Jean Shepherd's America; Here Today, Guam Tomorrow; 213

Kid. Oh. Oh. These are. Made you can do you know you're. You know you will whisper you of the weird.

Of the recession i've been on me to believe. Down the high that they have the. What a good morning welcome for my little favorite grotto here on my island. My world. That's called guam. Here in the micronesian world. The fire pacific. I'm a remittance man. I'm an american cast up on the

beach. Every month i got a check from home. From daddy. And daddy sends at the cajun way. And it's very mean. When daddy doesn't. But life is life here. The sun comes up in the sun goes down. The surf rolls them. Every morning i come down here and gives me. Like you to meet my friend. This is a stylish she's my friend. Now i have my breakfast. Thank you as stella makes life a lot easier as i come. Every morning down to the grotto drink my breakfast. Native rob a little touch a lot in the kids life going. And we look out over the sea. Get ready for our. Strenuous day of a remittance man. If you have never heard the term or met this man. It is a man who has been banished from his family due to an unspeakable gaffe. That he committed to this you. And i might add my gaffe was unspeakable. And so it's forever here. But there are compensations friends.

There are here. Every morning i come down in my grotto and. Look out over. My front porch. It's called the pacific. It's the closest i'll ever get to my home. Those magnificent reefs. Made of the millions of tiny bodies. To go to make up the ancient coral reefs of micronesia. Each one by the way. They were in the fifty's and then the. Songwriter. They're all. Scavengers. They live off the fact of somebody else's land. And here i am. Kind of life as a remittance man live. You probably read joseph conrad. And god who could forget summers at mom and say thompson. Excuse me. I did make it it may not a thing there by that that the stella does make life easier. She was doubtless have a little drink people

again dear thank you thank you thank you my breakfast is going well this morning. I'd like you to see a little of the life of her mistress man if you care to know what it's like here on the beach. Course like everybody else we need. The wherewithal. And that's what we live for every remittance man. Waits every day for the check to or buy from the high point of my day is always with a song in my heart. With a gleam of hope in my eye i rush to the post office in my native village. Breathlessly hoping that daddy has said. Find they again wants mark that. Life preserver. That keeps me from being a sunken hawk on the reef around him. I approach the post office. Every day. The same night

got an email with a value. Alas selected eight. Even the children are watched to see whether i got my check today. They know. And they cheered when i struck out again. The outcast or the islands. There's friends. Friendly local water buffalo. It was a better life than either. We see below i was there. Do you want to know my name or call me ishmael. If you care. So if i said to say

that the name of my family is one of the most respected you would know it. One of the most respected in the united states. But i can't use it on a program of this sort. There's a born again bird living there. And there's all kinds of life on this island. This is an exciting moment. Maybe the after that sign appeared. Even in paradise. Yes and this is paradise in a way. In all professions have their role models. I mean for lawyers it's. Clarence darrow they can see themselves. Out there in front of the jury. With the world. Listening to every word. The baseball players have making battle but we are that is that we have our own secret heroes. For me it's lord g.m.. Of

origins. I remember those deathless lines laura jim's eyes fear of like. Twin calls into the sea quite fast this is obvious they had life. At that waterfall. That describes a remittance man. My particular here although not role model but hero is charles laughton i remember as a kid. Seeing a movie in which charles laughton played an englishman on the beach. I mean he was this big fat slob and he was wearing flowers in his hair. And he was. Well i hate to say it but he was drinking his breakfast out of a coconut. Ever since that time i thought maybe there is something to this remittance man thing but now i've learned sense that it's much deeper than that. What do we do really for our big moments in life while here on guam. Every year i look forward to the reenactment of the landing of ferdinand magellan's as he came ashore in my native village. Which is now my native village. In the year fifteen twenty one. Once a year. I go to the shore to watch them reenact

that classic scene of me and charles laughton. Large you have been all over lost souls of the turn of the cast. On the beaches this time. And the challenge comes in the city. A little while. This is the high point of your way people look for three hundred sixty four days of the year to this one. The magic moment there following the farm is foreign to you all day saturday night saturday. See a guy. I'm very proud. To first say that when i said i'm glad to take his whole face off i am in

the outcast of the islanders not roystering and the men. All of the native ceremonies and celebrations and joy is rampant. You. Say no all around the square i can see the same see that magellan sailed by a few. Yes air. New uniform mountains that provide the spine of my lovely island. Sometimes they just go down and. Look at those jungles. The trade winds blowing high up on the steep. Ridges of these hills or are packed trains. Move from

one end of the island to the other as they have for thousands of years before or or this is our native cemetery. Families are very important and go on. They stay together even in death or are buried above ground. Little compartments. Loving flowers. Wreaths. Or are good night. Mom and dad. It is a zero. Bridge by the spaniards in the sixteenth century.

And well known i set off across the bridge. Every day. For one of my. Social moments. Man has to keep in touch with civilization. Drop in for a coke at the last stop the of the of a the it's rush hour. Hour my friend dennis.

Was with his local champion. Right there and. He's raising a dark horse for next year. And i'm next year's champ. This is the calumet farms of one right back to the last stop. The the. Big. John. The do. The japanese love him he is a samurai. To the japanese. There is a twenty foot high statue of. The do. In front of a japanese gun one. That's why i love it. I love the million lives. You will fall on their own. You need

god. While. By the say the same the gay white way. Was. On kong jewels. The new queen. The copper penny. God some nights the social life is so. So overpowering. In a man's head is a world where to go tonight. What to do tonight. It's augured. For everyone. Here's a massage

parlor. There's the a massage parlor. And there is the massage parlor there's plenty of back trouble on this island. But all as expatriates need our clubs. The british. Always had a club and a far flung empire. To bring a little bit of london. To the wilds. And so it is with the american empire builders of the twentieth century. And here is our club. The big mac. the quarter pounder. Rising. Brave and. Clear. In the tropical sun light. Twenty four hours a day. The largest mcdonald's in the world. She runs. Thanks to golden arches look down. After hearing the sickness it can be such when one hundred forty four. The american

marines. And the american soldiers stormed ashore. And thousands die. As a japanese. Japanese and the aircraft right. Forty years ago they were blazing. One thing about islands. Is that they absolutely. Build. Create that live by legends i mean a legend. What the people. Exist not. Manhattan for example. But now you know manhattan island. And it has a legend. That there are fourteen. Alligators living in the sewers. But they were brought by people from miami beach and put down into the toilets and they grow dock. That's all that you allege and like paul bunyan. And this island to it has its legends for example how many of you remember the story of the japanese soldier who held out until nine hundred seventy two. Didn't know the war was over and they caught him up in the hills on the far end of the island in fact the other side of my

village. He did do that. But one of the greatest legends of this side of the legend. To have a legend that there's a g.i. an american g.i. who doesn't know the war is over. Not only that he's in the signal corps. I was at. I was in the single car myself. But that would surprise me about a signal corps ever know where the war was over. But nevertheless. This. Sergeant in the signal corps this is the legend. Down at the hubba hubba bar. Which is right on marine drive here almost every night to hear them tell the story. That in the hills there isn't a. American g.i.. Sergeant cletus webb island county kentucky. And he doesn't know the war is over and he is wearing captured japanese uniforms. And he's living out there in the woods. And he's occasionally found by the legend. He lives by stolen chickens. And he's waiting to hear from this company commander. To tell him the command from his

solitary patrol. And every night he listens goes well. And they can be grinding his generator. To listen to his walkie talkie. Waiting for the signal was say the your patrol is over sergeant weapon come in and some say that she believes the war is over but the japanese one sees tourists coming ashore. But he believes that one day he'll get the call. And that the american g.i.'s will storm ashore and retake the island. And a legend holds that late at night he stalks the lonely beaches are on guard against.

Patrol craft. And marauding japanese. Forever. Patrolling is beach. But up. Every wednesday at two in the afternoon. I come to a far. Point. That is the closest to my homeland. Of all the island. He stared out to sea. Towards my lovely lovely windy city. Which i will never see again in chicago. My white sox. My tribune. Our my rig leapt building. Oh. My life of shame as a red mittens mad began. Innocently enough.

I attended a wonderful performance of peaches browning's all girl polynesian global review. It so happened that it was the night that i was to be announced officially as the a finance director husband. Chicago's most illustrious and most famous debutant. Nancy was her name and number of chicago's most famous meatpacking family. Well. While i attended the preview i fell under the spell of bubbles love there alexy coreen the magnificent polynesian beauty. From queens. Well. That night of. Shameless passion. That night of untold ecstasy. That led me to this. Life on the fire cast. Shores of. One of america's most remote outposts. And i can only say of troubles. Love there. Is watching tonight anywhere in the world. I hope that that night of ecstasy and passion that night of.

Well. Sure emotion. Still remains with you bottles and bubbles i remember you wherever you are. And someday. Maybe we'll meet again. You'll be performing in peaches browning's polynesian borglum heavenly review. We shall meet. Bubbles. Yes my weakness. My achilles heel. Is the winds of my own who the rose bud mouth. The lovely rounded cheek of those of the feminine gender. I can't stay away from. But every time. I dream. I have this terrible dream when i see myself going into some mysterious building and suddenly i'm in an airline terminal. And there's a man waving a ticket at me. And i approach him. My arms in supplication.

He waves the smiles. Of the stream is terrible it's a nightmare. It's a nightmare he shakes my head i see it every night it's like thirty years ago and as one who is a auto hero. If you talk like i wake up. Sweaty. And it takes me two or three houses to get back sleep with their eyes and pupil places here on the side of the quad come to look over the waters so. Crystal clear that you can read. You can beat a beer can. The labels. The ingredients of forty feet down in the bottom. And you know we have our own little statue of liberty as. Thousands of japanese come to have their pictures taken by it.

And i have come to believe that the t. shirt. Is literally the symbol of our century. He has first there was the stone age then the bronze age and then the iron age. Today. We are living in the teeshirt. Age. Oh yeah crime is pure sensuality. Freaks. Serious. Rolling in warm sand. Breezes night and day. The worst looking bar in the pacific. The hitching post. And salute leave who wears. I should show you this.

This is a house one house. He's covered. Every each of these young. Beer cans shells. Any conceivable piece of junk that turns out to daisy crazy strange wonderful. Wrong. Disney where own. Colorful madness. Saw another beautiful day here on guam and in my life. You can hear my native friends of come down to the village to have their nightly dept there enjoying themselves. And i guess we're all enjoying ourselves in this life as best we can out there just a few miles as the marianas trench. Thirty seven thousand feet deep the deepest part of the ocean of the abyss. Just like my life. The abyss. And way that's this journey to another new and fascinating occupation you may like to try if you have the opportunity. Remittance man. The growing american thing. But

remember to say one thing if you leave the country daddy. Hidden camera. And daddy you better keep them coming. Tonight. When you go to bed. Pittsburgh. Indianapolis. Last vegas. Provo utah. San diego california. Breathes a sigh. I have a prayer for this poor solitary remits man. Cast up on the beach chair and want one more thing. Just keep in mind that out here in the fire pacific a whole day or remove from life. Thousands of miles from your home there is a tiny island. A tiny bit of soil that is forever. And if you will for ever chicago. Hail and farewell. Good night. Made the trade winds blow for ever in your life. My island. My pacific. The

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