An ex-soldier, he’d modified a small and mild-mannered orange Honda motorcycle into a arched-handlebars hog, or perhaps a piglet. He had a very fancy medal for bravery in the Viet Nam war. It happened like this …

After high-school, Gregg needed Uncle Sam’s pocketbook to attend college, and signed up for some program involving the ROTC. I was in it, too, at Midwestern University, because it was a required course. I got a khaki uniform and learned how to shine a belt buckle with Brasso. We had to march, and stand there, and hold a rifle in a certain way. For me, it was little more than that, sort of a mild PE class.

For Gregg, due to timing, it became much more, when Viet Nam erupted and he found himself a lieutenant, in a trench, in a jungle, between two Vietnamese machine guns.

“All around me,” he said. “guys were getting wasted. My men were shot up; we were scattered, crawling and scrambling to get out of the fire.

“The din was incredible. Huge bombs were blowing up nearby, and the air was thick with smoke. The machine guns blared away, the wounded were screaming. You couldn’t see a thing, and we couldn’t tell where the fire was coming from.

“And I freaked out.

“All of a sudden, I thought What the hell am I doing here? and I threw down my rifle and made a run for it. I left my men, wherever the hell they were, and ran like hell to get away.

“Bullets were flying around me. I heard them buzz past and heard them ping into the leaves and branches. I zigged and zagged, and got quite turned around, and suddenly rounded a tree and found myself running into the machine-gun nest from the side.

“They saw me, and there was no time to stop. One guy was reaching for his sidearm, and the other began to rotate the machine gun, so I just ran right between them as fast as I could.

“I had no rifle, but I pulled a grenade from my vest and dropped it as I ran past.

“They recovered from surprise, and began to swing the machine gun toward me, and I saw the bullets stiching in from the side, but I guess they didn’t notice the grenade because it went off and killed them.

“I kept running until I fell down, and just lay there, gasping for breath, scared as a ghost in hell. I was kind of thinking about how deserters are shot by firing squads, when the sargent found me, and he’d brought the company Commander.”

Here’s what happened:

“Soldier,” said the Commander, “That’s the bravest thing I ever saw in my life.”

He also addresses the concept of avoiding direct fighting, and adding the external energy from the universe to your own as an effective path to negotiation, enlightment, and success.

The marvellous thing is that he presents these spiritual truths in the context of their use by generals in historical wars on this planet. Along the way, Sloman provides a fascinating insight into times and places when the history of continents hinged on a small battle involving, sometimes, only a few thousand men.

An outstanding read.

Moe was older, lanky thin, and not very smart. His brother Joey was one year younger, lanky thin, and not very smart, too. They were often dirty, often badly clothed, and they gaped in dim wonder at the schooling process. One day, Mrs. Gilbert asked Joey to conjugate the verb ‘Go’. Joey looked first trapped, then worried, then irritated.

“Go,” he said. Mrs. Gilbert nodded, encouraging. ” … go …” he said. He scowled. Finally he could delay no longer, and shouted, “Go, go, go!“

This was not the correct answer, but it gives you an idea about Moe and Joey. But I digress. What I wanted to tell you about was the fight.

Moe and Joey lived a few blocks away. My friend Donny and I steered clear of them, because they were quick to fight. Luckily for us, they mostly fought with each other.

One day Donny and I came upon Moe and Joey in a wild fist-fight and wrestling match. They were mostly silent, raining blows upon each other, then grappling and rolling in the sand beside the road. Occasional mutters and curses popped from the boys as they rolled wildly, turning over and over, one on top, then the other, and finally they wrapped themselves into a complex knot that only advanced yogis and young boys could manage.

Joey had grabbed a foot, and gave it a forceful twist, at the same time calling out in pain and anger. He was so angry that he twisted the foot even harder, immediately yelling again, in rage and pain.

Of course, in the excitement and the twisting and turning, the fool had grabbed his own foot, and was too stupid to realize it. Again and again he’d beat upon his brother, rolling and twisting, be beaten in turn, and he’d grab that foot, and then yelp as he gave it a vicious, painful twist.

Donny looked at me. I looked at Donny.

We left the two of them scrabbling in the dirt, and we walked home quietly, wondering what life would be like when we grew up.

“Jesus!” I said, gasping at the weight. The hired man chuckled.

“Better call on someone closer,” he said.

In a foul mood, I trudged into the house.

Later that afternoon, we helped Mama hang some pictures. My sorry mood persisted. But let’s picture the entryway.

After the covered front porch, inside the front door, the small hallway is paneled in dark-varnished wood. Coming in, to the left of the doorway upon the wall once hung the first telephone, a large black box with a cone sticking out, and a cup-shaped receiver hanging on a hook beside the black box.

You lifted the receiver and held it to your ear. You spoke into the cone sticking out of the front of the box. And to ring the operator, so as to be connected to your party, you turned the crank on the left side, which rang a bell far away.

To the left, a doorway led into the parlor, seldom used, with a glass-front bookcase, a tightly-packed little sofa with wooden trim, a very fancy wooden table with a round top and a little carved lip around the top, and an upright piano, possibly never tuned in its lifetime.

To the right, a doorway led into the … what would I call it? It was the room where grandfather’s lean-back chair sat. Here he read the paper, and in the late day, taking a rest, if awakened from his snoring, he’d deny it. “Asleep?” he said. “I wasn’t asleep. I was only resting my eyes.”

Before you and to the right, an elaborate carved wooden piece which has a seat below and great hooks above for hanging coats.

Before you and to the left, a stairway led to a landing, and from there to the second floor. The wooden panelling was only waist-high, and above was a yellowed wallpaper on which were isolated scenes of a lovely cottage beside the road, and a carriage pulled by prancing horses. My grandmother had a motto hanging here, telling about living in a house by the side of the road and being a friend to man. This seemed very wonderful to me as a child.

But now, age 26, I was far too smart, far too wise, far too knowledgeable. In fact, I just about knew everything. Which is why I was so stupid.

I held up a picture to the wall upon the stairway. It showed a wolf standing upon a wintry hill, coat ruffled by the cold wind, gazing down upon a snug cabin in the hollow below, its windows glowing with warmth. My mother said she wanted it more to the left, then more to the right, then back to the left, then more to the right.

Tired and irritable, I set the picture down, and pulled a pencil from my shirt pocket.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” I said. I crudely drew a big rectangle with the pencil upon the wallpaper. “You want it right about there?” My mother’s face fell; tears hovered.

I had ruined the wallpaper. There was no replacing it. A little part of the past had crumbled away.

As it happens, Layla, though a good driver, has never driven more than a few miles. So last week Adrienne, ever the doting mother, drove down to Marin County to pick Layla up, and yesterday Adrienne drove Layla back home.

And after her two trips to the Bay Area, Adrienne has returned today, tired, saddened, and weeping.

Suddenly, she realizes — for the first time — that she has left Marin. “I’ve been looking forward to Layla visiting,” she sobs, “Now what will I look forward to?“

Everywhere she looks, she sees sadness. She’s closed her business; she’s left the dogs she walked; some of them she’s known for years. She’s received phone calls from many of the dog owners; she thinks of these phone calls now.

“Jazzie still waits by the front door every day,” she sobs. “I just can’t bear it.” The tears subside, then return.

“I didn’t know it would be so hard,” she cries. “I miss my daughters. I want to be near them. Lots of families live near each other.” She pauses. The tears come again.

“I’m a mother!” she cries. “I miss my daughters.”

I hold her, and let the tears flow. And I remember a time.

I lived at home when I started college, but after a semester wanted to move to another school, further away, where I’d not be living at home. Any young man wants that.

And I moved to the further school, and lived with roommates and had adventures, and then moved into an apartment of my own. I met girls and bought a fancy sportscar. And then one weekend I visited at home, until the Sunday.

As I drove away from our house, my little brother Paul, who was perhaps nine, ran on the sidewalk behind me, waving and calling goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I watched him in the round mirror.

Although he was running toward me, in the round mirror he grew smaller and smaller, calling goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. My little brother grew smaller and further away, and I realized that, for the first time, I was driving away, because I was going home.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey,
and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing!
Oh! let us be married;
too long we have tarried!
But what shall we do for a ring?”

They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows;
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.