I'm at a country bar right now. Place is packed. "Beatrice" who is 89 years old comes up and asks me to dance,
not once,
not twice
but thrice
She is happy as all hell to be dancing.
I find out she's was a WWII vet, part of the women's Air Corps. Worked on B-25's or B-19's, I can't remember which, the music was loud. Grin ear to ear when we're dancing.
Then I ask a 24 year old if she wants to dance. She says yes, fights me every inch of the way while I'm trying to lead, and then when I want to move across the floor (2 stepping) she says, "no, I don't want to go out there!" and she walks off the floor telling me to ask her friend to dance in the middle of the bleeping song.
Not terribly surprised, I return to my laptop, but then, you know me. Me and my "cynical theories" about modern day women compared to their older WWII idealistic counterparts. Certainly nothing there but spurious anecdotal evidence.
Regardless, I just had to know.
So I walk up to the 24 year old and I ask her what she does for a living.
Anybody want to guess?
Engineer? Pilot? Accountant? Surgeon? Military?
Nope!
"Elementary school teacher."
Heh heh.
Continue the attack men, continue that bleeping attack until they all start to act and behave like true women, just like Beatrice. I'll take an 89 year old WWII vet over a overpaid baby sitter any day, because that is a REAL woman. Not some naive ditz that couldn't handle algebra 2 and found commensurate taxpayer-paid employment.
Post post Lieutenants! Beatrice let me get a picture!
Marry Beatrice! And if you're worried that the age difference might prove fatal - don't worry I'm sure she'll be able to find another guy. :-D
ReplyDeleteBeatrice sounds like an absolute sweetheart. My mother's looking at at buying some land in a highly defensible, far from the city location, and she reports that the neighbours are a bunch of old, educated, alcoholic, red tory, british immigrants. They sound like excellent individuals. I love old birds.
ReplyDeleteI might have a job on Monday, in my field no less, and should that occur you can expect a scathing attack on the welfare state.
But now I must head out and celebrate prematurely.
You look pretty happy too!
ReplyDelete(I was going to guess HR...)
Yeah, I live in Asia and women are get this... actually WOMEN.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome -- love the grin on her face!
ReplyDeleteHey, I came across an article at AtomicNerds that I thought you might find interesting: Sex != Fitness. The author deconstructs a graduate student's paper that suggests guys prefer dumb-looking women for quickies, but not long-term relationships. Interesting read, I thought
Beatrice is one of the reasons that we beat down the dual races of supermen and made the world safe for democracy.
ReplyDeleteLOL! That's awesome.
ReplyDeleteLOL Teachers aren't real workers now.
ReplyDeleteB-17's and B-24's were the most common bombers used in the European theater of WWII. Beatrice probably worked on both kinds of these planes. The B-29 did not come out until late in the war and was used exclusively in the Pacific theater. The B-29's were used in the fire bombing raids of Japanese cities as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
ReplyDeleteYeah, old people often have interesting stories to tell. I knew a guy who was a veteran of both WWII and Korea, and was one of the original founders of Hell's Angels (before they became outlaws).
Young people today are way too vapid to accumulate interesting experiences.
Go Beatrice! When I get to be her age, I hope I can grin just like she does!
ReplyDeleteI will have to add this to my list for my boy. Even though he is only 12, I have been dropping little lessons here and there. Y'know, like, if a girl you like flakes, ditch her. If you are thinking of marrying, watch how her mother treats her father....now I will add if she can't or won't let you lead while dancing, give it up and get out.
Any others you guys can think of?
Ask Beatrice if she has any great-granddaughters.
ReplyDeleteSo you chatted her up then?
ReplyDelete... Very good to read this Capt.
and thank you for changing your blog background color. It's readable now.
Hey captain, my grand mother passed away some years ago at around Beatrice's age. A few weeks before she died a far better dancer than I, your age, took her out for a spin on the floor. She talked of nothing else for weeks, it made her month. Her old biddy friends were agog and jealous.
ReplyDeleteGood man.
Beatrice reminds me of both of my grandmothers (once deceased after raising 10 kids and being a nurse to thousands of others over her lifetime), and the other still living, 83 years old and independent, not without her foibles but still proud of her life and history.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmothers had different lives - one went to college, the other dropped out of high school to help work for her family's support. But each married at similar ages after WWII, and during the war, worked various jobs that supported the effort. My nurse grandma worked in a hospital for returning soldiers, prepping them for surgery or transport to larger centers where they could receive the necessary surgery to repair their wounds. My other grandma was in a big city, working in a factory that machined parts for armored vehicles. At night, she worked part-time as an usherette at a theater. Her father partitioned a part of her paychecks for her to buy nylons and go out with friends one night a month.
My grandmothers were ladies, through and through. They knew how to dance, cook, knit, sew, can and preserve food, and manage a home budget. They drank bourbon and smoked cigarettes but were always conscious of their status as young ladies and knew when to shut the party down. I learned a lot, from both of them, and I'm glad my mom and dad had good role models so I could have good role models, too.
I wonder, more often than not, if some small part of our decline is the disconnection from family that we've had over the past few decades. The stories and experiences and lifeways of our elders are fast becoming lost cultural artifacts, something quaint to be observed but not lived due to the difficulty of execution and simplicity of expression that does not fit our modern ways.
Good to catch up with your posts, as usual, Cap.