I was the one yacking about Halberstam. I've read some of his work and heard him interviewed on New York And Company a couple of times. I think he's got a knack for putting together good overviews on the subjects he deals with. Like if Oliver Stone were more critical and a journalist.....
- steve 10-01-2001 4:36 pm [add a comment]

• When I was 16 & obsessed with
  the half mile my father took me to
  West Point to visit his friend the
  historian Josiah Bunting. We ate our
  meals in an enormous mess hall &
  one morning Halberstram happened
  to sit down with us. I don't remember
  the actual conversation but all of a
  sudden Halberstram told me to
  take my toast & wing it like a frisbee
  toward a table of Generals who were
  learing at us pinkos. So I did. I put
  everything I had in that little piece
  of crispy white bread & sent it sailing
  up to the cavernous ceiling & across
  the hall directly to its target table.
  After everyone in the place had stopped
  staring at me & talk had resumed
  Halberstram turned to my dad & said
  "See, Barry, they can't do shit.
  It's not in the book"
  
  
  
  
  
  
  - frank 10-04-2001 10:53 pm [add a comment]




• Fantastic! I suppose that my father would have let me fling the toast if Halberstam were putting me up to it.
  Was your father a military man? And was he considered a pinko? I know there were such confounding people-sixties era, military pinko's.
  - steve 10-05-2001 1:53 am [add a comment]




• My father was one of the last
  instructors of celestial navigation
  for the US Air Force during the tail
  end of the Korean War. He enlisted
  during his senior year at Chapel
  Hill to avoid the draft. He is what
  used to be called a "war buff."
  My mother's family had the brass
  hardcore deep in old Virginia,
  including my great uncle General
  (3 stars) Withers Burress. He
  commanded the 237th Negro Infantry
  in WW1. During my childhood's summer
  visits to Salem, Virginia, very old,
  often crippled black soldiers would
  show up unannounced to pay their
  respects & I vividly remember
  sitting at the kitchen table with
  " the General's beloved niggers."
  My main memory of "Uncle Pinky"
  is the smell of Jack Daniels. The visit
  to West Point was to see my dad's
  friend who was on a teaching gig.
  They were definately Pinko War Buffs.
  The Tomahawks are hitting Kabul.
  My Cheyenne friend Little Magpie
  says when you smoke you need to ask
  for something.When the towers
  went down I was worried about
  my friends in the city; now I'm
  just worried. I want to visit all
  of you for a climb up the vine.
  Say when.
  
  
  - frank 10-08-2001 6:34 am [add a comment]




• When.
  - jim 10-08-2001 5:35 pm [add a comment]




• Soonish. Sooner if the cabin sells
  this week.
  When in..we the people.. trust no
  text that BEGINS with a rhyme.
  - frank 10-08-2001 6:17 pm [add a comment]