My Life With Guns

            The first time I ever saw, heard or touched a gun was in Mr. Tubaugh’s ninth grade English class when Don Glasser accidentally fired a starter pistol at the ceiling.

           There was, to say the least, mayhem.  Naomi Garber, who  was  sitting next to Don, screamed hysterically and ran out of the room shrieking. “I’m deaf, I can’t hear!!”

            Mr.  Tubaugh, a round, bald headed little man with a small mustache, turned beet red and appeared to be suffering from an attack of some kind, from which he recovered quickly. Don, who in later years was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, was in shock. I grabbed the pistol and gave it back to it's owner, whose name was Bernstein and had recently moved into the neighborhood.   It was a memorable moment, still etched vividly in my aging brain.

            I thought of that bizarre junior high school moment the other day, after the terrible assault and killings in Newtown, Connecticut.  Guns had not been a part of my life or life style in the middle class, close in suburb where I grew up. We saw them in Tom Mix, and an occasional gangster flick…but not real. Pure fantasy.  In the real world I hated the idea of guns, that are designed to kill randomly, at the whim of  madmen. Or in the case of war or rebellion, kill on purpose, and all too often without an ounce of conscience.     

         Thus it was unpleasant, unfamiliar and somewhat irreverent for me four years later when a drill sergeant, in the 379^th Infantry regiment, shoved an M-1 rifle in my hand and announced to our group of the uninitiated, fresh out of  high school draftees, that this was our first day to learn how to kill. With precision.

        It was like performing in a movie.  I did exactly what I was told.  Propped the rifle on my shoulder aimed at the target and squeezed the trigger.  I must confess that in that moment in time, it felt good.  As the gun fired and propelled the bullet toward the target, I felt a sense of satisfaction in my body as if the gun were an extension of my being. Yes, extension of my being. Got it?

         What’s more, I had hit the bulls eye, earning a black eye from the recoil and damage to my ear that has left me with a ringing to this very day, perhaps to remind of that testosterone driven moment in my life.

         In spite of my initial success at marksmanship, I was assigned to regimental headquarters company, to perform duties as assigned.  Never again did I carry an M-1  rifle during the war or have a desire to use one, particularly on another human being. It was a blessing.  A twist of fate.

        But I have been left  with the lingering question, accented by the recent mass killings;   what it is that drives men, even some otherwise good men, to want to kill another living thing?

       But that we’ll have to leave to the psychologists to explain.           

I’ll Be Seeing You

Here I am at the Cleveland Clinic, of all places, where they have the best doctors, for some of the sickest people in the world. Kings, sheiks, movie stars fly here from all over the globe, seeking cures for ailments that others can’t help.       

My first appointment ever at Cleveland’s LeBron of medicine.  And I’m a little apprehensive even though I’m not really sick.  Never liked hospitals or doctors.  Too many bad experiences as a kid.  My mind had long ago been infected was unpleasant memories. I had drifted into day dreaming of as we rode down the hill toward Carnegie.

       Didn’t sleep well the night before, since the appointment was very early. Much too early for me. My daughter was picking me up for the short drive down the hill, and will join me for the session. “Patients” are invited to bring a significant others. So I’m bringing Susan, a wonderful human being, and a marvelous giving, caring daughter.  I am so lucky, I thought. I was up, wobbly but wide-eyed by four thirty, dressed by six, and somewhat awake well in time for the arrival of my ride.

           As we approached the pink granite pyramid like Crile building that has become the centerpiece of this amazing campus, I marveled at how it has changed the face of “Uptown” Cleveland, as we used to call it. (107^th and Euclid down to 79th St.)

           If anything has changed radically in this town, it has been this neighborhood. Once it was ablaze with nightclubs, movies, hotels, the Alhambra bowling alley and pool hall, the Trianon Ballroom where our high school fraternity had sponsored Tommy Dorsey band and kid singer Frank Sinatra.  Lindsay’s Sky Bar, where Nat King Cole played with his trio, well before he was a famed singer on his own.  Where I hung out on Army furloughs during the War. Every sign of life you can imagine

       Now it is an impersonal looking industrial type complex of stone and steel and glass buildings for the sick, the very sick and the dying. A new kind of Cleveland that no one thought they would ever see in our town. Not in my day, at least.