Pop, an American Hero

I was letting Ash out. Pop is in the kitchen watching some of the Superbowl pre-game show. Some military guy is on TV, bantering about the game, I think. After letting Ash out, as I am just turning back into the kitchen, the host of the show thanks the military guy for his service, and I thought I caught such a sad, gleamy-eyed look on Pop's face - a sense of the covetous and of being cheated, a wistfulness. That's what he wants, I thought, that's his big fantastical image of self. Pop would like to be recognized like that, perhaps even on national TV, to be thanked for his service, like a hero, as though he saw war, or was a Special Forces guy, like he was a general, like Eisenhower, the reason for our freedom, the cornerstone of America's superpowerdom.

That's his big life-fantasy, the equivalent of my fancying myself as a writer and a great thinker. This is the source of his pride and sense of self as a 'real somebody'. He was in the service, worked his way up through the bases' dining halls to the decent-sounding rank of master-sergeant, albeit in charge of soup-ladling. Hence, he is as good and highly ranked as any man, top of the line. Well, it is real enough to have provided for a 'decent enough' lifestyle for his family. I'm living off it, aren't I? It is just amazing what illusions people need to live with themselves.