My home smells of old people...

I noticed that while helping my wife making the bed, this is the last use from those sheets, but the kingsize pillow cases will stay forever! Need new pillows. As I put the clean folded sheets back in the linen closet, I find some other really old sheets - that need to be gone, too.

Since I am down to only one cable connection and I have a large broken television - I start thinking of buying a new flat screen for watching video and dvds, and if I am going in that direction I ought to look at a blue-ray player... understanding that the Blues sound better.... so with tons of 'Buy Me! for you' commercials haunting the airways, I am more likely to yield to temptation and grow the economy of Asia a bit. Nothing electronic is made in America, except electronic dollars backed by the power grid. They don't exist when the power is gone.

Since I have a couple of televisions not hooked up, I put one on a VCR and can watch one of my hundreds of movies when I want. Now the weight of that broken television is too much, almost and will be a struggle - if I can find someone that wants a broken one. Life is tough, then I realize I have too much, and that is why it seems so tough - well, that kills that buy something. Better keep looking for a job. Work is good!

I had to laugh, when I first arrived in the 82nd Airborne Division, the Thanksgiving Day feast was awesome. Total dress up, chow down, everyone there all the commanders, families and food! The servers and cooks would get Friday off and had a three day weekend as their reward. There were only two days off for goodness in the old Army (19th Century) - your birthday (which the lower the rank the less likely to be awarded, but a good sergeant would make it happen) and Thanksgiving - a day the entire Army would take off and celebrate (if possible). But then in the good old days the troopers lived in platoon bays, the NCOs in two man rooms and everyone used a common latrine and showrooms.

Fast forward to making the Army just like a civilian job, two to four man rooms with personal bathing facities, snack bars and no battery messhalls. And give the troopers four day weekends and cars - they are gone, mostly to back home as they can. The Thanksgiving feast is still big stuff, and the command and NCOs dress up and bring families and dine well, but it isn't Thanksgiving on the Yalu in 1950 before the Chinese Communists send those volunteer divisions against the United Nations in the frozen Chosen.

What does happen is a lot of deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the units are tightening up again and Thanksgiving away from homebase is special - the President could drop in, you never know. That is nice. But back home, they still want the big feast, the unit dining together and the good stuff that civilians hardly understand. So today, through the miracle of Facebook, I find the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd posting pictures of their Thanksgiving Feast. Wednesday! Yes, the modern Army can provide, all the beauty of the unit dressing up, coming together for the celebration and still giving everyone a four day weekend. Considering how long they have been fighting in the far corners of the world, I think that it is a great idea! Airborne! All the Way!