Most of you don't know who Yogi Berra is, and that's OK. He was a part of my childhood. Every kid who grew up in America during my time, grew up with baseball. I was never a big fan, but there are times I still think of hot, muggy, summer nights at the ball park. That's a memory worth preserving ... but that's a subject for another time.
Anyhow, the title of this blog is one of Yogi's famous lines. A lot of people thought he was a little slow, but still a nice guy. I think he was a little ahead of the rest of us, and still a nice guy. I wonder if it matters which it was. I doubt it.
You know, it's weird when you get that déjà vu feeling. We've all had them, that's for sure. Usually, they sneak up on you when you least expect it, and suddenly you're overwhelmed by that feeling that you've been here before and done this before, and heard these exact words before ... it's like reality gets into a strange kind of time loop. It scares some folks, or so I've been told, but I've always found those situations exhilarating somehow. Well, I did, that is, until I realized my whole life is turning into one big déjà vu.
Just recently, an old internet-who-stepped-out-into-real-life friend stopped by for a visit. Since I'm back to where I started when Uncle Sam sent me overseas during my dodging-the-war-in-Vietnam days. Through more twists-of-fate than most people are allowed, I ended up doing liaison on the German-German border. I was sitting there in the Fulda Gap just waiting for "the balloon to go up" marking the onslaught of the savage Russian hordes who were just chomping at the bit a mere five miles as the crow flies from where I called home.
Yep, that was me at the End of the (so-called) Free World, keeping the world safe for democracy, ensuring that you could all sleep well at night. I was there. I did that. And, to this day, I wonder what I was doing.
We all knew the drill back then: when those Russian missiles full of nuclear warheads were screaming in to kill us, well, just hide under your desk at school and then, once the big dust cleared, walk quickly (don't run) home, and take a buddy with you, someone who would have had to take a bus to get to his or her own home. It didn't matter if you liked them or not. The fate of the world was at stake, and everybody has to do his part, you know.
And then, well, there I was, staring Ivan and his evil cohorts in the face, just wondering when they were going to take advantage of the slightest lapse in our vigilance and come thundering over the border with their thousands of tanks. They were just salivating, waiting for the order to attack ... at least that what was I was told. I spent a lot of time out on that border, I can assure you, and not once did I see a bit being chomped nor anyone salivating. I did see a lot of sad-sacks like myself being forced to pull duty somewhere they never thought they'd be. And every once in a while, one of them would escape and we'd have to debrief them, and well, their lives weren't going all that well and they were looking for something better, so they risked life and limb to go for it. I wanted something better too, but in comparison I was too much of a coward to risk life and limb for it. I just wasn't getting that life-and-limb thing.
Ivan wasn't coming, not if he could help it. And neither was Klaus or Dieter or Hans or whatever their parents had named them. They were sitting out their duty and the end of their world just hoping that Paul Bunyan wasn't going to get frisky, like I was hoping that none of them were getting the itch to conquer either. Turns out, they weren't. Little foot soldiers like we were (and that we had 100% in common) don't want to conquer anything. We'd rather be at home, or with our friends, or having a beer, or looking for a date, or just avoiding hassle. Anything would have been better than what we were doing, but we were under orders. Big brains somewhere knew a whole lot better than we did what was good for us.
Well, that's what they wanted us to believe, but I didn't believe it then ... and from what I was able to gather, neither did Ivan, nor Klaus, nor Dieter, nor Hans. To quote my idol, Bob, we were "Only a Pawn in Their Game".
That Cold-War thing was a big deal. A lot of people invested a lot of time, energy, and other resources, not to mention money in keeping that illusion going, to get us to buy into the fear and uncertainty, to get us to live in abject fear of total annihilation, so that other people, most definitely unrelated to any of us normal mortals, could gain a helluva lot of power and make one whole helluva lot of money. Down here, on the ground, there were millions of ignorant, exploited, drones who were working their butts off in hopes of a better life while up there, in ephemeral spheres, a small number of spoiled elites were ensuring that we drones kept our noses to the grindstone so that their lives which were immeasurably better already could be even more immeasurably better, or something like that.
One thing I know for sure: none of it had anything to do with freedom, democracy, the will of a people, or any of those high-falutin' ideals we get beaten about our heads and shoulders. Ideals are just a red herring. In the end, it's mostly about money and power, but not for those who don't have it, rather for those who do (and they always want more).
So, I took my friend out to Point Alpha, the Cold-War Memorial site nearby, where they still have an actual compound that was used by the troops on the border and where you can see in real life what lengths both sides went to in order to keep alive that illusion that something great was at stake.
For my part, it was, and is, nice to be able to share a part of my life with another human being. I like taking people out to the border so that they can see the physicalities of what was going on back then. There is a little museum out there as well, so you can see pictures and artifacts and models and listen to real-life testimonies of people who experienced all that, back then, when the world was clearly divided into black and white, us and them, friend and foe. And while you're walking around, telling your friend what you were doing then and how and why, you suddenly realize that it's over 40 years later and at bottom, not a damn thing has changed at all.
Suddenly, you're overwhelmed: it's déjà vu all over again.
Again, the old heroes push their way into your head. Dylan, a classic if there ever was one, "With God on our Side", near the end, sings:
I've learned to hate the Russians
All through my whole life
If another war comes
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side
What the hell are we doing? NATO's piling in as many troops around Russia as is possible, though there is no (just like there wasn't then) any clear, reasonable indication that Russia wants anything more than to be left alone ... or be given a seat at the table, but apparently we'll be having none of that. The USA alone has more than 1,000 military bases overseas, and apparently it's not enough. And they've got themselves trying to stare down the Chinese in the South China Sea, and just what they're doing in and around Syria is anybody's guess, but one thing is for sure: the Russians aren't going to have any say in anything if Uncle Sam has anything to say about it.
And there I was: staring at the fence, trying to formulate a coherent thought, and it had slithered its way, unseen and unsuspected, into my ill-prepared consciousness: not a damn thing has changed no matter how much water has flown under the bridge of history.
None of this inspires confidence in my view of human beings and their ability to learn. None of this comforts me when I have trouble sleeping at night. There aren't any facts involved now, just like there weren't any then. It serves some interests to have this full-blown, heavily armed, and propaganda-rich animosity towards the Russians so the long-gone, almost-forgotten, Cold War has been heated up again. What's for dinner tonight, dear? Left-overs.
Things were, in many regards, simpler in Yogi's days. But, truth be told, they weren't much different. That's kind of sad, when you stop to think about it.
Think about it.
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