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National Sundaes For Veterans Day 2023
Today is National Sundae Day, and it is also Veterans Day. Both of which apply to me.
Veterans 🎖️ Day
The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. ~Douglas MacArthur
I am an honorably discharged veteran of the United States Air Force. I had the good fortune to serve during a time of relative peace.
I have many relatives, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who have served under more trying circumstances than my own term of service.
John Rich “The Good Lord and the Man”
I’m grateful that I didn’t have to endure many of the scars my fellow veterans have suffered. I’m disheartened by the fact that many continue to suffer in silence.
When our nation calls men and women to service, it’s not too much to ask that those who serve be properly taken care of.
There was a time when the leaders took care of those they led, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because you get more out of your troops when you see to their basic needs.
We aren’t there anymore. We’re in the age of detached leadership. The troops are an abstract concept to the folks making decisions.
Everything is a zero sum game being played by people dedicated to holding on to their share of the funds at hand.
Meanwhile, medical care suffers and psychological care is virtually nonexistent. It’s not a point of interest for people in ivory towers.
When you sacrifice your troops during and after action, your capabilities naturally deteriorate. You get what you pay for.
The old “joke” that beatings will continue until morale improves stops being an ironic observation and starts being a barrier to enlistment.
The HMO mentality has taken over society at large, including our military. How to “rules lawyer” and penny pinch your way to success is the name of the game.
Well, it’s not a game. It’s a cornerstone of our society. These people have sacrificed their bodies, souls and very lives for the good of the nation.
The nation “thanks” them by paying lip service, half-baked VA services and the imperious disdain of “leaders” who lead from board rooms miles away from the fray.
The best way to celebrate Veterans Day is to hold our leaders to account and demand that they honor the sacrifices of our servicemen and women by taking proper care of them.
The more you ask of someone, the more you should be willing to pay in recompense.
National 🍨 Sundae 🥄 Day
How To Make 3 Outrageous Ice Cream Sundaes! | Bigger Bolder Baking
As a possible explanation of how I came to be diabetic, I luvz me a good sundae.
Fortunately, there are sugar-free ice creams, syrups, fruit toppings and whipped cream. With moderation, I can make a fabulous sundae from time to time.
There is something profoundly satisfying about a well-constructed sundae. There is something soothing about sharing a messy, melty moment of happiness with someone you love.
There is also a comical memory I have about a sundae bar a long time ago at a resort somewhat far away.
We were on our honeymoon at a Caesar’s Pocono Resort. We had a great time. We had a champagne glass bathtub and an indoor pool. We had breakfast in bed and dinners with nice couples on their own honeymoons or anniversaries.
While we were having a great time, one of our waiters was not. He kept taking Kelly’s plates before she was done with them and she was getting rather irked.
Unfortunately for him, dessert featured a sundae bar. We enjoyed our ice cream creations. I watched in amused curiosity as Kelly took the slop of melted ice cream, chocolate syrup and whatever else was in her sundae all around the edge of her bowl, inside and out.
My confused expression went unanswered. She knew the answer would soon be demonstrated. The grumpy waiter came to take our plates, yet again. She had silently sabotaged the bowl. There was no way this guy could take it away without getting ice cream all over his hand. I’m sure it didn’t improve his disposition any, but it certainly taught him:
Revenge is a dish best served cold…
That 🦸🏿♂️ Is 🦸🏻 Heroism
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death – that is heroism. ~Robert Green Ingersoll
Heroes are different things to different people. Superheroes are a particular subset of heroes in general. Even with nine decades of comic books and superhero media, it’s still hard to pin down what a superhero ought to be.
Everyone has their own perspective. What seems like a classic, stereotypical superhero to most people seems like a fascist bully-boy to others.
Some comic book characters are leftist do-gooders. Some are ruthless killers on a personal crusade to stamp out organized crime.
Some have a strict code against killing. Some serve only to efficiently eliminate vampires or demons or Nazis or gangsters.
There is no single definition. Heck, there’s not even a single definition of Batman. Golden Age Batman had no problem shooting bad guys or dropping crooks to die in a vat of chemicals. Modern Batman is profoundly opposed to guns and deliberately killing anyone. It all depends on who is writing the story.
Well, I’m writing The Sentinels and my Holiday Season Serial Romances.
I’ve been around for the Super Friends and reruns of Adam West’s Batman.
I’ve got boxes full of Bronze and Modern Age comic books.
I’ve watched every superhero movie I can find at least once.
I love the genre, so I’m writing a series of superhero stories in a time and place where it’s getting progressively harder to do so.
Eventually, I will be able to write distant fiction in the Far-Flung Reaches and the Tales Of Olde Auringia. It’s a mixed bag doing that. In Space Opera or Medieval Fantasy, you have the option to define the world from the ground up. If you say it’s like that, it’s like that. Want to fly your ship through the Crab Nebula, great. Want to devastate an invading army with a necromantic curse akin to a nuclear detonation, great. It’s all up for grabs.
With superhero fiction, you have to match some semblance of the familiar modern world with the incongruous existence of people with superpowers. There’s an expectation that you’ll observe and specifically defy the rules of reality as we understand it. Citizens, cops and crooks will be the same as they would be in a police procedural, a sitcom or a contemporary drama, while the superheroes and supervillains will defy the rules of physics in the midst of the otherwise normal setting.
One of the things that runs through my mind is that, even taking away the superhero features, a standard action adventure story always glosses over the collateral impact. Whether your hero is a highly trained operator like James Bond or Jack Reacher, a singularly focused cop like John McClean or Dirty Harry or an average dude getting even like Charles Bronson, Joe Don Baker, Liam Neeson or a host of other action heroes who go on an adrenaline surging romp, the collateral damage is completely tangential.
They shoot wildly into crowds. They bang their way through midday traffic. They sheer off car doors, smash cross traffic into other cars, make people flip over fire hydrants and all kinds of mad chaos.
It’s a hell of a spectacle when you watch it, but in that highly focused setting of a movie with specific aims, it’s just noise to make the spectacle more exciting.
In a milieu, people have to live with the consequences of these action sequences.
In the movie, the guy who got clipped and who spun directly into the path of a police car in pursuit are visual confetti to get your adrenaline pumping.
In a world where that happens, the guy who got clipped will miss an important dinner date or wind up with whiplash and lose his job or any of a number of possible bad things.
The cop who wound up in a head-on collision with this guy is going to be filling out paperwork for weeks. If he got injured in the crash, he might have to leave the force on disability. The fire department will wind up cleaning up the mess. The EMTs will wind up treating and possibly transporting innocent bystanders caught up in the chaos.
That’s part of the reason that chaos is the primary antagonist of the series of The Sentinels. If most comic books have anything in common, it’s the absolute mayhem that comes with superpowers and high stakes conflicts between powerful combatants.
I’d like to explore that in my series.
I’m also exploring that in Carol’s Christmas this year. The Holiday Season Serial Romances are generally meant to be a twist on the typical Hallmark Channel Christmas movie by placing it in my superhero milieu, The Sentinelsverse. I play with the Christmas Romcom tropes in a world in which the titular superheroes happen to exist.
A Misfit Christmas took place in Empire City where The Sentinels reside, but each of the 4 following stories (so far) take place over a hundred miles away in the Christmas movie typical locations of Laurel Ridge and Wyoming Pass in the neighboring state of Pennswald.
For the very ordinary, normal humans of the Holiday Season Serial Romances, the superheroes are celebrities with whom they may or may not be familiar. They have normal interests, normal lives and normal needs. What makes my stories different is that I throw a dash of chaos into this otherwise normal tale of guys and gals trying to find love during the holidays.
I think Merry 🔔 Bells has the least collateral impact from the in-world existence of superheroes because the conflict was mainly internal. The burgeoning relationship between Meredith and Toby is a matter of dueling insecurities. Their mutual love of the superheroes as tangible celebrities is a common point of reference, but they don’t really get into any of the super hijinks of the other stories.
This year’s story is not that. Carol is the typical busy professional who suddenly feels the need for romance. What’s unusual is that she’s got three possibilities. Her ex has returned to town. Her current platonic guy has her off balance. The guest celebrity gives her a surprise kiss under the mistletoe, opening a world of turmoil for her. This takes the Hallmark formula up a notch. I hope you’ll enjoy it when it starts showing up at Christmas All The Time on Thanksgiving Day.
Big salute to all my brother and sister veterans the world over. The world is a better place since you took the oath. Remember to take care of yourself and stop by your nearest sundae bar.