{"id":14612,"date":"2013-07-17T08:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=14612"},"modified":"2013-08-09T08:13:31","modified_gmt":"2013-08-09T12:13:31","slug":"atten-hut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/17\/atten-hut\/","title":{"rendered":"ATTEN-HUT!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I wish<\/strong><\/span> I had been in the military. I could have been in but I didn\u2019t go in when I could have.\u00a0 I was against Vietnam.\u00a0 I learned quagmire<\/em> — the word — from Walter Lippmann in Newsweek<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Nam was a quagmire, Lippmann wrote.<\/p>\n

I think I can take orders, and I don’t generally sass people, and I’ve never argued with cops or umpires.<\/p>\n

Some of my high school classmates went into the service.\u00a0 Some\u00a0 are on the war memorial on Green Road.\u00a0 By and large, these guys weren\u2019t in the college-prep classes.<\/p>\n

One high school<\/strong><\/span> friend went to Annapolis, though. He eventually became acting head of the FBI in Cleveland.\u00a0 I visited him in his office overlooking Lake Erie, and we brainstormed on ways to thwart terrorists.\u00a0 I didn’t have much to contribute.<\/p>\n

When I was about 10, I sent away to the Air Force Academy for photos, and the academy mailed me an application.\u00a0 That was exciting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> I was mistaken for a military man just once, when I represented the Armed Forces at a sign-review meeting at city hall. The Armed Forces rented stores from my family.\u00a0 A sign-review board member said, \u201cYou walk like a military man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aten-hut!<\/strong><\/span> Thank you.<\/p>\n

The Armed Forces recruiting center contained the four major branches: Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force.\u00a0 The Army turned its basement area into a gym with punching bags and a Nautilus.<\/p>\n

In 2008 the recruiters moved out; they went across the street to a newer building, and left us with three ratty sofas, a rusty Nautilus, barbells, a mini-trampoline, and a punching bag.\u00a0 And that wasn\u2019t the half of it.<\/p>\n

I wrote to the Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky,\u00a0 re U.S. lease W912QRM504000025:
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

There is 40 years\u2019 worth of\u00a0 junk in the basement: 27 chairs, a punching bag, American flag, scrap shelving, metal framing, boxes of Army of One promotional material, two bikes, six pieces of Nautilus-like weight equipment, barbells, a mini-trampoline . . .<\/p>\n

A 1970s stereo system, file cabinet, and a lot of assorted paperwork, of which I\u2019ve enclosed an invoice from 1991, just to give you a flavor for what\u2019s down there.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The government<\/strong><\/span> paid for the hauling. That was my last dealing with the military. “Sgt. Stratton” never happened. Nor did “Private\u00a0 Stratton.”\u00a0 I feel a little guilty about that. \u00a0 (I know, typical ex-hippie revisionist thinking.)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Yiddishe Cup and ice cream drip on the lawn at Wiley Middle School, 2181 Miramar Blvd., University Hts., Ohio, 7:30 p.m. Thurs., July 25.\u00a0 Free concert and free ice cream.\u00a0 Indoors if raining<\/span>.<\/p>\n

—-<\/span><\/p>\n

Clevelanders, go to “Hava Nagila (The Movie)”\u00a0<\/span><\/a> 7:30 p.m. tonight (July 17) at the art museum, Gartner Aud.\u00a0 You won’t regret it.\u00a0 Terrific archival footage. You don’t need to be\u00a0 Jewish or a klezmer nut to enjoy it.\u00a0\u00a0 Helps, but not essential.\u00a0 Features Harry Belafonte.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wish I had been in the military. I could have been in but I didn\u2019t go in when I could have.\u00a0 I was against Vietnam.\u00a0 I learned quagmire — the word — from Walter Lippmann in Newsweek.\u00a0\u00a0 ‘Nam was a quagmire, Lippmann wrote. I think I can take orders, and I don’t generally sass […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14612"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15811,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14612\/revisions\/15811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}