January 26, 2005

•          BE A MAN - What Does This Mean To You?

  Two encounters with words in the last two weeks have left me measuring time and change.  One had to do with the world of women.  I'll come back to that.  That's familiar.

  The other has to do with the world of men, manhood, the shift in the meaning of "manhood" since the sixties. That's less familiar.

  I was poking once again through mp3's on Acie Cargill's website.   Go there - he's a musician's musician, a wonderfully protean songwriter,  singer.  I'm a classically trained violinist, a singer, student of North Indian classical music and dance and, though I know more than a bit of folk music, Acie's music is speaking to me in such a way that a friend was moved to say, "You are talking as though this sounds like a new world."  It does.  At my age, considering where all I've been and all I've done, there are not many new worlds.  Indeed it does, although I can't pin down the exact appeal with the end of my finger.   (here's a live link  www.aciecargill.com ) 

  I came once again head to head with the song 'Nam.  There's a lot to this song *(see the complete lyrics below) and in it Acie gifts grace both to those who fought the war and those who fought against it.   I keep playing the fragment in the mp3, with its echo of a long ago marching song, minor key, cadences pulling one down towards the ground, the melodic pattern relentless, caught up in memories.

  The words "did you hide and cringe in fear, were you half a man?" command my attention, pull me out of other thoughts about this scar on our collective consciousness.  I am seized by the phrase "were you half a man?" and find myself thinking around and around it till I come to the question, "In 1965, what did it mean to "be a  man," not just in combat, but in everyday life. 

  There was a sea change in the 60's and 70's in what it meant to "be a man," though the fathers who taught that lesson to their sons in the 60's and  70's learned that lesson themselves in I think was a different and harsher, less forgiving way in the 40's and 50's.  

  The tension between views of manhood, what it meant to "be a man," is present in the song.  Cargill's acknowledging that the value of the protester, standing up for strongly held personal beliefs though not fighting the war, is the same as that of those who saw combat reflects his own validation, perhaps his own integration within himself, of both ways of "being a man." 

  If you're old enough, think back into that time.  If you're not try to picture the contrast between father and son - 

  The protesters, if they were male, were long-haired, bearded, didn't wear suits, but rather, oh horrors, love beads, torn jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts. Wing tips were replaced by sandals and dirty feet.  This was enough then to cause more traditional fathers with their crewcuts and grey suits to disinherit their sons, or, at the least, feel they had forever disgraced their families and the idea of manhood.  

  I raised my sons without their fathers present.  They don't talk to me of their struggles with defining their manhood, but they learned things from me - how to cook, clean, sew on buttons, take care of themselves, respect women, act from kindness and compassion, that may not have been on their fathers' "be a man" lesson plan.  I do not think they are the worse for that.

  Wanting to understand more of how this change took place, and where men stood when it started, I asked my friend, John, now in his late 50's, "How did you learn to "be a  man?"   He told me a story of his father's taking him to a gym with an unheated swimming pool where the men and boys swam nude.  His father threw him into the water, "It'll toughen you up, teach you to be a man," he said and tossed him in. 

  I know I've some readers who are men, some who don't comment regularly.  All of you who are willing, help me out with this one.  How did this lesson come to you?  Where in your life did you confront it, have it laid out?  What are the generational differences?  How and why did those of you raised in the 40's and 50's change, or not, the way you raised sons and grandsons?  How did you change yourselves? 

  Please feel especially free to comment.  I appreciate and welcome it.  Help me understand.  

  pearlbamboo 

  ©2005

  Here's a little piece from Rebecca Well's Little Alters Everywhere, where she touches on one aspect of manhood as I remember it from my childhood and youth, the inability to act on feelings.  The father, seeing his daughter bandaged after an eye operation says:

  "I'd bought some of those velvet headbands from Bordelon's Drugstore.  I remember standing there in the store, thinking, she can rub her hands on the velvet and feel it, even though her eyes are bandaged...."

  "I wanted to walk the four steps over to my daughter propped upon that bed and say: Hey, Red!  Here's a strawberry-colored headband. I know you can't see it, but just rub your hand on it.  Feel?  It''s gonna look so pretty against that long hair of yours."

  "But I never walked over to Siddalee....I left the headband on the kitchen table and went out and checked some business at the cotton gin. "(pp. 32-33)   

   *Here are the complete lyrics to 'Nam.  My thanks to Cargill  for taking the time and having the patience to field my questions about the song and sending me the lyrics.

  'Nam

  Were you in vietnam ?
  Where were you back then?
  Were you in vietnam
  Tell me where and when -  
  

  Men were dying blown apart
  Everyone  was changed 
  Forever marked by violence and death
  And everyone felt shame....
  

  Did you  protest loud and clear  
  Did you make a stand 
  Or did you hide and cringe in fear,
  Were you half a man?
  
  Napalm used on human flesh
  Both sides caused such pain
  Addictions flared
  Hatreds bared
  Please oh god never again
  
  Marching to bring brothers home
  Strong against the fray
  Exposing weakened fortitude
  A government's disarray
  
  When Saigon fell we lost our pride
  America laid low
  Mighty planes and mighty ships
  Defeat we had not known
  
  If you fought or if you marched
  Then hold your head up high
  If your skin meant more to you
  Then shame until you die
  
  Hail brave heroes honor to you
  Yes many mistakes were made
  Such a turbulent time never before
  Not these memories fade
                                      

  Acie Cargill   Reflections on the Middle Ages   2003
  
  

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