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Remembrance of
"I thought I would share it with you."
California State University, Dominguez Hills Hope you had a great holiday and happy new year. Just wanted to send you something I recieved. I'ts a little late for christmas but I thought I would share it with you anyway.
Elba Olmedo
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY I LOOKED ALL ABOUT, NO STOCKING BY MANTLE, WITH MEDALS AND BADGES, FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY, THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING, WAS THIS THE HERO I REALIZED THE FAMILIES SOON ROUND THE WORLD, I COULDN'T HELP WONDER THE VERY THOUGHT I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE This poem was written by a Marine stationed in Okinawa, Japan. The following is his request. I think it is reasonable.....
PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S. service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities.
Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us. Please, do your small part to plant this small seed.
In this poem we are drawn into the structural context of warmth and sharing and loving on Christmas Eve, with the representative par excellence, of such warmth and good cheer, St. Nick. The contrast with the dark and gloomy interior of this home with a solitary sleeper heightens our shock. Of course, we're sorry for anyone alone and sleeping upon the floor in a cold and dark tiny space on Christmas Eve. So the structural context painted by the poem leads us to empathize with this lonely young man.
I was a little disconcerted by the soldier's protestation that he chose this life. That's because we know from our study of constitutive theory, agency and structural context, that choice is not independent of other factors, and that we do not have complete agency. I immediately wanted to argue with the young soldier, as some of you wanted to argue over whether the Afghani women chose to be sequestered in their homes, or as Lisa Sanchez argues (in Constitutive Criminology at Work with respect to the young prostitutes who believed they had choices about the paths they took.
I was also a little disconcerted by St. Nick's tears. Instead of crying over the young soldier he thinks has been so excluded by society, I wish he'd waked him right up and unpacked a cup of cocoa for them both from his bags full of gifts. Tears over the young soldier make him seem beyond hope. I would have preferred for them to chat and find the wonderful things for which the young man had risked his life. Surely Sant Claus could have managed that. Then the poem could have had a happy ending. We could have transformed the world that forgets its heroes by opening the world to include those heroes in our joy.
I suspect the marine who wrote this was seeing the down side of courage, the loneliness when the challenges are won. I wish I could offer him some of the light and joy he chose to protect.
Now, all this fits in with many perspectives of consciousness. I'll bet I could easily explain the marine who wrote the poem in terms of double-consciousness. Could you? Try it.
love and peace, and remember to bring the sunshine in. jeanne
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: December 2, 2001
Latest update: January 3, 2002
Curran or
Takata.
On Thursday, January 3, 2002, Elba Olmedo wrote:
Hi Jeanne,
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF
PLASTER AND STONE.
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.
OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."
On Thursday, January 3, 2002, jeanne responded:
Thank you for sharing this from the Internet, Elba. Now for a moment's conceptual linking: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas is childhood poetry most of us recall with the magic of the holiday season and its bright festivities. By taking a signifier well known to most of us, and this is aimed at US residents, protected by US soldiers, as the poem specifies, the poet links our reactions to the good reactions stimulated by memories of the poem. (Called stimulus-response theory in social psychology.) This is one of the values of ritual. Though we sometimes complain that the ritual is just that, a ritual, in which some are less sincere than otherss, the ritual dictates a set of behaviors and a set of responses that meet dominant discourse expectations. Even though we may just be stepping through the ritual, we can still be affected by it. It draws us into the structural context of the situation. (Called stimulus generalization and reolution of dissonance in cognitive dissonance theory.)