Hertz

"Leave at your own chosen speed."

-- Bob Dylan, "It Ain't Me Babe"

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"It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there."

-- Andy Rooney, "Youth," from A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney

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Andy Rooney's "An Essay on War" is one of the finest writings on war I've read, and he published it over thirty years ago during the Vietnam War. Most sources say it's an anti-war piece, but I don't know if I agree; at the same time, though, it's surely not a pro-war essay. I think, and this is why I love it so much, it is simply a war essay. It is about the thing--not about the position one takes on the thing. I guess it has gotten the label "anti-war" because CBS refused to air it in 1971.

Whatever his actual stance on the Vietnam War, or the current one for that matter, Rooney's thoughtful and clipped prose make for a genial read about a divisive topic. He sticks to the truth. War creates many opinions but retains its quality and trait, and those things with which people of all opinions would agree, are Rooney's prime focus. Good stuff, quick stuff: Ideal for an afternoon doo.

All in all, Rooney doesn't get as much credit as he ought to get. His writings from the middle part of the 20th century are fantastic.

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So the big trip has come. A late lunch with the fam and then a rental car trek across the country and down to Cinci. We reserved a Ford Focus and wound up with an '08 Chevrolet Cobalt, which actually has a little bit more trunk space. An open backseat for naps while the other drives, and plenty of home-prepped road snacks to sweep back tides of hunger. And good music. That's one thing I can definitely say for Sharon: Every time she pops in a CD, skips to a track and says, "Have you heard this song?" I find another band I like. She ought to know, after all, because she has one of those new 120GB iPods, three-fourths full.

She'll need that music, too. She's driving the first leg, an after dinner ramble through the PM hours and finishing around midnight. We may stop for Vaults, too.

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Ajax is frustrated, and he doesn't seem to know why. He lays down on the arm of the long sofa in the family room, on his side, the pink skin of his belly growing and shrinking with each lengthy breath. He stares at nothing until you walk into the room. He notices you. He drops his head again, and would fall asleep except that he keeps his eyes open. He is waiting for something to happen.

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My room, once again, is relieved of my criticals. I've scoured dressers this time, looking for nostalgia and finding it: an old Mark Kistler imitation sketch of a cave and a civilization of elves and a dragon; an old oven glove I began in seventh grade as a Mother's Day gift but never finished (guess what she's getting this year?); a few old essays about the use of syntax in Poe, Hawthorne and Orwell; and, yes, my old paperback copy of A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney. It's all in packs and boxes now, and those are in the car, and the car is in the garage. And I am in my room, seeing the white walls and the old stuff tacked to it.

Pizza's ready; I'll head upstairs. We'll leave at our own chosen speed.