Beetle Bailey's disownment

I can't think of anything else Beetle's "loving Mother" could have done to further ruin his morale. Basically, she and the other folks "back home" have deleted Beetle's past and deleted him from his family and friends. His "loving Mother" clearly does not realize the damage she caused.

She probably would care if anyone told her.

This is personal as it somewhat happened to me.

When I enlisted in the Navy in 1970, the family had just moved to  Klamath Falls, Oregon. My stuff was in the basement and in the room I  briefly shared with one of my brothers (Jim). Then, I went to Boot Camp in Orlando, Florida. When I came home on boot leave, it was even harder than before to relate to  my family. After this leave, I went to "A" school in Pensacola Florida. 

My Paternal Grandmother died when I was in "A" school. My Mother mentioned this almost in passing when I called my parents. I had not gotten a note or phone call. Now, I could not have gone to the funeral as I  was in "A" school and any time away would have been a  disaster.

I went to the base protestant minister and wanted to discuss my feelings and get some sympathy. This "man of God" was too busy with his paperwork to  be bothered by a lowly Seaman Douche Deuce and sent me to his clerk for some examples of sympathy cards to send to my parents.

I never had any use for military chaplains after that and  still don't. This one didn't help me, so  why should I assume the current  crop helps anyone else...

When I went "home" on post-"A" school leave, I was not welcomed. It was the most miserable time I'd had up to then.  After I went to transit barracks in Norfolk, Virginia, awaiting my ship's return to port, my brother Jim wrote me a terse note bitching about my bad manners and how awful I had been on leave. I called my parents and my Mother barely spoke to me and my Father did not speak to me at all. Just as well, I would have lost my temper if he had bitched at me...

I found more family in the casual friendships I formed in transit barracks and in mess cooking division on the ship.

My parents seldom wrote me. In fact, I got one letter "Returned To Sender". I wrote  my Maternal Grandmother about this and she was shocked that my parents had not told me the family had moved from Klamath Falls Oregon to Tigard Oregon.

Oh, well, I certainly did not have  the money or interest in making a surprise visit.

It basically never got much better than this. Oh, my Father cut a deal for my brother Jim and I to get dealer demo Pintos for a very low price. My parents had insisted on my adding their names to my savings account. They "borrowed" money from my savings to make a house payment or two and for food for the  family. I could live with that. It might have been nice had they paid back even some of the money they had "borrowed"...

2013 NaNoWri

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[NaNoWriMo] Unfolding Your Wings
Date:	Sat, 29 Dec 2012 01:22:32 +0000
From:	Grant Faulkner <nanowrimo_loves_you@nanowrimo.org>
To:

Dear fellow storytellers,

If you're like me, you're taking stock of your 2012 New Year's Resolutions and thinking, "Why is 'Do yoga' on my list every year?"

I failed to do a single downward-facing dog pose in 2012, but I take heart that, like you, I embarked on the mind-bending journey of NaNoWriMo. Whether you wrote 500 words or 50,000 in November, you achieved something huge: you leapt into an audacious goal.

We love being the place where you—along with kids and teens in more than 2,000 classrooms—bounded into novel writing. To paraphrase the late, great Ray Bradbury, you have to jump to find out how to unfold your wings.

We want to continue helping writers fly. To do so, we need to raise $90,000 to reach our break-even goal to bring NaNoWriMo back next year. Currently, 11.6% of NaNoWriMo participants have donated. We're shooting for 12%.

If you haven't had a chance to donate, please consider making a tax-deductible donation (even $10 helps tremendously) or buying a nifty item in our store to commemorate your 2012 novel. We toast you in advance for your generosity—every donation helps us open a pathway for a wanna-be writer to become a writer.

Thanks for writing with us in 2012, and please keep writing in 2013. We want to wrap the world in your yarns!

Write on!

Grant Faulkner
Executive Director
The Office of Letters and Light
The tiny-but-mighty parent nonprofit of NaNoWriMo and the Young Writers Program
Watch us in animated form!
P.S. Since we're an organization of wild, audacious goals, please tell us what "big, fun, scary things" you're cooking up for 2013. Yoga?

 

cute quote

"I feel like I have a hangover, without all the happy memories and mystery bruises."
-Ellen DeGeneres