Me and BillyRay: Concerning Clutches

Authors Note:  most of this story is true, from oh say three different events from back when I lived loose on the land and enjoyed life, kind of stewed in the same pot as BillyRay would say, but still true enough.  This is the America I remember, the America before America lived in fear of itself, the one I hope to see again before it's my time to go home.

Bumped to the top because a lot of folks are gonna be stuck in the house, maybe a few of 'em might like a story to fill some time.

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The first time BillyRay and me got into Texas it ended up we didn't stay long. We got across the border, and that's a pretty good piece down the road from Ponca City, but that's as far as we got. We was tired, the truck was tired, we figured we'd just pull off the interstate and rest a bit.

It was a good old truck my daddy left me, he took real good care of it and so did I. Every time something needed fixing on it daddy put back the very best thing he could find, so by the time it got to me it was stouter than when it was built. But still, it was built for workin' on the farm not running down the road, was about all it could do to keep up on an interstate. Going south outa Oklahoma into Texas you just about got to get on an interstate to cross the river, so we did, and by the time we got into Texas the truck was tired, you could smell it. By then it was dark, the truck was tired, we was tired, we pulled off the big road and found a place where all three of us could take a good nap.

Well, wouldn't you know, about that time mother nature got right in the big middle of our life. Lookin' back on it I won't swear God didn't have some intentions in that direction as well, but it was mother nature doin' the down and dirty work.

Me and BillyRay - Long hair and Ladies

            Well anyhow, after we left Abuela's house we went on where we was headed, and that almost didn't turn out so good.  It was a different company, they checked, said we was to young to work there. The old lady was nice, said they'd hire us right away if we come back when we was eighteen.  She was kind of crusty but she was kind about it, it weren't nothing personal.  Said she hated to turn us down being as how we wanted to work what with all the long haired hippies around wouldn't do a days work to save their life.  I didn't say nothing to that, neither did BillyRay.  Long haired hippies was a kind of people we'd only seen on television in them days, we didn't know anything to say.

It would have all been for nothing if it hadn't been for the old Indian man working at the gate.  You remember I said how about the only good luck we had was meeting some of God’s secret agents?  He just might have been one of ‘em allowing for what happened because of him.

History ala Mode

What is History ala Mode? History ala Mode is a slice of History, with a good size scoop of Psychology… best served warm, with coffee.

==bumped to the top in response to the exploitation of the Corona Virus panic==


Let's start at the end of World War Two, take a look at the world as it was then at the dawn of the atomic age. What are we looking at? Well, the Allies won the war, everyone knows that, but what was really going on back then? What was left once the fighting was over?

The only major industrial nation not physically beat to a pulp was the United States. Germany and Japan were all but destroyed, Great Britain hammered hard, for the second time in fifty years France and Belgium and the Scandinavian countries had had a war run right over the top of them, they weren't in very good shape, the western end of Russia looked worse than Germany. Still though, Russia is a huge country, eleven hours wide, and the war had only gotten to the edges of Moscow so where they'd suffered heavy harm in the west they still had strength left in the east. Pretty much the story as it was, for the industrial nations that had fought in that war, at least if all you're looking at are physical resources.

But history is a great deal more than just the physical things, history is the people of a time, their attitudes, their outlook on life, the things they dream of, the things they fear. The physical is just the terrain, it is those attitudes that write the history.

When you look at the people involved in those times several very important differences are to be seen.

History ala Mode: The Chef's Tale

I am an American, born and bred. I am a patriot, I'm proud of my country, I'm proud of the many good and righteous things my country has done. I am patriot enough to be objective about my country, to look at it honestly and see where it might have done better, because I want my country to do better each time it takes an action, takes a stand for the cause of good and right. To do that you must be objective. So now I'm going to do my best to look at my country the way world did and now does, from time to time I'm going to play their hand for them, move their pieces for them so I can make it obvious how they were thinking, what was planned and maneuvered to bring those plans into reality.


The objective? I'm going to assume the original objective was to neutralize the impact of the United States of America as a dominating power player on the global economic stage, and equally reduce the impact of the United States of America on the world's cultural evolution to be no larger than their percentage of the world's population. For all that the United States has held a dominant position in global politics it really isn't that big in terms of population, some 330 million out of a global population estimated at 6.5 billion. Quick arithmetic: 3.3E8/6.5E9 = .0507, call it five percent for easy numbers, the population of the planet is growing faster than the population of the United States.

Those were the original objectives, of that I'm rather sure. But, and this is a most critical but, the attitudes of the world are not a static thing, no more there than in the United States. Before all was said and done I'm afraid the campaign to back the Americans off, to make them stop being a bully, I'm afraid what the world set in motion to that objective backfired in a manner never seen before, something truly new and acutely dangerous to all nations, a thing that is now working to the endangerment of everyone. But more on that later, for now let's return to the situation as it began unfolding in the '70s.