The Roller Coaster Wait: mad as hell and the big to-do

I hate haircuts. Fortunately, I wasn’t waiting for my own haircut but was sitting in the waiting area of Great Clips reading the July issue of Texas Monthly while my wife and the stylist discussed baseball, cars or whatever women talk about when they get their hair cut. And the read proved to be quite a roller coaster ride.

Publisher William Broyles is madder ‘n hell . . . and justifiably so. In his magazine column, he outlines his family’s four consecutive generations of military service – WW I, WW II, Vietnam and now Afghanistan/Iraq – and describes his son’s eroding idealism as a result of the U.S.’ botched involvement in Iraq.

Broyles’ son is an Air Force pararescueman, which Broyles likens to a Navy Seal, and he writes of his admiration for the professionalism and commitment of his son and his team members.

Since leaving the military, Broyles’ son and a friend have established a foundation to assist wounded veterans; and after describing the horrible losses that many of these veterans face – Broyles writes about losses of benefits, homes, jobs, families, arms, legs, faces and that about 1,000 a month attempt suicide. He dedicates the remainder of his column to blasting the U.S. government’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq (did you know we’ve been fighting in Iraq longer than we fought in World War I and World War II combined?).

He never slights the performance of the men and women in the military, but he attributes billions of dollars lost to mismanagement and corruption and attempts to estimate the total cost of the war at somewhere around $3-4 TRILLION. Like the rest of us, he wonders what we could do with that money. Suddenly, I’m Peter Finch in the movie Network, shouting "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Then I turn the page.

Did you know there’s a couple in Frankston, Texas, who have been married for 80 years? They’re 100 and 101 years old; and back in 1927, when a traveling carnival came through town paying $25 to any couple who would get married on stage, they stepped up on the stage and took the money. The $25 paid for a bedroom suite, dishes and a kitchen cabinet; and since the couple has lived in the same house for 79 years -- which they built for $1,000 (oops! had to pay another $50 for the lot) -- they still use those dishes and the kitchen cabinet.

The couple eats bacon, eggs and biscuits for breakfast nearly every morning and has outlived four doctors. And as they explain, ‘Every occasion, every birthday, is a big to-do these days. It’s rare for two people to live this long together.’

What a ride! I’m not a magazine salesman, but find a copy of the July issue of Texas Monthly or go online. There is something worth being as ‘mad as hell’ about. And there’s something that gives you hope and assures you that life is worth making a ‘big to-do’ about.