FEAR What is good for and when it is not.

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It's fun watching all the manly men being... well... manly....

Anyone wanna show us their scars?
 
Lenny as Bard of the YARC. I will show you just one of my scars.

"Farewell and adieux to you all Spanish Ladies, Farewell and adieux  you ladies of Spain..." (Jaws)

The Balkans. CAF was tasked with constructing a building. It was in a bad area and the team doing the building was harassed daily with small arms fire. One of the men directing the project was a Sargent name David C. We became friends as I was one of his angels, as he called us, protecting his crew. It was a time sensitive build. These were brave men and David the Builder, as I called him, was one of the best. Later, whenever, I came through Vancouver we would meet in this cafe in the west end called Docks. We would split a banana split have coffee and catch up. He got diagnosed with AIDS is the early 90's. He never told me and one day I noticed he was rocking Peter Murphy cheekbones. I said I'd die to have your cheekbones and he responded well you pretty much have to. I looked at him and in his flamboyant Christmas Princess style he vouged this is the face of AIDS.
I saw and shared only two more splits with him before he died, and at his wake his brother made a comment about how unmanly his brother and friends were. Yes, there was a few feather boas and some dresses better suited to women. There were also servicemen. I relaized David had not felt enough love from his redneck family to share what he had done in the CAF. I got up and shared it and watched as they stared in disbelief. My friend died with no one close really knowing what he did for his country. It is a scar you can't see or feel, but I can point it out to you as easily as a missing limb.
 
Alas, I had friends die of AIDS too. And I remember how they were treated back at the time (and not just by their redneck families). It was... not very manly.
 
What scar do you want to see Lenny? The two on my left thigh, I was actually hit there two different times, one an in and out the other a bit worse. The one my pelvis that runs from my navel almost to my scrotum? There is actually two scars there because they had to open a flap to gain access.

The scar in my breastplate where they drilled a small hole to run a cauterizing device to burn certain areas of my heart to help stabilize it? Perhaps the scar in my groin where they inserted the cauterizing device to burn areas inside of my heart.

There's more but you get the idea, just tell me what or which one interests you.

My idea of a manly man is a guy goes to work each day making a crap salary and still supports his family.

My ideals and thoughts may not agree with yours and I respect that. Whether you respect mine or not matters not one iota to me.

So let me know which ones you want to see.

Rob
 
Lenny;  Don't 




Just ~~~ DONT.  

(Edited to remove eveything else.)
 
at this point if you are not covered with scars you have lived one boring life
 
Jeeeeeze Rob

A "Stinkin' Badge" must seem kinda tame compared to the chest full you got from that little "vacation" trip !
The only thing we can offer that even starts to come close is the friendship that is the tribe......
It's great to have you with us (now out on the road too) just enjoying this life on wheels !
 
I don't believe Lenny was being rude or dismissive, or even flippant. I think he was making a joke. Hence my Jaws reference when the men were all getting to know each other and Quin starts by showing his scar from a thrasher shark and our hero looks at his appendix scar and the biologist says Mary Macvandweller and points to his chest, "she broke my heart."

It took me four times to write my response as my browser kept going back a page when I hit the delete button. So I had time to run it around with the good wolf as I was writing.

The point I arrived at and the one I was trying to make. While very few of us have had a cauterizing device threaded through our happy zone or the rest of the damage, fixing broken bits we all have scars. Scars in common, and some not in common. I am certain Gunny would take another heart operation in trade for that awful night with his daughter he shared with us. Probably would endure far more to erase that night for them both if he could.

Lenny picked up on something. Consciously or unconsciously that I was SHARING a split in public. This was when the main stream media were sharing stories of getting this horrible disease from toilet seats. People wouldn't get in elevators with people suffering. A common scar.

So we all carry scars and baggage that we know and feel precisely and we should also know others can never put that into a framework they understand. We shouldn't expect it of them. We got them protecting them from it. So in a way the love in this example is the fact they can't understand the shattered soul and physical aches war has gifted us with and not them. It was what we were protecting them from. It is the example of our love come full circle and it is hard to recognize.
 
I'm just basking in the awesome manly manliness.

Since the only scars I have came from police batons, I'm not as manly as the manly men here. Indeed, I'm probably something of a sissy. Probably because I was raised by women.

The times I was shot at (in Nicaragua) I wasn't hit. But then, I also didn't have any weapons and could not shoot back, either.

And the entire time I kept venomous snakes as pets, I was never bitten, so, unlike some of my friends, I am not missing any fingers.

Not very manly, I know.........
 
Well there you got me Lenny, I have never been whacked by a police baton, even after a couple of heated arguments with said police.

There is nothing manly or unmanly about getting wounded, just means I couldn't find a rock big enough to hide behind. I was not trying to show how tough I was.

I've had a couple of friends die from AIDS and a very good friend lose all her money on the outrageously priced drugs when she was found to be HIV positive. I'm not sure what that has to do with fear which is, or was, the topic of this thread that you seem to want to derail for some reason.

Fear is, to me, a very simple emotion. Yesterday dragging my trailer home every time it wiggled I tensed up. Fear? Maybe a little, visions of my spinout played in my mind.

No one has called anyone a 'sissy' or any type of person a 'sissy', I don't even know the definition I would use for someone that I would call a sissy.

I don't know you and I certainly can't figure out why you decided to post comments like you have. This thread has been mild and well mannered, mostly just BSing about stuff of absolutely no real importance.

I have never kept snakes, venomous or otherwise, they make me nervous. Does that make me a sissy? No.

Join the conversation Lenny and please don't think anyone is picking on you or anyone else.

Rob
 
I didn't say anyone is picking on anyone.

Just joining in the conversation by showing off my manly manliness.

One can smell the testosterone................
 
Pretty sure as a postmenopausal woman I only have a dab of testosterone left, but I sure have plenty of scars. Obtaining some of them came with fear at the level that creates pudding poop, others we're more like "well, that sucks". But most come with a story and a desire not to experience that result again.

Fear is pretty handy at times, reminds me I'm not 20 anymore and will not bounce when I land, but other times it stops me in my tracks and makes me indecisive, thankfully those times are very rare.
 
My greatest fear is of myself.  

When the background sound fades out, the vision blurs on the edges, and everything slows down.  The rage is a visible shimmering  presence in the air.  

I must walk away or allow the events to go where I know society has drawn lines.  That is why I do not drink much... Or be around my ex wives.
 
lenny flank said:
Humans, alas, are not very good at accurately judging the actual risks of things that are very very rare but have potentially big consequences. That is why so many newbie backpackers pee their pants over "bears!!!", why so many newbie van-dwellers are afraid of "serial killers!!", and why so many people buy lottery tickets.

:shy:
 
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