pay and I play. I do remember, however, my Father telling me that, even though Cornell recruited me, their Football Scholarships were somewhat limited. The minimal amount my family would have to pay (over and above the scholarship) exceeded available family resources. Ivy League, Cornell (in the beautiful, Finger Lakes region of up-State New York) was over budget and out of the question.

But, the Air Force Academy, on the other hand… was certainly the best deal around for our budget. As my bookie Father would say, “Lauck, you play, they pay and we pay… ZERO. How can you get hurt ??? You can’t. Plus three square a day, in good times and three square a day, during the next Great Depression. As long as food is part of the deal, you can’t get hurt.” My Father’s quip would sound eerily haunting to all those poor souls who (like my parents) suffered from the ghost of “food insecurity” during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

After a short stay at the Air Force Academy, I was forced to accept that… my dream to be a Century Series aircraft, Jet Fighter Pilot would never be a reality (inner ear problem causing motion sickness during flight training with T33 trainer Jets at Lowery Air Force base in Denver). Next dream up… “Frederick ‘Atticus Finch’ Lauck, Trial Lawyer… at your service.” Stand aside Clarence Darrow. In pursuit of the next dream up, I ended up at the University of Detroit on a football scholarship (full ride… tuition, books, room and board) playing an Independent schedule against the likes of Miami, Memphis State, Boston College, Kentucky, and others. After getting my undergraduate degree, I borrowed $600 from the government for the first semester of Law School and slept in the unfinished basement of my families’ 900 square foot, Bungalow… sans the necessary buffer of my Father who was on a “free the Old Man up” sabbatical. Then, thank heaven… an academic scholarship for the remainder of Law School. Thank you… Dean Phil Colista and Dean, Father Paul Harbrecht S.J.

What really happened ??? Looking back over my shoulder at Law School, I think Professor/Dean, Phil Colista Esq. saw my struggle… no car to get to Law School in downtown Detroit, the only kid not wearing a sport coat or suit to class, an ill-fitting haircut, a kid struggling with the art of “civility” and use of language, a “rough and tumble around the edges” kid in need of a hand up. Two years after Law School graduation, Bill Cooney Esq. gave his law partners (Bob Rutt, Bill Stanczyk and John Peacock) that very same description when he hired me for Plunkett Cooney (after I left the Prosecutor’s Office). As Bill Cooney told his dubious partners, “No problem, I’ll smooth Lauck over“… With Bob Rutt asking, “Who the hell’s going to smooth you over, Cooney” ???

Phil Colista (God bless him) also got me an interview for my first, real, Trial Lawyer job… Wayne County Prosecutor’s office… with Terry Boyle (later a Recorders Court Judge) interviewing and hiring me on the spot. Terry Boyle, was one of the most loquacious men I have ever known in my lifetime, but a very decent, kind and interesting man. God bless Terry and his wife, Patti Boyle… former Michigan Supreme Court Justice and Federal District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan.

No doubt, the Marine Corps brought out a side of J.D. Vance he didn’t know existed. The Marine Corps broke him of his bad habits (lack of discipline and much irresponsibility) and then built him up with “commitment” and “confidence.” That’s what Military Service does for lost young men, like J.D. But, if I fall silent for a moment… I can hear the irony in my Father’s voice telling one and all, It’s great being a Marine and it’s great to be a Trial Lawyer… so long as you don’t overplay those combative personas in everyday life. Or, as comedian, George Carlin, once quipped about ex-Marines, “They have pills to get over that, now.” See the movie The Great Santini starring Robert Duval. Ditto for Trial Lawyers. See The Verdict, starring Paul Newman and, maybe Justice for All starring Al Pacino. Like many Marines and many Trial Lawyers, society does need an “antidote” for our combative personalities… when day is done and we re-enter the normal world where our loved ones hope we can embrace them with peace and joy.

Although I was never lost like J.D., my limited Military career at two Military Schools (and the Air Force Reserves) just “reinforced” the strength and discipline of my (shall I say) non-doting, Irish Mother and the “boot camp” she put me through every day at home base… with my Father’s watchful eye making sure my Mother didn’t go too far over the top. Hey, George Carlin, do they have pills for sons of non-doting, Irish Mothers ??? The discipline I was surrounded with at home and in the Catholic School system and on the athletic fields and in the Military schools I attended… set me up for success as a Trial Lawyer. That is beyond debate.

More common ground. Like J.D. Vance’s Marine Corps boot camp, I went to the Air Force Academy boot camp (after I had already spent one year at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell at their boot camp… awaiting my “appointment” to the Air Force Academy from my U.S. House Rep, Martha Griffiths). For transport to the Air Force Academy, I had to pay the airfare, Detroit to Denver, where the Academy, football Coaches awaited the incoming-freshmen, football players… to drive us 60 to 70 miles South from the airport in Denver to the Academy in Colorado Springs (all before cell phones and Uber rides). Well, the flight was delayed in Detroit for an hour and a half, and when my Catholic Central Classmate, Paul O’Brien, and I arrived, at the Airport in Denver, there was no ride. We got there too late.

So, as O’Brien panicked, I took charge and figured out the plan. We will walk a couple miles out of the airport grounds to get to the freeway South, and, from there, we hitchhike to Colorado Springs. Piece of cake. Just another adventure “in a day, in life of.” What I lacked in “depression” at age 19 (nothing), I made up for in aggressiveness (a lot). Looking back, I take some consolation in the fact that it was a lot easier to hitchhike down to Colorado Springs in the Summer of 1962 than it was to hitchhike back from Florida to Detroit in the dead of winter 1964 at age 21… listening to the Beatles I want to hold your hand on the radios of those motorized wayfarers who took pity on me and picked me up because, well because… I was freezing to death and there was nobody to hold my hand.

Back to the Air Force Academy. My plan worked (as I knew it would), and (a couple hours later) here we are, Paul O’Brien and me… at the gate of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs ready for our new lives. Eventually, O’Brien and I found our way to the Football team picnic… just in time to say hello and goodbye. Hello to the rest of the football team. Goodbye to the food. It was gone. So much for my Father’s words of “three square a day.” I began the Air Force Academy, boot camp the next day on an empty stomach, something I was going to have to… get used to.

I checked in at 6’2” tall and 192 lbs with a 29 inch waist. I was lean and mean like yon Cassius (in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar) and strong Like a Rock…“My hands were steady, My eyes were clear and bright. My walk had purpose. My steps were quick and light. The height of Summer, I never felt that strong. Like a Rock” (Bob Seger). In contrast, J.D. Vance was a chubby kid, a non-athletic, wannabe “networker“… hoping to network with the private, Golf Club members (as he tells us). No private Country Clubs for me. I saw my dream as a Trial Lawyer … chasing down the rich and the “Par 4” Country Club members and holding a mirror up to them as the “voice” of the voiceless (my own parents). Even as a 13-year-old Caddie at Detroit Golf Club (with Caddie Master, Hugh Syron, knowing I didn’t have State “working papers”)… repeat for emphasis, even as a 13-year-old caddie… I knew I was never going to join a private Golf Course. Chase the Club members around the Courtroom and hold up a mirror to their tawdry business dealings. Yes. That had my name all over it. Break bread with them, fraternize with them and chase those illusive birdies on the Country Club course. That was never (repeat for emphasis, “never”) in the cards for me. Still isn’t.

More common ground. J.D. Vance lost his baby fat during Marine boot camp, while I lost almost 45 lbs. of non-baby fat at the Air Force Academy boot camp… from 192 lbs. down to (below) 150. Malnourished, I was then 6′ 2” tall and 148 lbs.… not, shall I say, a prized football recruit. Why the weight loss ??? Because (different from the Marine Corps’ boot camp), first year cadets at the Air Force Academy had to sit at the dining table at (full brace) “attention”… on the first 6” of our chairs, back arched, stomach in, shoulders back and down, head held high and straight, but eyes down… unless someone passed food to you or unless some “head of the table” officer or upper class-man asked you a military question. Meals at the Academy were a fast paced, machine gun cacophony of rat-a-tat-tat, verbal assaults filling up the large dining hall… with high stakes, technical military questions. If you didn’t have the answer or if you were a little slow on the draw… you were told to “Sit Up” !!! Translated, you were done eating for that meal. Given my penchant to question why (rather than to do or die), I “Sat up” !!! many a meal and lost 40 plus lbs. in the process… not baby fat, mind you… like J.D. My Father visited toward the end of Academy boot camp and walked right past me as I said “hello” without him even recognizing me. He was shocked and dismayed… a sad day for both of us. The three square a day had not yet taken hold at the Air Force Academy I knew. Meals were more elusive and round like wheels… than square. Now you see ‘em, now you don’t… as they rolled away.

More common ground. Like J.D.’s story about his willful ignorance in almost accepting a 20% car loan until another Marine directed him to a “Navy Fed” bank. Reminds me of the first Jury trial I ever had… prosecuting a man who embezzled an elderly “Lonely Hearts Club” widow out of her four bank accounts, wiping out her $10,000 life savings. I tried that first case in the Old Recorder’s Court building, the one with the antebellum (Gone with the Wind) staircase up to the second floor Clerk’s office (Southwest corner of St Antoine and Clinton Street). I had no time to prepare (not unusual in those days… as Prosecutors put great reliance on the Police Officer in Charge of the case to get the Prosecutor up to speed, really quick). My problem ??? I never tried a case before, and I never had a bank account before. So there I was, a 26-year-old… very willing, but “wet behind the ears” kid… looking at four bank books, trying to decipher what all those Chinese, chicken scratch entries meant. Dearborn visiting Judge, John Kadella entered the Courtroom, called the case, and off I went on my maiden voyage.

In the middle of my rather disjointed and somewhat opaque Opening Statement (to be kind to myself), the Jury senses that I am, hopelessly, lost. And so, I was. I had no choice. I begged the Jury’s indulgence, telling them that this is “my very first trial“… so I need a short break to consult with the Police Officer in Charge… after which I’ll start all over again with a brand new and improved opening statement. Visiting Judge John Kadella just shakes his head, and defense Counsel, Ron Gold, being the comical and rambunctious dwarf he was, jumps up and down, shouting out… “Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is only my second trial.” Judge Kadella was still shaking his head at this pitiful, irrelevant display of unprofessionalism, as large, Black male juror, with his hands folded over a rather prodigious belly, speaks out of turn from the Jury Box… in a stage whisper (that could be heard all the way out into the hallway), “Well, this is going to be a real Battle of the Lightweights.” And so it was, with 11 for conviction and with the large, Black, male foreman… the lone dissent for acquittal. All I could do was to take solace in the words, “I have met the enemy, and he is me” And, after losing the first five trials I prosecuted, I finally convicted some poor slug, but he escaped from jail, and I was left behind to reconsider my professional calling as a Prosecutor.

Bottom line. J.D… your story, Hillbilly Elegy, although having some, entertainment value, is not unique. Nor is your story of family ignorance and dysfunction, or the overcoming of it… unique. J.D. these stories are everywhere in America (and in the larger world), North, South, East and West… especially amongst America’s Greatest Generation and their children.

Burying Our Dead…

(The Broken People of Nothingness)

More common ground. The death of J. D. Vance’s grandmother, Mamaw, is also a poignant replay of… death hitting home. First, your Honor, that’s something we are going to be called on to do (too soon for our liking) as we are both aware. A year ago, you lost your husband (and my dear Law School classmate) Chuckie Goldfarb… that Lovely Leprechaun of the Lost Art of Literary License. Second, I remember the overwhelming sadness of my Mother’s family, and their attenuated grip on life. 10 kids in my Mother’s family, and 8 alcoholics (with her brother Sherwood, a Lumberjack, killed in the wilds of Minnesota, dying early at age 17… before he had the chance to turn to the drink). My Mother’s family, not quite as destitute as my “only child” Father… who was as destitute, forlorn and malnourished as anyone during the Great Depression. My Mother’s Father, (my Grandfather) Charles Montroy, was one of the “lucky ones,” the working class fortunates of the Great Depression… always away from home as a Stevedore and later cook on the Iron Ore Carriers of the Great Lakes. The Mariners all knew the good ship and crew were bone to be chewed… when the Gales of November came early (Gordon Lightfoot… The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald).

• J.D. Vance is just another, authoritarian, right wing, Catholic that America will now have to deal with… as the rest of us (Christians and non-Christians) try to keep a “Separation” between Church and State, so America doesn’t end up like the theocracies of the Middle East and lose our American Dream of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
• J.D.’s story, Hillbilly Elegy, although somewhat entertaining, is not unique. Nor is his story of family ignorance, dysfunction, or the burying of his dead or the overcoming of it. These stories are everywhere, North, South, East and West… especially amongst America’s Greatest Generation and their children.

 

Fred Lauck

The Cremation of Sam McGee

(BY ROBERT W. SERVICE)

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; … then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

 

Fred Lauck

p.s.

While “poor” J.D. Vance was practicing golf, with a free set of McGregors…

• I was a 9 year-old in 1951 (telling the Station Manager that I was 12) so I could get a Detroit Times route of 60 customers (with my Irish Mother backing up my lie), making $12 a week (big money for a third grader)
• Later a 13 year-old (sans working papers) hitchhiking down 7 mile everyday from Southfield Road to caddy at Detroit Golf Course so I could add some money to my own support.
• Later as a 16 year-old, I would come home from Catholic Central at 6:30 P.M (after practicing the sport of the season… Football, Boxing, Wrestling and Baseball) and eat and study for 2.5 hours and at 9: P.M. set out to deliver my night Free Press route (Summer or Winter, a few times sick with the flu) so I could pay my tuition to C.C. (about $150 a semester). My Mother’s rule… “No job, no sports.”

 

I thought this J.D guy was a poor kid, not a golfer with a set of free, “McGregor” clubs. And, as I was going about life, I certainly had no goal to join the Country Club and fraternize with the members to advance myself economically. It was my goal to get an education, be the first one in my family to graduate from High School, get a college scholarship for football, become a lawyer (like Atticus Finch) so I would be of equal power to the rich Par Fours of the country club, and take them on. I was competitive, so much so that I didn’t need any rich friends. I needed to be the voice for the poor and downtrodden, and go “head to head” with the rich in a Courtroom and see who was going to still be standing when the case ended.

And, when J.D. was being mocked by the Bully, where was his courage to stand up to the Bully rather than take abuse for “four hours.” My Father taught me to fight and I was good, very fast hands (quicker than the Bullies could duck). And, as my Father taught me, “”to beat a Bully, you don’t have to vanquish him. You just need to make it difficult for the Bully so he looks for easier prey next time around.”

Who is this J.D.  a pretender or a contender ??? I am shocked how this guy created and sold himself. My Mother was as tough as they get (and unpredictable). My brother was in the Joint on Coopers street in Jackson Michigan two separate occasions (for fighting cops), and, finally, fighting for the Heavy weight Championship of the Joint against Alvin “Blue” Lewis who got out and fought Muhammed Ali in an 11 round slugfest in Croke Park in Dublin Ireland in 1972. See David Hannigan’s book The Big Fight with Blue Lewis mentioning his fight in the joint with my Brother.  My old man was “booking” horses (and later football games). My sister’s 20 year-old boyfriend was killed in a motorcycle accident with me close by when it happened , and with me delivering the News. Her later husband was killed (accidentally or otherwise) with a “hot shot” of heroin, and my other sister raped in her own rental house in Detroit, and me trying to find money for her to move, and a house for my Mother… so we could make the world go away. Luxury it wasn’t. Depression day in and day out, it was. When I write, I try to make light of the past. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. And, why should they ??? I lived life on my terms, and I got lucky and made it work.

Even in sleep
Pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart
Until in our own despair
Comes wisdom
Through the awful grace of God.
(Aeschylus, Greek Poet)

When I write, I try to make light of the past. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. And, why should they ??? I lived life on my terms, and I got lucky and made it work.

Life is a picnic for no-one. We all have our own struggle. You included… as you, a Women, grew up in a Man’s world, and acquitted your self… Oh, so well..

I’ll read more of Big Deal, J.D. Vance later. For now that’s all could take.

But thank you, your Honor for sending the excerpt along.

Fred Lauck

p.s.

EXCERPT

“Chapter 10 During my last year of high school, I tried out for the varsity golf team. For about a year, I’d taken golf lessons from an old golf pro. The summer before senior year, I got a job at a local golf course so I could practice for free. Mamaw never showed any interest in sports, but she encouraged me to learn golf because “that’s where rich people do business.” Though wise in her own way, Mamaw knew little about the business habits of rich people, and I told her as much. “Shut up, you fucker,” she told me. “Everybody knows rich people love to golf.” But when I practiced my swing in the house (I didn’t use a ball, so the only damage I did was to the floor) she demanded that I stop ruining her carpet. “But, Mamaw,” I protested sarcastically, “if you don’t let me practice, I’ll never get to do any business on the golf course. I might as well drop out of high school now and get a job bagging groceries.” “You smart-ass. If I wasn’t crippled, I’d get up right now and smack your head and ass together.” So she helped me pay for my lessons and asked her baby brother (my uncle Gary), the youngest of the Blanton boys, to find me some old clubs. He delivered a nice set of MacGregors, better than anything we could have afforded on our own, and I practiced as often as I could. By the time golf tryouts rolled around, I had mastered enough of a golf swing not to embarrass myself. I didn’t make the team, though I did show enough improvement to justify practicing with my friends who had made the team, and that was all I really wanted. I learned that Mamaw was right: Golf was a rich person’s game. At the course where I worked, few of our customers came from Middletown’s working-class neighborhoods. On my first day of golf practice, I showed up in dress shoes, thinking that was what golf shoes were. When an enterprising young bully noticed before the first tee that I was wearing a pair of Kmart brown loafers, he proceeded to mock me mercilessly for the next four hours. I resisted the urge to bury my putter in his goddamned ear, remembering Mamaw’s sage advice to “act like you’ve been there.” (A note about hillbilly loyalty: Reminded of that story recently, Lindsay launched into a tirade about how much of a loser the kid was. The incident occurred thirteen years ago.) I knew in the back of my mind that decisions were coming about my future. All of my friends planned to go to college; that I had such motivated friends was due to Mamaw’s influence. By the time I was in seventh grade, many of my neighborhood friends were already smoking weed. Mamaw found out and forbade me to see any of them. I recognize that most kids ignore instructions like these, but most kids don’t receive them from the likes of Bonnie Vance. She promised that if she saw me in the presence of any person on the banned list, she would run him over with her car. “No one would ever find out,” she whispered menacingly. With my friends headed for college, I figured I’d do the same. I scored well enough on the SAT to overcome my earlier bad grades, and I knew that the only two schools I had any interest in attending—Ohio State and Miami University—would both accept me. A few months before I graduated, I had (admittedly, with little thought) settled on Ohio State. A large package arrived in the mail, filled with financial aid information from the university. There was talk of Pell Grants, subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, scholarships, and something called “work-study.” It was all so exciting, if only Mamaw and I could figure out what it meant. We puzzled over the forms for hours before concluding that I could purchase a decent home in Middletown with the debt I’d incur to go to college. We hadn’t actually started the forms yet—that would require another herculean effort on another day. Excitement turned to apprehension, but I reminded myself that college was an investment in my future. “It’s the only damned thing worth spending money on right now,” Mamaw said. She was right, but as I worried less about the financial aid forms, I began to worry for another reason: I wasn’t ready. Not all investments are good investments. All of that debt, and for what? To get drunk all the time and earn terrible grades? Doing well in college required grit, and I had far too little of it. My high school record left much to be desired: dozens of absences and tardy arrivals, and no school activities to speak of. I was undoubtedly on an upward trajectory, but even toward the end of high school, C’s in easy classes revealed a kid unprepared for the rigors of advanced education. In Mamaw’s house, I was healing, yet as we combed through those financial aid papers, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had a long way to go. Everything about the unstructured college experience terrified me—from feeding myself healthy food to paying my own bills. I’d never done any of those things. But I knew that I wanted more out of my life. I knew that I wanted to excel in college, get a good job, and give my family the things I’d never had. I just wasn’t ready to start that journey. That’s when my cousin Rachael—a Marine Corps veteran—advised that I consider the Corps: “They’ll whip your ass into shape.” Rachael was Uncle Jimmy’s oldest daughter, and thus the dean of our generation of grandchildren. All of us, even Lindsay, looked up to Rachael, so her advice carried enormous weight. The 9/ 11 attacks had occurred only a year earlier, during my junior year of high school; like any self-respecting hillbilly, I considered heading to the Middle East to kill terrorists. But the prospect of military service—the screaming drill instructors, the constant exercise, the separation from my family—frightened me. Until Rachael told me to talk to a recruiter—implicitly arguing that she thought I could handle it—joining the Marines seemed as plausible as flying to Mars. Now, just weeks before I owed a tuition deposit to Ohio State, I could think of nothing but the Marine Corps. So one Saturday in late March, I walked into a military recruiter’s office and asked him about the Marine Corps. He didn’t try to sell me on anything. He told me I’d make very little money and I might even go to war. “But they’ll teach you about leadership, and they’ll turn you into a disciplined young man.” This piqued my interest, but the notion of J.D. the U.S. Marine still inspired disbelief. I was a pudgy, longhaired kid. When our gym teacher told us to run a mile, I’d walk at least half. I had never woken up before six A.M. And here was this organization promising that I’d rise regularly at five A.M. and run multiple miles per day. I went home and considered my options. I reminded myself that my country needed me, and that I’d always regret not participating in America’s newest war. I thought about the GI Bill and how it would help me trade indebtedness for financial freedom. I knew that, most of all, I had no other choice. There was college, or nothing, or the Marines, and I didn’t like either of the first two options. Four years in the Marines, I told myself, would help me become the person I wanted to be. But I didn’t want to leave home. Lindsay had just had her second kid, an adorable little girl, and was expecting a third, and my nephew was still a toddler. Lori’s kids were still babies, too. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to do it. And I knew that if I waited too long, I’d talk myself out of enlisting. So two weeks later, as the Iraq crisis turned into the Iraq war, I signed my name on a dotted line and promised the Marine Corps the first four years of my adult life. At first my family scoffed. The Marines weren’t for me, and people let me know it. Eventually, knowing I wouldn’t change my mind, everyone came around, and a few even seemed excited. Everyone, that is, save Mamaw. She tried every manner of persuasion: “You’re a fucking idiot; they’ll chew you up and spit you out.” “Who’s going to take care of me?” “You’re too stupid for the Marines.” “You’re too smart for the Marines.” “With everything that’s going on in the world, you’ll get your head blown off.” “Don’t you want to be around for Lindsay’s kids?” “I’m worried, and I don’t want you to go.” Though she came to accept the decision, she never liked it. Shortly before I left for boot camp, the recruiter visited to speak with my fragile grandmother. She met him outside, stood up as straight as she could, and glowered at him. “Set one foot on my fucking porch, and I’ll blow it off,” she advised. “I thought she might be serious,” he later told me. So they had their talk while he stood in the front yard. My greatest fear when I left for boot camp wasn’t that I’d be killed in Iraq or that I’d fail to make the cut. I hardly worried about those things. But when Mom, Lindsay, and Aunt Wee drove me to the bus that would take me to the airport and on to boot camp from there, I imagined my life four years later. And I saw a world without my grandmother in it. Something inside me knew that she wouldn’t survive my time in the Marines. I’d never come home again, at least not permanently. Home was Middletown with Mamaw in it. And by the time I finished with the Marines, Mamaw would be gone. Marine Corps boot camp lasts thirteen weeks, each with a new training focus. The night I arrived in Parris Island, South Carolina, an angry drill instructor greeted my group as we disembarked from the plane. He ordered us onto a bus; after a short trip, another drill instructor ordered us off the bus and onto the famed “yellow footprints.” Over the next six hours, I was poked and prodded by medical personnel, assigned equipment and uniforms, and lost all of my hair. We were allowed one phone call, so I naturally called Mamaw and read off of the card they gave me: “I have arrived safely at Parris Island. I will send my address soon. Goodbye.” “Wait, you little shithead. Are you okay?” “Sorry, Mamaw, can’t talk. But yes, I’m okay. I’ll write as soon as I can.” The drill instructor, overhearing my two extra lines of conversation, asked sarcastically whether I’d made enough time “for her to tell you a fucking story.” That was the first day. There are no phone calls in boot camp. I was allowed only one, to call Lindsay when her half brother died. I realized, through letters, how much my family loved me. While most other recruits—that’s what they called us; we had to earn the title “marine” by completing the rigors of boot camp—received a letter every day or two, I sometimes received a half dozen each night. Mamaw wrote every day, sometimes several times, offering extended thoughts on what was wrong with the world in some and few-sentence streams of consciousness in others. Most of all, Mamaw wanted to know how my days were going and reassure me. Recruiters told families that what most of us needed were words of encouragement, and Mamaw delivered that in spades. As I struggled with screaming drill instructors and physical fitness routines that pushed my out-of-shape body to its limits, I read every day that Mamaw was proud of me, that she loved me, and that she knew I wouldn’t give up. Thanks to either my wisdom or inherited hoarder tendencies, I managed to keep nearly every one of the letters I received from my family. Many of them shed an interesting light on the home I left behind. A letter from Mom, asking me what I might need and telling me how proud she is of me. “I was babysitting [Lindsay’s kids],” she reports. “They played with slugs outside. They squeezed one and killed it. But I threw it away and told them they didn’t because Kam got a little upset, thinking he killed it.” This is Mom at her best: loving and funny, a woman who delighted in her grandchildren. In the same letter, a reference to Greg, likely a boyfriend who has since disappeared from my memory. And an insight into our sense of normalcy: “Mandy’s husband Terry,” she starts, referencing a friend of hers, “was arrested on a probation violation and sent to prison. So they are all doing OK.” Lindsay also wrote often, sending multiple letters in the same envelope, each on a different-colored piece of paper, with instructions on the back—“ Read this one second; this is the last one.” Every single letter contained some reference to her kids. I learned of my oldest niece’s successful potty training; my nephew’s soccer matches; my younger niece’s early smiles and first efforts to reach for things. After a lifetime of shared triumphs and tragedies, we both adored her kids more than anything else. Almost all of the letters I sent home asked her to “kiss the babies and tell them that I love them.” Cut off for the first time from home and family, I learned a lot about myself and my culture. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the military is not a landing spot for low-income kids with no other options. The sixty-nine members of my boot camp platoon included black, white, and Hispanic kids; rich kids from upstate New York and poor kids from West Virginia; Catholics, Jews, Protestants, and even a few atheists. I was naturally drawn to those like me. “The person I talk to most,” I wrote to my family in my first letter home, “is from Leslie County, Kentucky. He talks like he’s from Jackson. I was telling him how much bullshit it was that Catholics got all the free time they did. They get it because of the way the church schedule works. He is definitely a country kid, ’cause he said, ‘What’s a Catholic?’ And I told him that it was just another form of Christianity, and he said, ‘I might have to try that out.’” Mamaw understood precisely where he came from. “Down in that part of Kentucky, everybody’s a snake handler,” she wrote back, only partially joking. During my time away, Mamaw showed vulnerability that I’d never seen before. Whenever she received a letter from me, she would call my aunt or sister, demanding that someone come to her house immediately and interpret my chicken scratch. “I love you a big bunch and I miss you a bunch I forget you aren’t here I think you will come down the stairs and I can holler at you it is just a feeling you aren’t really gone. My hands hurt today that arthritis I guess. . . . I’ll go for now write more later love you please take care.” Mamaw’s letters never contained the necessary punctuation and always included some articles, usually from Reader’s Digest, to occupy my time. She could still be classic Mamaw: mean and ferociously loyal. About a month into my training, I had a nasty exchange with a drill instructor, who took me aside for a half hour, forcing me to alternate jumping jacks, sit-ups, and short sprints until I was completely exhausted. It was par for the course in boot camp, something nearly everyone faced at one point or another. If anything, I was lucky to have avoided it for so long. “Dearest J.D.,” Mamaw wrote when she learned of the incident, “I must say I have been waiting for them dick face bastards to start on you—and now they have. Words aren’t invented to describe how they piss me off. . . . You just keep on doing the best you can do and keep thinking about this stupid asshole with an IQ of 2 thinking he is Bobby bad ass but he wears girls underwear. I hate all of them.” When I read that outburst, I figured Mamaw had gotten it all off her chest. But the next day, she had more to say: “Hello sweet heart all I can think about is them dicks screaming at you that is my job not them fuckers. Just kidding I know you will be what ever you want to be because you are smart something they aren’t and they know it I hate them all really hate their guts. Screaming is part of the game they play . . . you carry on as best you can you will come out ahead.” I had the meanest old hillbilly staunchly in my corner, even if she was hundreds of miles away. In boot camp, mealtime is a marvel of efficiency. You walk through a cafeteria line, holding your tray for the service staff. They drop all of the day’s offerings on your plate, both because you’re afraid to speak up about your least favorite items and because you’re so hungry that you’d gladly eat a dead horse. You sit down, and without looking at your plate (that would be unprofessional) or moving your head (that would also be unprofessional), you shovel food into your mouth until you’re told to stop. The entire process takes no longer than eight minutes, and if you’re not quite full by the end, you certainly suffer from indigestion (which feels about the same). The only discretionary part of the exercise is dessert, set aside on small plates at the end of the assembly line. During the first meal of boot camp, I grabbed the offered piece of cake and marched to my seat. If nothing else tastes good, I thought, this cake shall certainly be the exception. Then my drill instructor, a skinny white man with a Tennessee twang, stepped in front of me. He looked me up and down with his small, intense eyes and offered a query: “You really need that cake, don’t you, fat-ass?” I prepared to answer, but the question was apparently rhetorical, as he smacked the cake out of my hands and moved on to his next victim. I never grabbed the cake again. There was an important lesson here, but not one about food or self-control or nutrition. If you’d told me that I’d react to such an insult by cleaning up the cake and heading back to my seat, I’d never have believed you. The trials of my youth instilled a debilitating self-doubt. Instead of congratulating myself on having overcome some obstacles, I worried that I’d be overcome by the next ones. Marine Corps boot camp, with its barrage of challenges big and small, began to teach me I had underestimated myself. Marine Corps boot camp is set up as a life-defining challenge. From the day you arrive, no one calls you by your first name. You’re not allowed to say “I” because you’re taught to mistrust your own individuality. Every question begins with “This recruit”—This recruit needs to use the head (the bathroom); This recruit needs to visit the corpsman (the doctor). The few idiots who arrive at boot camp with Marine Corps tattoos are mercilessly berated. At every turn, recruits are reminded that they are worthless until they finish boot camp and earn the title “marine.” Our platoon started with eighty-three, and by the time we finished, sixty-nine remained. Those who dropped out—mostly for medical reasons—served to reinforce the worthiness of the challenge. Every time the drill instructor screamed at me and I stood proudly; every time I thought I’d fall behind during a run and kept up; every time I learned to do something I thought impossible, like climb the rope, I came a little closer to believing in myself. Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life. From Middletown’s world of small expectations to the constant chaos of our home, life had taught me that I had no control. Mamaw and Papaw had saved me from succumbing entirely to that notion, and the Marine Corps broke new ground. If I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching learned willfulness. The day I graduated from boot camp was the proudest of my life. An entire crew of hillbillies showed up for my graduation—eighteen in total—including Mamaw, sitting in a wheelchair, buried underneath a few blankets, looking frailer than I remembered. I showed everyone around base, feeling like I had just won the lottery, and when I was released for a ten-day leave the next day, we caravanned back to Middletown. On my first day home from boot camp, I walked into the barbershop of my grandfather’s old friend. Marines have to keep their hair short, and I didn’t want to slack just because no one was watching. For the first time, the corner barber—a dying breed even though I didn’t know it at the time—greeted me as an adult. I sat in his chair, told some dirty jokes (most of which I’d learned only weeks earlier), and shared some boot camp stories. When he was about my age, he was drafted into the army to fight in Korea, so we traded some barbs about the Army and the Marines. After the haircut, he refused to take my money and told me to stay safe. He’d cut my hair before, and I’d walked by his shop nearly every day for eighteen years. Yet it was the first time he’d ever shaken my hand and treated me as an equal. I had a lot of those experiences shortly after boot camp. In those first days as a marine—all spent in Middletown—every interaction was a revelation. I’d shed forty-five pounds, so many of the people I knew barely recognized me. My friend Nate—who would later serve as one of my groomsmen—did a double take when I extended my hand at a local mall. Perhaps I carried myself a little differently. My old hometown seemed to think so. The new perspective went both ways. Many of the foods that I ate once now violated the fitness standards of a marine. In Mamaw’s house, everything was fried—chicken, pickles, tomatoes. That bologna sandwich on toast with crumbled potato chips as topping no longer appeared healthy. Blackberry cobbler, once considered as healthy as any dish built around fruit (blackberries) and grains (flour), lost its luster. I began asking questions I’d never asked before: Is there added sugar? Does this meat have a lot of saturated fat? How much salt? It was just food, but I was already realizing that I’d never look at Middletown the same way again. In a few short months, the Marine Corps had already changed my perspective. I soon left home for a permanent assignment in the Marine Corps, and life at home continued on apace. I tried to return as often as I could, and with long weekends and generous Marine Corps leave, I usually saw my family every few months. The kids looked a bit bigger every time I saw them, and Mom moved in with Mamaw not long after I left for boot camp, though she didn’t plan to stay. Mamaw’s health seemed to improve: She was walking better and even putting on a bit of weight. Lindsay and Aunt Wee, as well as their families, were healthy and happy. My greatest fear before I left was that some tragedy would befall my family while I was away, and I’d be unable to help. Luckily, that wasn’t happening. In January 2005, I learned that my unit would head to Iraq a few months later. I was both excited and nervous. Mamaw fell silent when I called to tell her. After a few uncomfortable seconds of dead air, she said only that she hoped the war would end before I had to leave. Though we spoke on the phone every few days, we never spoke of Iraq, even as winter turned to spring and everyone knew I’d be leaving for war that summer. I could tell that Mamaw didn’t want to talk or think about it, and I obliged. Mamaw was old, frail, and sick. I no longer lived with her, and I was preparing to go fight a war. Though her health had improved somewhat since I’d left for the Marines, she still took a dozen medications and made quarterly trips to the hospital for various ailments. When AK Steel—which provided health care for Mamaw as Papaw’s widow—announced that they were increasing her premiums, Mamaw simply couldn’t afford them. She barely survived as it was, and she needed three hundred dollars extra per month. She told me as much one day, and I immediately volunteered to cover the costs. She had never accepted anything from me—not money from my paycheck at Dillman’s; not a share of my boot camp earnings. But she accepted my three hundred a month, and that’s how I knew she was desperate. I didn’t make a lot of money myself—probably a thousand dollars a month after taxes, though the Marines gave me a place to stay and food to eat, so that money went far. I also made extra money playing online poker. Poker was in my blood—I’d played with pennies and dimes with Papaw and my great-uncles as far back as I could remember—and the online poker craze at the time made it basically free money. I played ten hours a week on small-stakes tables, earning four hundred dollars a month. I had planned to save that money, but instead I gave it to Mamaw for her health insurance. Mamaw, naturally, worried that I had picked up a gambling habit and was playing cards in some mountain trailer with a bunch of card-sharking hillbillies, but I assured her that it was online and legitimate. “Well, you know I don’t understand the fucking Internet. Just don’t turn to booze and women. That’s always what happens to dipshits who get caught up in gambling.” Mamaw and I both loved the movie Terminator 2. We probably watched it together five or six times. Mamaw saw Arnold Schwarzenegger as the embodiment of the American Dream: a strong, capable immigrant coming out on top. But I saw the movie as a sort of metaphor for my own life. Mamaw was my keeper, my protector, and, if need be, my own goddamned terminator. No matter what life threw at me, I’d be okay because she was there to protect me. Paying for her health insurance made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I was the protector. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I’d never imagined—and how could I? I’d never had the money to help people before the Marines. When I came home, I was able to take Mom out to lunch, get ice cream for the kids, and buy nice Christmas presents for Lindsay. On one of my trips home, Mamaw and I took Lindsay’s two oldest kids on a trip to Hocking Hills State Park, a beautiful region of Appalachian Ohio, to meet up with Aunt Wee and Dan. I drove the whole way, I paid for gas, and I bought everyone dinner (admittedly at Wendy’s). I felt like such a man, a real grown-up. To laugh and joke with the people I loved most as they scarfed down the meal that I’d provided gave me a feeling of joy and accomplishment that words can’t possibly describe. For my entire life, I had oscillated between fear at my worst moments and a sense of safety and stability at my best. I was either being chased by the bad terminator or protected by the good one. But I had never felt empowered—never believed that I had the ability and the responsibility to care for those I loved. Mamaw could preach about responsibility and hard work, about making something of myself and not making excuses. No pep talk or speech could show me how it felt to transition from seeking shelter to providing it. I had to learn that for myself, and once I did, there was no going back. Mamaw’s seventy-second birthday was in April 2005. Just a couple of weeks before then, I stood in the waiting room of a Walmart Supercenter as car technicians changed my oil. I called Mamaw on the cell phone that I paid for myself, and she told me about babysitting Lindsay’s kids that day. “Meghan is so damned cute,” she told me. “I told her to shit in the pot, and for three hours she just kept on saying ‘shit in the pot, shit in the pot, shit in the pot’ over and over again. I told her she had to stop or I’d get in trouble, but she never did.” I laughed, told Mamaw that I loved her, and let her know that her monthly three-hundred-dollar check was on the way. “J.D., thank you for helping me. I’m very proud of you, and I love you.” Two days later I awoke on a Sunday morning to a call from my sister, who said that Mamaw’s lung had collapsed, that she was lying in the hospital in a coma, and that I should come home as quickly as possible. Two hours later, I was on the road. I packed my dress blue uniform, just in case I needed it for a funeral. On the way, a West Virginia police officer pulled me over for going ninety-four miles an hour on I–77. He asked why I was in such a hurry, and when I explained, he told me that the highway was clear of speed traps for the next seventy miles, after which I’d cross into Ohio, and that I should go as fast as I wanted until then. I took my warning ticket, thanked him profusely, and drove 102 until I crossed the state line. I made the thirteen-hour trip in just under eleven hours. When I arrived at Middletown Regional Hospital at eleven in the evening, my entire family was gathered around Mamaw’s bed. She was unresponsive, and though her lung had been reinflated, the infection that had caused it to collapse showed no signs of responding to treatment. Until that happened, the doctor told us, it would be torture to wake her—if she could be awakened at all. We waited a few days for signs that the infection was surrendering to the medication. But the signs showed the opposite: Her white blood cell count continued to rise, and some of her organs showed evidence of severe stress. Her doctor explained that she had no realistic chance of living without a ventilator and feeding tube. We all conferred and decided that if, after a day, Mamaw’s white blood cell count increased further, we would pull the plug. Legally, it was Aunt Wee’s sole decision, and I’ll never forget when she tearfully asked whether I thought she was making a mistake. To this day, I’m convinced that she—and we—made the right decision. I guess it’s impossible to know for sure. I wished at the time that we had a doctor in the family. The doctor told us that without the ventilator Mamaw would die within fifteen minutes, an hour at most. She lasted instead for three hours, fighting to the very last minute. Everyone was present—Uncle Jimmy, Mom, and Aunt Wee; Lindsay, Kevin, and I—and we gathered around her bed, taking turns whispering in her ear and hoping that she heard us. As her heart rate dropped and we realized that her time drew near, I opened a Gideon’s Bible to a random passage and began to read. It was First Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” A few minutes later, she was dead. I didn’t cry when Mamaw died, and I didn’t cry for days thereafter. Aunt Wee and Lindsay grew frustrated with me, then worried: You’re just so stoic, they said. You need to grieve like the rest of us or you’ll burst. I was grieving in my own way, but I sensed that our entire family was on the verge of collapse, and I wanted to give the impression of emotional strength. We all knew how Mom had reacted to Papaw’s death, but Mamaw’s death created new pressures: It was time to wind down the estate, figure out Mamaw’s debts, dispose of her property, and disburse what remained. For the first time, Uncle Jimmy learned Mom’s true financial impact on Mamaw—the drug rehab charges, the numerous “loans” never repaid. To this day, he refuses to speak to her. For those of us well acquainted with Mamaw’s generosity, her financial position came as no surprise. Though Papaw had worked and saved for over four decades, the only thing of value that remained was the house he and Mamaw had purchased fifty years earlier. And Mamaw’s debts were large enough to eat into a substantial portion of the home’s equity. Lucky for us, this was 2005—the height of the real estate bubble. If she had died in 2008, Mamaw’s estate likely would have been bankrupt. In her will, Mamaw divided what remained between her three kids, with a twist: Mom’s share was divided evenly between me and Lindsay. This undoubtedly contributed to Mom’s inevitable emotional outburst. I was so caught up in the financial aspects of Mamaw’s death and spending time with relatives I hadn’t seen in months that I didn’t realize Mom was slowly descending to the same place she’d traveled after Papaw’s death. But it’s hard to miss a freight train barreling down on you, so I noticed soon enough. Like Papaw, Mamaw wanted a visitation in Middletown so that all of her friends from Ohio could gather and pay their respects. Like Papaw, she wanted a second visitation and funeral back home in Jackson, at Deaton’s. After her funeral, the convoy departed for Keck, a holler not far from where Mamaw was born that housed our family’s cemetery. In family lore, Keck held an even higher place of honor than Mamaw’s birthplace. Her own mother—our beloved Mamaw Blanton—was born in Keck, and Mamaw Blanton’s younger sister—Aunt Bonnie, nearly ninety herself—owned a beautiful log cabin on the same property. A short hike up the mountain from that log cabin is a relatively flat plot of land that serves as the final resting place for Papaw and Mamaw Blanton and a host of relatives, some born in the nineteenth century. That’s where our convoy was headed, through the narrow mountain roads, to deliver Mamaw to the family who’d crossed over before her. I’ve made that drive with a funeral convoy probably half a dozen times, and every turn reveals a landscape that inspires some memory of fonder times. It’s impossible to sit in the car for the twenty-minute trip and not trade stories about the departed, all of which start out “Do you remember that time . . . ?” But after Mamaw’s funeral, we didn’t recall a series of fond memories about Mamaw and Papaw and Uncle Red and Teaberry and that time Uncle David drove off the side of the mountain, rolled a hundred yards down the hill, and walked away without a scratch. Lindsay and I instead listened to Mom tell us that we were too sad, that we loved Mamaw too much, and that Mom had the greater right to grief because, in her words, “She was my mom, not yours!” I have never felt angrier at anyone for anything. For years, I had made excuses for Mom. I had tried to help manage her drug problem, read those stupid books about addiction, and accompanied her to N.A. meetings. I had endured, never complaining, a parade of father figures, all of whom left me feeling empty and mistrustful of men. I had agreed to ride in that car with her on the day she threatened to kill me, and then I had stood before a judge and lied to him to keep her out of jail. I had moved in with her and Matt, and then her and Ken, because I wanted her to get better and thought that if I played along, there was a chance she would. For years, Lindsay called me the “forgiving child”—the one who found the best in Mom, the one who made excuses, the one who believed. I opened my mouth to spew pure vitriol in Mom’s direction, but Lindsay spoke first: “No, Mom. She was our mom, too.” That said it all, so I continued to sit in silence. The day after the funeral, I drove back to North Carolina to rejoin my Marine Corps unit. On the way back, on a narrow mountain back road in Virginia, I hit a wet patch of road coming around a turn, and the car began spinning out of control. I was moving fast, and my twisting car showed no signs of slowing as it hurtled towards the guardrail. I thought briefly that this was it—that I’d topple over that guardrail and join Mamaw just a bit sooner than I expected—when all of a sudden the car stopped. It is the closest I’ve ever come to a true supernatural event, and though I’m sure some law of friction can explain what happened, I imagined that Mamaw had stopped the car from toppling over the side of the mountain. I reoriented the car, returned to my lane, and then pulled off to the side. That was when I broke down and released the tears that I’d held back during the previous two weeks. I spoke to Lindsay and Aunt Wee before restarting my journey, and within a few hours I was back at the base. My final two years in the Marines flew by and were largely uneventful, though two incidents stand out, each of which speaks to the way the Marine Corps changed my perspective. The first was a moment in time in Iraq, where I was lucky to escape any real fighting but which affected me deeply nonetheless. As a public affairs marine, I would attach to different units to get a sense of their daily routine. Sometimes I’d escort civilian press, but generally I’d take photos or write short stories about individual marines or their work. Early in my deployment, I attached to a civil affairs unit to do community outreach. Civil affairs missions were typically considered more dangerous, as a small number of marines would venture into unprotected Iraqi territory to meet with locals. On our particular mission, senior marines met with local school officials while the rest of us provided security or hung out with the schoolkids, playing soccer and passing out candy and school supplies. One very shy boy approached me and held out his hand. When I gave him a small eraser, his face briefly lit up with joy before he ran away to his family, holding his two-cent prize aloft in triumph. I have never seen such excitement on a child’s face. I don’t believe in epiphanies. I don’t believe in transformative moments, as transformation is harder than a moment. I’ve seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is. But that moment, with that boy, was pretty close for me. For my entire life, I’d harbored resentment at the world. I was mad at my mother and father, mad that I rode the bus to school while other kids caught rides with friends, mad that my clothes didn’t come from Abercrombie, mad that my grandfather died, mad that we lived in a small house. That resentment didn’t vanish in an instant, but as I stood and surveyed the mass of children of a war-torn nation, their school without running water, and the overjoyed boy, I began to appreciate how lucky I was: born in the greatest country on earth, every modern convenience at my fingertips, supported by two loving hillbillies, and part of a family that, for all its quirks, loved me unconditionally. At that moment, I resolved to be the type of man who would smile when someone gave him an eraser. I haven’t quite made it there, but without that day in Iraq, I wouldn’t be trying. The other life-altering component of my Marine Corps experience was constant. From the first day, with that scary drill instructor and a piece of cake, until the last, when I grabbed my discharge papers and sped home, the Marine Corps taught me how to live like an adult. The Marine Corps assumes maximum ignorance from its enlisted folks. It assumes that no one taught you anything about physical fitness, personal hygiene, or personal finances. I took mandatory classes about balancing a checkbook, saving, and investing. When I came home from boot camp with my fifteen-hundred-dollar earnings deposited in a mediocre regional bank, a senior enlisted marine drove me to Navy Federal—a respected credit union—and had me open an account. When I caught strep throat and tried to tough it out, my commanding officer noticed and ordered me to the doctor. We used to complain constantly about the biggest perceived difference between our jobs and civilian jobs: In the civilian world, your boss wasn’t able to control your life after you left work. In the Marines, my boss didn’t just make sure I did a good job, he made sure I kept my room clean, kept my hair cut, and ironed my uniforms. He sent an older marine to supervise as I shopped for my first car so that I’d end up with a practical car, like a Toyota or a Honda, not the BMW I wanted. When I nearly agreed to finance that purchase directly through the car dealership with a 21-percent-interest-rate loan, my chaperone blew a gasket and ordered me to call Navy Fed and get a second quote (it was less than half the interest). I had no idea that people did these things. Compare banks? I thought they were all the same. Shop around for a loan? I felt so lucky to even get a loan that I was ready to pull the trigger immediately. The Marine Corps demanded that I think strategically about these decisions, and then it taught me how to do so. Just as important, the Marines changed the expectations that I had for myself. In boot camp, the thought of climbing the thirty-foot rope inspired terror; by the end of my first year, I could climb the rope using only one arm. Before I enlisted, I had never run a mile continuously. On my last physical fitness test, I ran three of them in nineteen minutes. It was in the Marine Corps where I first ordered grown men to do a job and watched them listen; where I learned that leadership depended far more on earning the respect of your subordinates than on bossing them around; where I discovered how to earn that respect; and where I saw that men and women of different social classes and races could work as a team and bond like family. It was the Marine Corps that first gave me an opportunity to truly fail, made me take that opportunity, and then, when I did fail, gave me another chance anyway. When you work in public affairs, the most senior marines serve as liaisons with the press. The press is the holy grail of Marine Corps public affairs: the biggest audience and the highest stakes. Our media officer at Cherry Point was a captain who, for reasons I never understood, quickly fell out of favor with the base’s senior brass. Though he was a captain—eight pay grades higher than I was—because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no ready replacement when he got the ax. So my boss told me that for the next nine months (until my service ended) I would be the media relations officer for one of the largest military bases on the East Coast. By then I’d grown accustomed to the sometimes random nature of Marine Corps assignments. This was something else entirely. As a friend joked, I had a face for radio, and I wasn’t prepared for live TV interviews about happenings on base. The Marine Corps threw me to the wolves. I struggled a bit at first—allowing some photographers to take photos of a classified aircraft; speaking out of turn at a meeting with senior officers—and I got my ass chewed. My boss, Shawn Haney, explained what I needed to do to correct myself. We discussed how to build relationships with the press, how to stay on message, and how to manage my time. I got better, and when hundreds of thousands flocked to our base for a biannual air show, our media relations worked so well that I earned a commendation medal. The experience taught me a valuable lesson: that I could do it. I could work twenty-hour days when I had to. I could speak clearly and confidently with TV cameras shoved in my face. I could stand in a room with majors, colonels, and generals and hold my own. I could do a captain’s job even when I feared I couldn’t. For all my grandma’s efforts, for all of her “You can do anything; don’t be like those fuckers who think the deck is stacked against them” diatribes, the message had only partially set in before I enlisted. Surrounding me was another message: that I and the people like me weren’t good enough; that the reason Middletown produced zero Ivy League graduates was some genetic or character defect. I couldn’t possibly see how destructive that mentality was until I escaped it. The Marine Corps replaced it with something else, something that loathes excuses. “Giving it my all” was a catchphrase, something heard in health or gym class. When I first ran three miles, mildly impressed with my mediocre twenty-five-minute time, a terrifying senior drill instructor greeted me at the finish line: “If you’re not puking, you’re lazy! Stop being fucking lazy!” He then ordered me to sprint between him and a tree repeatedly. Just as I felt I might pass out, he relented. I was heaving, barely able to catch my breath. “That’s how you should feel at the end of every run!” he yelled. In the Marines, giving it your all was a way of life. I’m not saying ability doesn’t matter. It certainly helps. But there’s something powerful about realizing that you’ve undersold yourself—that somehow your mind confused lack of effort for inability. This is why, whenever people ask me what I’d most like to change about the white working class, I say, “The feeling that our choices don’t matter.” The Marine Corps excised that feeling like a surgeon does a tumor. A few days after my twenty-third birthday, I hopped into the first major purchase I’d ever made—an old Honda Civic—grabbed my discharge papers, and drove one last time from Cherry Point, North Carolina, to Middletown, Ohio. During my four years in the Marines, I had seen, in Haiti, a level of poverty I never knew existed. I witnessed the fiery aftermath of an airplane crash into a residential neighborhood. I had watched Mamaw die and then gone to war a few months later. I had befriended a former crack dealer who turned out to be the hardest-working marine I knew. When I joined the Marine Corps, I did so in part because I wasn’t ready for adulthood. I didn’t know how to balance a checkbook, much less how to complete the financial aid forms for college. Now I knew exactly what I wanted out of my life and how to get there. And in three weeks, I’d start classes at Ohio State. Chapter 11 I arrived for orientation at Ohio State in early September 2007, and I couldn’t have been more excited. I remember every little detail about that day: lunch at Chipotle, the first time Lindsay had ever eaten there; the walk from the orientation building to the south campus house that would soon be my Columbus home; the beautiful weather. I met with a guidance counselor”

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
https://a.co/5aOUQuE