My mind and my life are wonderous things ... as are yours, I'm sure. I have more slips of paper and pages of notebooks with musings and thoughts than I really know what to do with. Someone, actually several someones, have suggested I start a blog ... or a journal as a means of focusing some of this mental energy.
To be honest, I don't even know what the difference between a 'journal' and 'blog' is--or if there even is a difference. Read on, my friends, and you can judge for yourself whether it even matters.
And so....
I'm JACE. Yep ... that's me! And somewhere in all my writings my last name may be posted. But I'll just leave it at Jace for right now. I'm 70 years old and heading full tilt to 71. It's strange that while I'm going through some rather serious medical issues, I still consider myself to be in the prime of my life--pretty good shape physically AND mentally, though I don't run for competition anymore . I love to ... dang, if I put this stuff here, I won't have anything for my blog.
Guess you just have to be patient until such stuff leaks out. Perhaps 2025, having embraced my retirement, will see more participation in my journaling efforts.
BIG BAD WOLF is Surprised - Show away. If I can inspire anyone to write, then I consider myself successful.
Sum1 - My "Boot camp" would have been the Summer Camp at Ft. Bragg between my Junior and Senior years. Airborne School was just a course I took for bragging rights back at college ROTC. Of course, if I'd been assigned to a unit such as the 82nd Airborne Division, the school would have meant more.
I don't remember much about Summer Camp, except I didn't like it. When we did the phase where our squad had to solve problems on an obstacle course, I was the one who at 110 lbs was thrown across some gap with the rope so others could cross. Probably won't write much about that part of my life.
My Boot training was quite a bit different than what you went through here. You've given me inspiration to start my own dissertation of Navy life. The problem is, there's a lot I don't remember. We'll see how it goes. I had thought that I'd start in 1960 or so, when I was still a child. I'm not sure people want to read or hear about my pre-teen and teen years.
We have another thing in common too, this is almost getting scary. When I joined the Navy, I too weighed 120-125 lbs, 32" waist. I left Boot Camp at 160-165 lbs, 32" waist.
Wow! You did get SOME training! This does toughen people and it is fantastic, I think.
Yet, jumping out of a plane? It scares the bejeebers out of me. My younger son wanted to do that a while ago, but he has no such training and he is 52. I told him, since he is an adult, he can do whatever he wants, but I didn't want him to tell me about it, before or after.
Oddly enough, I asked people about memoir structures in a forum post about a year and a half ago. After that discussion, I started thinking of blending structures for my memoir attempts. The blend I like is thematic with a somewhat condensed time frame. The broader idea I have in mind is the cavalcade of trauma in my 30s (bad car accident, premature parent death, and witnessing multiple acts of physical violence between the ages of 30 and 37). The other will likely focus on adolescence and platonic friendship abuse's impacts during the late 90s. This gives me some organizational structure without needing to be focused heavily on chronology.
I hear you JACE, I'm under the same pressure, mainly from Kathy. She feels I should write a lot about my Navy Service, I've always thought it was 'just another job'. I see her point though, Submariners are few, veterans even fewer it seems. I should start on this, but like you, my memories come in batches, so to speak. If I started something like that, I think it would be a lot longer than 3400 words. Heck, it might make a good NanoWriMo task!
This morning, a couple men from my wife's church are meeting to move the upright piano out of the choir balcony. Using the stairs are out of the question as they are not wide enough and there's a 90-deg turn at the bottom. So, it's remove the railing and over the edge it goes. They are renting a lift.
And my wife wants me to help out.
I'm thinking that moving a piano was not on my surgeon's mind when he lifted my restrictions earlier this week.
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