August 21: Fools Like Themselves, Surrender Dorothy, Ridiculous

Eight Dresdeners crossed the steel spaghetti of the railroad yard.  They were wearing new uniforms.  They had been sworn into the army the day before.  They were boys and men past middle age, and two veterans who had been shot to pieces in Russia.  Their assignment was to guard one hundred American prisoners of war, who would work as contract labor.  A grandfather and his grandson were in the squad.  The grandfather was an architect.

The eight were grim as they approached the boxcars containing their wards.  They knew what sick and foolish soldiers they themselves appeared to be.  One of them actually had an artificial leg, and carried not only a loaded rifle but a cane.  Still--they were expected to earn obedience and respect from tall, cocky, murderous infantrymen who had just come from all the killing at the front. 

And then they saw bearded Billy Pilgrim in his blue toga and silver shoes, with his hands in a muff.  He looked at least sixty years old.  Next to Billy was little Paul Lazzaro with a broken arm.  He was fizzing with rabies.  Next to Lazzaro was the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, mournfully pregnant with patriotism and middle age and imaginary wisdom.  And so on.

The eight ridiculous Dresdeners ascertained that these hundred ridiculous creatures really were American fighting men fresh from the front.  They smiled, and then they laughed.  Their terror evaporated.  There was nothing to be afraid of.  Here were more crippled human beings, more fools like themselves.  Here was light opera.

The Dresdeners are afraid of the Americans, until they see Billy Pilgrim in his toga and silver boots.  Billy's appearance dispels any lingering doubts or anxiety about fierce enemy prisoners of war.  The Dresdeners realize that their charges are just as old or young or terrified or angry.  The war has made them all the same.  Human beings caught in a ridiculous moment of war.

It has been a long day for me.  Hours of classwork and work-work and parent-work.  Now, tonight, an hour or so of writer-work.  Of course, this afternoon, I was caught up in solar eclipse-work.  I stood outside for fifteen or twenty minutes with all the other ridiculous spectators, staring through special eclipse glasses at the spectacle in the sky.  I felt like a resident of the Emerald City watching the Wicked Witch of the West write "Surrender Dorothy" in the heavens.

I am about to be swept up in my fall semester ridiculousness.  Lecturing students, grading papers, preparing lesson plans.  I'm not sure if I'm ready for it all to begin.  I stopped by my university office this afternoon for a minute.  The campus was teeming with returning students and professors.  The students were wandering around in packs.  The professors were in shorts and Hawaiian shirts, carrying briefcases.  Ridiculous. 

Tonight, I am pretty exhausted.  I should work some more.  Prepare for my upcoming semester.  But my mind is not going to cooperate.  Once I hit 8 p.m., I slip into a state of near exhaustion.  That's where I am right now.  If the Dresdeners saw me right now, they would recognize another American fool, just like Billy Pilgrim.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for his ridiculous life.