It's the conclusion that always comes up even when "the best in the world" put their minds and hearts to something.
Way back people finding out about fire felt the same.
When our team USA came up against a wall of impossibility hypothetically in the middle of the country as the coasts cleaned up and re-ordered people and place because of warring there were relatively few people with full faith and confidence in the notion of In God We Trust.
The phrase on the dollar bill--as a first in a shoebox to help veterans--stood in stark contrast to the barely breathing, soiled uniform'd, extremely skinny men who'd been found near a clothing donation center. Some young people propped them up leaning against each other and as the mist started to lift and the day's traffic sounded like a regular workday, a woman borrowed a camera from a nightstand. The whole camera had to be brought to D.C. said a Peace Officer from a Recruitment Room in an otherwise unoccupied office building.
Some college students smoking and shivering nearby looked at each other and sized up the challenge.
As young adults in the late 1980's and early 1990's we had inklings of who we wanted to learn from. The what-to-learns kept expanding lists and honing ambition. Whether it was well-known or not, almost every person who was professional had "mentors" and traditions to contend with. And there were often group monitors who could be definitive when they needed to be.
One day we were sitting in the diner and in came a stocky person with a large pair of scissors. A few people held up paper aprons and the apron-strings were cut off. Kind of an unrecorded ceremony they agreed to, was explained. The person with the scissors left but in came another person with scissors. He looked all around the room. Hardly no one noticed a person point someone out. The person with the second pair of scissors asked a person who looked like a punk to stand. The person with the scissors cut a string on the sporty winter coat over his leather jacket. The punk's hand went to his heart and tears burst out of eyes, all over face. "Why?" A person with the punk asked. The person with the scissors put those in a back pants pocket and told, " The person you were tethered with is in a truck outside with no pants on and feet are freezing."
We approached the vehicle carefully. The person was eating a can of tuna wipung the darker bits onto a cocktail napkin with the table knife utensil. "Are you okay madamoīselle?"
Clearly a lot of things could've been said. The woman closed her eyes for a long few seconds then opened them towards the sun and said, "I will need something to wear on my bottom." Someone nearby whispered to an older lady being seated in a car. Then brought over a shawl which was pitched onto the dashboard of the truck.
Outside in a two-hour sun is warm window the parking lot filled with working poor. "Come to greet the Alpspeople have you?" Smiles broke across wizened faces. "But where is the cat? Some people have new allergies?"
A couple people made an effort to look high and low. A dramatic man spoke in Italian to a sweater-and-suspenders assistant, then said loudly, "I dun't beweave, there"s aways a cat with that one."
A tall man bent head nearly into the truck cab, didn't seize the small travel alarm clock, and ignored the wiggling kitten in the woman's dress shirt. Before he finished checking, she sent for the damaged winter coat. Me pissing myself shouldn't count as him not minding an elder.
Racey four wheel drives and sedans started to leave the parking lot with perfectly paced movements and a car and a half's space between them.
Back over at Cosby in where it's backpack in only a couple friends had been scavaging.
"Listen Muscle," she sighed and spoke to the outside of a tent, "I find that dance move flattering and all, but you might want to come out now and see what kind of equipment has you doing that on TV." There was a swishy-sounding rustle of sleeping bag and sheets inside the tent and the Muscle unzipped the door and knelt crooked-hatted half in and half out of the tent. "What did you girls find this time, my love?"
She showed him a smushed screen in a white plastic frame. "And I was making the moves on there?"
No one said anything. Then he pulled down his hat even above his eyebrows. "Well, I do have some moves, so I'm sure I didn't disappoint." The other girl blushed and sort of giggle-muffled, "Not anyone."
"Lemme see it again."
"It didn't record it."
"Lemme see it anyway."
"No."
"Yes."
"Nah uh."
"Please."
"THERE HE IS," the woman's voice was a loud bark to the nursery of love. One of the girls slunk backwards and some sort of soldiers each put an arm under the Muscle's armpits. They lifted him still kneeling. "Should I beat on somebody's chest?" The girl with the worst crush on him asked.
The captainesque woman who'd commanded the lift plucked the medical device from her hands.
I was just pretending the girl with the crush said to no one in particular as everyone moved in silence in the direction of the parking lot. The tent in tow. "Me too!" The Muscle winced and added, "Is that what the troubles is?"
"No talking."
Some people in hunting gear crossed the footpath before us. The soldier-types set the Muscle down and swung guns hanging on their belts up but did not point them. Women in wool capes and sandals and boots crossed behind the hunters. Then a tall red-headed lady in a shirt, sweater, and dress slacks with a scarf bunned near her throat saw us and stepped towards us. "Is anyone of you hurt?"
The soldier-types looked at the captain woman. "We don't need your help," she said.
"I might," the Muscle braved.
The woman put her hands behind her back like a contemplating person then asked, "whaHow so?"
"Is my fly down?"
She looked sort of over the soldier-types and down at the man's pants. "Who is in charge here?" She asked. The captainesque woman answered, "My husband who is
"And did you
"Who is helping reload the Field Hospital Ma'am."
"And did you find this man in his parachute?"
"Do you mean this?" She fell "out of line" and walked backwards putting a foot on the tent.
"Let's call and find out." The tall St. Marie motioned for a radioman to kneel in front of her.
It was a few days later certain people found themselves at a different campground. "Just for processing," the Muscle kept reminding his grandmother. "Nothing dishonorable," she'd stroke his ego. "You heard that right?!" He demanded of everyone sitting at a picnic table when she said it one time. He made the motions of shoving away from a table and smacking both hands on his chest.
"What's his problem?" An out-of-work actor asked out loud.
The grandmother spooned more not pasta pasta onto a kid's plate. "Young men sitting with women and children," she shook her head softly, her inside-eyes sifting through years and years of memories, and said, "It's petaine."
"I wish I knew what half these people were talking about," an older man said into a handheld recorder.
At a crowding up train depot train after train pulled in and didn't totally stop as all manner of characters disembarked. Very neat uniformed ticket-takers asked questions like, And how was your vacation? To which people replied stuff like, no comment and got a lot of sun about the bundled up people in their company.
"Your shoe madame," white gloves held up the broken heel.
"Gimme that," a London punk woman snatched the shoe and wagged it heel-floppy in front of the man's face. "Don't call me that or I'll bop yoo."
"Anyways," another woman with her picked up the story she'd been telling.
A unicyclist juggled bowling pins.
"I see that performer everywhere," the punk said.
"Cha."
People flocked to a row of phone booths lining a wall.
"Come on," the punk woman pulled on the shoulder of the other woman"s white winter coat. "Let's see what's outside. I could stand some fresh air." She took a wad of chewing gum out of her mouth and stuck it behind her ear.
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