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Harvesting a Long Life
by John Mahon
Preface
Some of these writings were published, many were not. Of course, there was a time when it was easy to get my stuff published in a newspaper. I owned the newspaper. Still, I think most of them were received quite well.
S ince we were a newspaper family, it started early. My first published story was printed when I was fourteen years old. It was about the operation of a rock quarry about half a mile behind our house in Eskridge, Kansas. I submitted some pictures with it, but they were not printed. In that day the process to publish pictures was long and expensive. Even before then, when I was about ten, I think, I had won a prize from the American Legion for the best patriotic poster for the Fourth of July celebration. There was also another prize, which takes a bit of tellin'. Navy Pre-Flight School was a slippery step on the way to Navy Wings of Gold. It had two purposes — physical conditioning, and weeding out any who showed the least bit of ineptitude. Each platoon of 32 teenagers who got off the bus at St. Mary's College, in the hills back of the San Francisco Bay area, had already survived two stages of training. Prep Flight was the introduction to academic subjects like aircraft engines, theory of flight, navigation, recognition of enemy airplanes and ships, and Morse code. WTS is where we actually learned to fly, in a 65 horsepower flivver, and Pre-Flight was next. There were four of them: at Georgia University in Athens, Georgia; North Carolina University at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Iowa State at Iowa City, Iowa, and St. Mary's, California. My Pre-Flight was at Cornell College (Not Cornell University) in the little town of Mt. Vernon, Iowa, and WTS was at North Platte, Nebraska. At St. Mary's I finally got to a Navy Station that was less than a thousand miles from any ocean.
Of the 32 guys who started in my Platoon, six graduated, and two of those were selected to go on to Primary training and actually start flying real military airplanes, even though they were trainers — N2S Stearmans, open cockpit biplanes. I was not one of them, but, after a short hiatus I got back to Aviation Cadet Status, and finally got my wings, as you shall hear. About the time I was finishing the course, there was a War Bond drive in the military, and our authorities embraced it wholeheartedly, offering some valuable prizes. My platoon won most of them. The prizes were extra liberties, which were valuable because we didn't get much of it otherwise. St. Mary's is stuck off back of two ranges of considerable hills from San Francisco, and a normal liberty gave you barely enough time to get there and back. Overnights were, of course, especially prized. They came only every third weekend. One prize was for the Platoon that first reached 100% sign-up. We won that. An extra overnight. Then there was one for the highest dollar amount, and we won that, too. Lastly there was an overnight for the best 500-word essay on Why I am buying War Bonds, and I won that one, too, and that prize included a $25 bond, and also a date with one of the chorus girls who came out from San Francisco and put on a little musical review to celebrate awarding of the prizes. I don't think a Pullitzer would have been more appreciated, at that time and place. So writing has some value, even if sometimes it's only a little. And it's enjoyable. Can't get much better than that.
A Statement: My Principles
This statement certainly puts me on a different side of the fence than many, perhaps most, people. But it's all true from my heart, for that's the way I feel. This seems to be a suitable way to complete the introduction to Harvesting a Long Life. Kipling called his similar tome Something of myself. Mr. Kipling, as usual, had it right.
PART I
I consider myself democratic in that I believe in rule by the majority, with some restrictions and limitations, but I could not possibly subscribe to the principles and policies of the Democratic Party in America. I am absolutely convinced that each person, individually, is responsible for his own actions, and for the results of those actions, and will individually reap the rewards for such actions, be they positive or negative. I said this in my salutatorian address to my graduating class (all 20 of us) in White City, Kansas, in 1943. Our graduation address was given by a noted academic, and we did not agree. He did not believe in individual achievement as a virtuous goal. I believed it then, and I believe it still. It was not the popular view. We were just coming out of the Great Depression and the general view was that Cooperative efforts was what had kept us afloat during that very trying time, and all that cooperation, communal spirit, sacrifice of one for the good of all, and "help thy neighbor" had been our salvation.
My parents had always been Republicans. They did not speak much about it, nor engage in debates or discussions about its beliefs. It just seemed to fit how I thought about things. Up to that time, May 20, 1943, my whole life had been bound up in the competition of school. School was academic classes, but it was also athletics and social interactions. Ifound the academic area, by virtue of god-given talents, extremely easy. Athletics, on the other hand, was an area in which I was totally inept, so I mentally downgraded it to second (or maybe tenth) place in importance. Anybody could throw or catch a ball. Only the best of us understood quadratic equations. Social Interactions I could not even define. Some kids I liked and some I did not, though I tried to be civil to all. Some returned the favor, some did not.
My family attended the Methodist church. Methodists were characterized throughout a large area as being those who had "the largest building and the smallest congregation." So it was in Eskridge. I went to Sunday School and learned about Joseph and Moses and Peter and Paul, and Jesus and Mary and Adam and Eve. I believed it all. You were supposed to believe teachers, weren't you? Then, in my senior years in high school I began to have doubts. This was very trying. You are not supposed to doubt your teachers, and you certainly are not supposed to doubt the good book, the source of all wisdom. Besides, the penalty for doubting is eternal torture in Hell. That's a powerful incentive to subdue any questions. I was baptized into the Methodist Church and I mouthed the proper words, but nobody noticed that I had my fingers crossed while I did so.
It was not just religion. I doubted Newton's law of gravitation, as explained in the text book, till my science teacher explained it better. Newton didn't know about Oort clouds. Also Boyle's law of gases, and the origin of centripedal forces, and I got thrown out of the class on basic electronics because I could not understand the text-book's explanation of radio antennae theory, and kept asking the teacher questions he could not answer.
Bob Wills, or maybe it was Hank Williams, or Johnny Cash, sang, "Why can't I change your doubtful mind, and melt your cold, cold heart?" Well, B, or H, or J. I don't think I have a cold, cold heart. I give a couple of singles to the guy in the intersection divider with the sign, "Homeless, Hungry, Veteran, Please help". I send the DAV and the VietNamVets and the FMPA a few dollars for their calendars, or address labels, or Christmas cards, which I didn't order. But my doubtful mind? That's another subject.
PART II
The Ten commandments. Is there anything more basic to the Jewish and Christian religions? Handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai from God himself, in letters of fire on tablets of stone. As has been irreverently noted by some they're not the ten suggestions. And yet!
And yet!
How can there possibly be a question? This is what God said. Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that. Very plain! The Holy book, every word of which is a word revealed by and sacred to God, lays it out in plain text for us to read, and obey. How can a mere mortal, like myself, delve into the origins and even begin to think that there is anything, even the most inconsequential thing, to doubt?
And yet it is strange. It does not, as the computer in Lost in Space said, compute. Exodus, Chapter 20, verse 13, is "Thou shalt not kill." No explanation, no exception, no elucidation, no justification, as many (not all) of the other commandments have attached. Even though it has already been abridged by Chapter 19 Verse 12, "Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death."
There are four Bibles in my house, all of them the King James Version, a translation from Greek manuscripts, supplanted, when available, by more ancient texts, authorized by King James I of England in 1605. It's the Bible I grew up with. Probably it is yours, too. The original of the first five books were supposedly written by Moses himself, though no one knows in what language. The Greek manuscripts used by King James' Translators were probably (no one can say for sure) translations from Egyptian or Aramaic or Hebrew texts, traceable back only to many centuries after Moses was dead and buried.
There are other versions, many of them, and many other writings purporting to be written in the same era, about the same events, which describe them quite differently, and which translate the same source words differently. As the bard had Hamlet say, "Aye, there's the rub."
"Thou shalt not kill." Don't kill other people, probably, but also don't kill mosquitos who transmit yellow fever, don't kill rats who transmit bubonic plague and eat up the harvested corn, don't kill poisonous snakes or hungry lions? Don't kill someone who is trying to kill you, or your wife, or your children, or even a total stranger? The Hindu religion adheres to this quite strongly. Is it coincidence that they have fat rats and skinny people, many of whom starve to death? That India is the only place on earth where Bubonic Plague is still endemic. Are doubts beginning to creep in? Turn to Deuteronomy Chapter 2 verse 32. "Then Sihohn came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz. And the Lord our God delivered him before us, and we smote him, and all his people. And we took all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, and the women and the little ones, of every city, and we left none to remain." Hey - what happened to "Thou shalt not kill?" Then they did the same to King Og of Bashan and all his people, women and children included. Chapter 13 demands that a "dreamer of dreams", that is, a false prophet, shall be put to death," "stone him with stones, that he die." There are many similar examples. Deutoronomy and Leviticus are very big on "Out to the city gates and stone him (or her) to death."
Some enlightened (my opinion) commenters explained it. An error in translation, which sounds reasonable, given the many transitions between languages which intervene between the original (no one knows exactly where or when) and our English. The original word translates better as "murder." "Thou shalt not murder." That makes a difference. In our judicial system a killing, even of another human, can be murder, manslaughter, or homicide, and even those have varying degrees of evil. You can, with impunity, kill someone who is trying to kill you, or you can kill if you are insane, even temporarily. A soldier kills in battle, but that is not murder. Joshua gets off the hook.
We know about that mis-translation. Another is the quote, "There were giants in those days." "Giants," in English, refers to physical size, but the original word might be better translated as "men of great knowledge, or education, or creative thinking." Or perhaps just anyone who could read and write, who were quite rare.
Then there's the tenth commandment, "Thou shall not covet." "Covet" is almost a synonym for "envy." My Oxford Universal Dictionary gives undesirable overtones to both words. It says "covet" is "to desire culpably, to long for what is another's." "Envy" is defined as "to regard with discontent another's possessions." But is not that the engine of progress? If my neighbor drives in with a new car, should I not envy him? Not to mean that I want his car, I just want one like it, or perhaps even a better one Shall I not be emboldened to accept more undesirable, but therefore more valuable work, or work longer hours, or accept proffered overtime, or perhaps work my brain harder and find a better, therefore more valuable, way of doing what I do, so that I, too, can have a new car? Or perhaps I devise a better way to do heart transplants. More and better things get produced than would be the case if I were totally satisfied with what I have. The race progresses, onward and upward. In that sense, it seems that to covet is a very desirable trait.
Doubt is very trying. Blind faith is perhaps more comfortable, But if God, whomever or whatever he (or she) may be, gave me the ability to doubt, should I not use it?
There are, now that doubt, even doubt strong enough to be called heresy, is no longer a sure path to the agonies of the burning stake, other theories. Several of them. You can find them on the shelves of book stores and libraries, They have not been destroyed by lightening bolts, nor floods, nor earthquakes. They make interesting reading, though it is not necessary to believe them. I even concocted one of my own, which you will find later in this collection. It is just as unprovable as Moses and the Hebrew children, the parted waters, the burning bush and the miraculous delivery of the ten commandments. What is true? The eternal question.
Well — eventually we will all find out.
