Two years ago I bought a little amplifier from a local music store. It was a Roland Cube. Just a little amp with a loud bark. It was only $100 but has plenty of power and all of the cool effects were built into it. Technology really has made some leaps in the last four decades. Electronics are smaller, faster, and better than ever.
The owner of South Street Sounds is a local musician who’s been in the industry for many years. He played and recorded in a band called Tall Trees. He’s got tons of gear crammed into the little store and it’s a bit cluttered. There’s so much musical stuff packed in there that there’s almost no room to sit down and try out an instrument. But he’s got a little bit of everything at reasonable prices.
In the basement, he has a complete recording studio and rehearsal space. He also gives guitar lessons and rents out the studio to musicians looking to record. He’ll run the board and mix the songs down for you. The Dead Milkmen have recorded there. When he’s not playing or fishing he’ll pick up gigs at local watering holes like Bob and Barbara’s or McGillan’s here in the city.
He’s been married to the same lady for around 25 years and they run the business together. His wife usually is behind the counter and operates the store on a daily basis. She’s a fit, pretty Asian lady with a peppery personality. She has a certain intensity in contrast to her husband’s laid-back, easy-going nature. Maybe that’s why it’s worked for so long. I’ve found that she’ll start talking about some subject or person that irritates her and then will become so intense, you actually feel like you’re the one in trouble with her!
I kind of dig her because she’s attractive and a little bit mean. I think this goes back to my Junior High days when I was hated by everyone. Being an ugly outcast, I was the object and target of my classmate’s scorn. Especially the girls. I think somehow in my formative years when girls were mean to me my subconscious at least enjoyed the attention even though it was negative. I think this may have manifested itself into me enjoying a woman who’s a little bit mean. I end up liking women who are a bit cruel in general. I don’t understand it but it’s definitely there in me.
I would stop in occasionally and chat with her but her corrosive personality compared to her very nice husband kept me away. That, and there was just no room in the small space to really check out their collection of guitars.
But I was still looking. I was thinking I may want a Fender Telecaster but still wasn’t sure. All I had was the little amp and my Iceman. But something was still missing. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but probably the fact that I wasn’t learning any new songs or writing and composing anything on my own. My energy was focused on the blog, but the itch to play again was getting stronger.
I would drag out the Iceman and jam on occasion but something was missing from the whole experience. I sold my Marshall amplifier years ago simply because it was just too big and too loud to play in my apartment in Rittenhouse. It would have melted the paint off the walls before I would be thrown out for violating local noise ordinances!
Something was coming but I didn’t know how or when. I would just keep thinking about music and ideas for songs and just let it develop naturally.
Continued next Tuesday…
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Back in 1978, I was the singer in a band called Renegade in Northeast Philly. The musicians were already playing together when I joined the band. It was a huge leap for me and was the beginning of my life as a musician. I’ve written about this time in my life and it’s all pretty well documented.
We played the song, Draw The Line by Aerosmith, and Gerry the guitarist asked that I learn and play the guitar part when he did an extended slide solo during the song. I leaped at the opportunity to play guitar so he brought in his old Silvertone to practice and showed me how to play the three notes I needed to play.
Larry, Mike, Chaz, and Jerry
I eventually acquired the guitar from him. He played a blonde post-CBS Fender Stratocaster. He needed money to buy a Valentine’s Day present for his girlfriend and he sold me his old Sears Silvertone for $15. He even threw in the amplifier that came with it. He was a great guitarist and had a cool Stage amp and a Univox Super Fuzz distortion pedal. The equipment he was using became the model of what I wanted to do musically even though I could barely play.
I found this pic on the internet and it is the exact model I owned into the early 80s.
Time went by and I continued to practice every day. Learning the notes on the fretboard and pouring through my sister’s old piano songbooks to learn songs. I would forgo going out to stay in and practice my instrument. My main focus was to learn the basics and then start writing songs. I wrote my first song called Get Lost on that guitar. I had only been playing the guitar for a couple of months. I always had a good ear and a sense of music in my head. I loved rock music since I was a kid, and leaned more toward the harder acts like Steppenwolf rather than The Beatles. I really dug hard-hitting powerful guitar sounds. The heavier the better.
Let’s jump to 1980 and I’m living in Wildwood, New Jersey with my family. My dad had decided that once my older sister went off to college, we’d leave Philly and live at the seashore. Wildwood back then was an absolute wonderland in the summertime. But in the winter it became a desolate awful place for kids and teens to live. There is absolutely nothing to do. It’s a resort/retirement town and only exists because of its location, free beaches, and a boardwalk full of amusement rides.
But I survived the winter and actually thrived when I met a kid who played guitar. We started jamming and later joined a few other guys to form the Union Jacks. My buddy said I probably needed to buy a “real guitar” if I was going to be taking music seriously. I thought this was a great idea and started looking through magazines to see what my favorite guitar heroes were playing.
The one instrument that really struck me as the guitar that was right for me was the Ibanez Iceman. It had to be black and would represent the cool heavy metal/glam image and persona I wanted. I guess once I learned how to play guitar and write songs I didn’t really focus on being a great musician. I just wanted to write good catchy songs and be a rockstar. I remember reading once that the artist, Sting once said, “I saw the Beatles and I wanted to be in a band. I saw Jimi Hendrix and I wanted to be a musician.”
You can read about my whole music saga in my upcoming book, Down The Shore:Stories from my summers in Wildwood, NJ
But for this story, you can click on the link below to get the backstory of this musical instrument.
When I saw the film Hard Day’s Night I wanted to be a rockstar. A cool job playing rock music and being hounded by throngs of girls wherever I went. So I always liked being in a band but my focus was on becoming a famous rockstar on my songwriting merits. I figured I could always get other musicians to bring my poetic and musical vision to life with their musical prowess.
So now I had the Iceman and I loved it. I referred to it in the feminine sense like men name their boats female names. It’s a term of endearment. Even though the Iceman had the word MAN in the name, and had sharp edges, an angular body, a hook, and what looked like a stinger I still regarded the instrument as female. She was beautiful and loyal and brought me hours of joy. She was far better than most people I knew. But the instrument still had a very heavy metal masculine image to it. Look at the photo. That’s a metal guitar. You don’t come out onstage with a black Iceman and a Marshall amp behind you and play ballads. You crank hard rock and metal at a loud volume.
I remember seeing a picture of a guitarist playing guitar in a music magazine and he had a black guitar strap with a white lightning bolt on it. I had to get one of those to complete my look. I had the cool Iceman, but my strap was plain black leather and I put neat buttons on it. Buttons were popular back then and my guitar strap was covered in buttons. Buttons with images and words like, I want complete control, I want it all, a picture of Alex from Clockwork Orange, a photo of Farrah Fawcett, etc. Just stuff I liked and thought was cool at the time.
But I wanted that lightning bolt strap to complete my rockstar look. But couldn’t find one anywhere. It was 1979, and I lived in a ghost town so music choices were limited. There was a TV repair shop owned by a guy who had a few guitars and gave lessons, a music store called Back to Earth, and a place called Gilday’s up in Pleasantville. Not much else. It was even difficult to find good music down the shore. All they had was one crappy radio station broadcast out of Atlantic City and if you wanted a cassette by a specific band the store had to special order it for you. I was probably the first person on the island that owned Def Leppard’s first album, On Through The Night, and Some older Judas Priest albums because there was just no call for any of that music where I lived. When I think about how sparse and talentless the population was in Wildwood in the wintertime I’m surprised to this day that we all actually came together and created a viable rock band.
I spoke to my father about the black strap with the lightning bolt and he said he’d see what he could do. He had always come through for all of us on anything we wanted when it came to Christmas, so why not ask Santa himself to procure this elusive item for me? He was great at locating things and bringing them home. I was sure he’d find one for me.
But as time went by, he came to me and said he wasn’t able to find the strap I was looking for. Was it a custom item that the guy I saw wearing it had specially made for him? Maybe. I eventually let it go and continued to play wearing my plain leather one covered in buttons.
The Ibanez Iceman had taken the place of the Sears Silvertone. The guitar that I learned to play and started my songwriting journey on. The guitar looked like a slender Stratocaster, but once you got close to it or held it realized it was one level above being a toy for a child. But it was a great guitar to learn on and it meant a lot to me.
But it eventually started to have electrical problems and spent more time in the closet because it had been replaced by my new girlfriend. My best girl. My beautiful powerful black Iceman. I had a tendency to do that with women back then too. I would have a girl I liked and I would spend time with her. Let’s use Anne as an example. Anne was my little girlfriend at the end of the summer. That lasted into the winter and she would come down and visit with her mom during the winter and we would hang out. I was 17 and she was 14. But I was immature and she was the perfect girlfriend for me. But once I was enrolled in Wildwood High and playing in a new band, I started dating a local girl. She was tall and blonde and I was digging her. New and shiny like the Iceman. Anne slowly became the Silvertone. I thought less about her and enjoyed my time with the girl who was new. I was fickle even back then. I didn’t even feel bad when I dumped Anne to be with the new girl. Anne was a better match than the new girl, but I wanted what I wanted. As the song says, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” The new girl won out because she was available. But because of who I was at the time, once the summer of 1980 broke, I cut them both loose to enjoy all the fresh tourist girls who would arrive in droves each week on vacation.
That was 40 years ago and none of it matters now, but I noticed some interesting parallels in my life lately. The Ibanez Iceman is the only guitar I’ve purchased in the last 40 years. I thought about getting a Gibson Explorer as a second guitar back then, but they were expensive. I had the Iceman and that was enough. I could only play one guitar at a time anyway. The Gibson Explorer would have been a vanity purchase not because of how well it played but because it looked cool. Pretty much why I wanted the Iceman. It looked cool. My decision to spend all of my busboy earnings on a $500 guitar back in 1979 was simply because it looked cool. I wasn’t about the ease of play or tone. I got it because it looked sharp and I had never even played it before I bought it. I just wanted that look. Pretty superficial and shallow thinking. But I’ve always been that way. I’ve put up with so much from so many women because they were beautiful. I was always very forgiving of beauty, mistaking it for sophistication and kindness. When normally beauty is the opposite.
But lately, I’ve been thinking about getting another guitar. Just something simple, inexpensive, and functional. I don’t want to have to drag the Iceman (which is now a valuable collectible antique) out from its case underneath my bed, get it hooked up, and jam. I’d rather just write.
I had spoken to a musician who worked as a delivery driver at the last restaurant where I worked four years ago. He said he would buy blank guitar bodies and necks and build guitars himself. He’s a really talented guitarist but I think it’s more of a pet project than something he was thinking about turning into a business. We chatted about it on a few occasions but nothing ever came out of it.
To be continued next week…
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What better time than Valentine’s Day to write this love note…
Initially, I wanted to call this post, About A Girl, but decided against it.
I remember I always liked you and others like you. I didn’t know anything about any of you, but there was always an attraction. Especially when you were the focal point. You became very popular in my youth. I always watched from afar as you and the others were in the spotlight.
I always wanted to become better acquainted and learn more about you. But I never was allowed the opportunity. But still, I yearned for years to meet you. I liked you the best because you were so unique. You could do what all the others could do, but you always looked better doing it.
Alas, you were always in the arms of another man.
When I was around 16 I met one like you. I was introduced by a friend. But it just wasn’t the same. However, I was just happy to be learning more about you. Like the song says: “If you can’t be with the one you love. Love the one you’re with.”
It was a learning experience for me. I tried my best to gather as much information about you and those like you. I knew if I could be better I’d somehow win your heart. But I figured I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.
I was happy for a while, but there was still that yearning in my heart. You always want the thing you can’t have. It sounds nuts, but it just makes you want it more.
A few years passed, and things were getting better for me in my relationship with the other, but it just wasn’t you. It wasn’t tearing at my heart or anything, but you were always there. No point to string it along.
I got very busy in my teenage years just growing up and exploring life. I worked through the summer and had a good time at the seashore. I started hanging out with a more experienced group of people and I felt that if I wanted to fit in and tune into my own identity, things needed to change.
So I spoke to an older guy I knew from the community and explained my plight. He was good at fixing things. I suppose you could call him, a machine head. He told me he knew how I could finally meet you. I listened intently and being the wiser man with more experience, I followed his advice. It was time to make a switch.
I’ll never forget the night you finally came down from New York. I’d seen photos of you, and you always seemed to be living such an incredible life. Usually held in the passionate embrace of some rockstar.
But here you were. I went nuts for you.
Even on the walk home together to introduce you to my family, I had to stop and look at you. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
I took you in my arms and told you I’d never let you go. I was surprised at how willing you were to join me on my journey. I had worked so hard on my own to be better, and I felt that I had earned the right to hold you in my arms.
There were others like you. But you were mine, and I loved you for that. When I introduced you to my friends they actually seemed surprised that I could win such a prize as you. But I knew in my heart I had earned the right to be with you. I worked hard on myself and with other people to have you in my life.
I felt so much cooler just having you by my side. Especially when we went out together. That was always a blast. I was surrounded by beauty, but you never got jealous. You knew we were in tune with each other. You knew I wouldn’t bolt, I’d always come home to you.
You were so good to me. The afternoons in my room communicating with each other for hours. You really brought out the best in me. I don’t know if you could say the same, but I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. But you seemed like you enjoyed it. You always went along with whatever I wanted without protest.
I mean, sometimes I was a little sensitive to your feedback, but for the most part, you were always sweet to me. I appreciated your input.
Don’t fret. I love you unconditionally and promised to never leave you.
I’d seen others like you, and some even better discarded by others or broken, and I promised I would never let that happen to you.
We had some of the best times of my life together back then. I’ll never forget them, or you. You were always so loyal. You always stayed by my side even after the party was long over. You never took from me. Only gave. All I needed to do was take good care of you and protect you. And I did fiercely.
There were times another man would ask to dance with you. Even just for a minute. But the answer was always no. Find your own, I would say.
But time passes and life changes. I always loved you but things started to get in the way. Adult things like work and family. But I never neglected you. I know we couldn’t always be together doing the things we enjoyed most in the past, but you were always near. The distant sound of your voice was always with me.
You were never sad. But if I was sad you’d reflect that through your voice and somehow make it beautiful. You said it was a minor thing but it meant a lot to me. You were always a major influence in my life growing up.
Even when I was away from you I was thinking about you. The more we were apart the more I missed you.
I remember I came home one night and found someone had broken into my house. The only thing I cared about was that you were okay. You were fine. They never knew you were there.
I’ve loved a lot in this life. People have come and gone. I’ve had a great time, but you were always there. I could write volumes about you.
I know as time has passed you’ve become more desirable. So many people want you, or something like you. But you can’t put a price on your pretty head. You’re priceless to me. I know initially, I loved you because you were sexy and cool. But like all great relationships they grow and the things that mean more come forth. What you gave to me and helped bring out in me are some of my greatest moments.
You never cheated on me or ever betrayed me. I wasn’t as loyal to you as you were to me, but I needed to take care of other things in my life that mattered at the time. But I never forgot about you.
You always fed my creative spirit all the while making me look good. But you always let the light shine on me. As lovely as you are you simply reflect your beauty onto me. I’ll never forget you for that.
I’m growing older. We’ve been together for over 40 years now. We’re aging as time goes by each year. My hairline recedes and my waistline expands, but you remain as sexy as ever.
You’ve always retained your lovely figure and lovely tone of voice after all these years. I know I did the right thing by keeping you in my life and taking good care of you. You look just as gorgeous as the day I brought you home for the first time back in 1979.
I no longer have the speed and agility I once had in my youth but you’re always ready to get up and go whenever I want. I can always rely on you. You never made me sad. Not one day in my life was I ever sad if you were in my arms.
Just to hold you is magic.
Just to be together alone with you. Our own private conversations. Those moments belong only to us.
It’s been a while, but lately, I’ve had more free time and I’d like us to have fun together again. I know it’s been too long, but you’ve always been so patient with me. I can’t say that you miss me, because maybe you too needed the rest. But you never minded sitting by and waiting for me to come back to you.
It’s been too long. I want to hold you in my arms again. I love you, and I always will.
I’d love to dance and sing with you again.
Not the wild days and nights of our past, but in homage to what we can do when we’re together.
I want to hold you gently in my arms again and caress your lovely neck.
Think of these words as my first love song to you, dear.
1980 – 17 yrs old – Morey’s Pier, Wildwood, NJ
2013 – 50 yrs old – Philadelphia, Pa
2023 – 60 yrs old – Philadelphia, Pa
Thank you for 43 years of joy, Ibanez
A paragon means someone or something that is the very best. The English noun paragon comes from the Italian word paragone, which is a touchstone, a black stone that is used to tell the quality of gold. You rub the gold on the touchstone and you can find out how good the gold is.
In the spring of 2021, I decided to write stories from my past. Covid had put so many restrictions on us that many of us couldn’t go out and socialize as much as we’d like to. Since I couldn’t go out and hang out with people I turned inward for content for this blog.
One of the things I did was to write stories about my childhood growing up in northeast Philly and my summers in Wildwood, New Jersey. One of the stories I wrote was about a bar band from back in 1980 in Wildwood that I liked. They were called the Dead End Kids and had a profound effect on me back then.
I had been doing some research on the subject and had come across a tribute page to one of its former members. He had gotten cancer and passed away a few years ago. When I finished the article and posted it on my blog, I decided to place a link in the group on Facebook that was a memorial to him.
This garnered a huge positive response from its members and fans of the band. It also brought this blog a truckload of traffic. So when I started to write the old stories about Philly and Wildwood I found groups on Facebook that enjoyed those subjects. In those groups were many people from my old neighborhood and classmates of mine from the past.
Again, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I liked being a voice for my peers from our collective childhoods. I think that was the first time I felt like Phicklephilly had any real value. I know I provided a lot of dating and relationship advice and stories about my own dating life, but it always seemed cheap to me. But when I wrote these stories from my heart and memories of this innocent time in all of our lives it changed something in me. I knew that I’d eventually be able to write the stories I wanted to tell from my life where the goal wasn’t to get traffic, subscribers, or ad revenue.
One of the most wonderful aspects of writing these stories was from people from my past reached out to me in the form of comments, likes, stories of their own, and phone calls. It was nice to connect with people I hadn’t spoken to or seen in over 40 years!
I realized that this blog had a greater value than I ever expected it to have when I started writing it back in 2016. Here was a forum where I could touch the hearts and minds of people from all over the country and the world. It was exciting. My heart beats in the past as a boy, beating now in the present at 60 years old, but beating just a bit faster as I shared in the joy of others through my words.
I got calls, comments, and emails from people I knew and some I never knew. It didn’t matter. We all shared the same memories and experiences.
But one of the people who reached out on Facebook was a guy I knew as a child. Now a man with a wife and kids. I wasn’t friends with him on Facebook and hadn’t seen him in over 40 years. I was never friends with him in real life either. Because back in the mid-seventies he was an arch-enemy. A bully that picked on me as a kid.
I had been picked on for years in the neighborhood and school. Happily, this all ended when I entered high school, but before that, it was a living hell. Fel’s Junior High and my neighborhood were nothing but battlegrounds to me. I wasn’t safe anywhere. Well, maybe in my room or back in the woods at the edge of my block.
The teacher’s scorn. The bullies and animals at school. My father. I was terrified of them all. All of them contributed to my anxiety and depression. (I didn’t even know what those things were back then. I was just scared and sad inside all of the time) Instead of lashing out at society I turned inward, and made art and created things. The pain was so powerful that most people that don’t have it won’t understand what it feels like. It can be a lifelong thing. But I always turned my pain and suffering into some sort of art and found solace in comic books, music, art, and sadly later…alcohol.
Alcohol is a lovely temporary bandage for suffering. It can never truly heal you, if anything, it does the opposite long term. What once makes you feel better and makes your problems vanish for a few hours, later comes back to undo all of that pleasure and turns it into pain.
I’m not writing this piece to talk about my history of self-medication. If anything my will and sense of identity never allowed it to truly own my soul. I just did it because I liked the way it made me feel and was a welcome repose from the constant pain of my life. (Mostly self-imposed by my own poor decisions) I rarely ever drink now and have lost almost all of my desire to drink even socially anymore. I’ve fixed all of the flaws in my character and feel clearer and stronger than I ever have in my life.
But getting back to people from my past, this one guy reached out to me one day on Facebook with a simple question: “Hey Charlie. Do you remember me?”
Based on my experience with this man as a child in my past, I think that most people would block a person like that. The memories are too sour to ever even speak to a person like that ever again. There’s a reason people are gone from your life. That goes for any time in your life, past or present. But social media can bring forth people from your past that you may not be prepared to ever deal with again.
Back in my day, when people were gone, they were gone for good. There was no way to ever get in touch with them again. That was fine, but with the advent of Facebook that all changed. Now you could reconnect with people from your past… good and bad.
I don’t think we’re meant to be able to do that but I could be wrong. I’m sure many people have been happily reunited with families, friends, and loved ones thanks to social media and the internet.
I waited a couple of days and thought about how I would respond to this man. I even spoke to my daughter about it. She is in her 20s and said she would immediately block a person like that and make sure they stayed banished from life forever. I agreed with her, but she didn’t know the full story of this person.
I don’t have all of the details but have gotten the story from a very reliable source.
This guy as a kid picked on me and found joy in torturing me daily. He hung out with some bigger kids on the corner and just enjoyed hunting me for sport.
I’ve lived a long time and experienced so much in my life. Happily, I’ve learned from all of my experiences. Especially the bad ones. You learn to not touch something hot when it burns your hand. I’ve known many people like that in my life. In some of the relationships, I’ve even chosen to be close to them for the wrong reasons.
My family moved away from that neighborhood back in 1979 and by then we had all grown up a bit and no one bothered me anymore. Many of the kids went to different schools for high school and many simply grew out of that bad behavior.
But not all of them. This one guy fell in with the wrong people as he got a little older. There was some sort of altercation between this man and another group of outlaws. Whatever he did or they assumed he had done against them deserved swift and brutal retribution. Now the hunter had become the hunted. They exacted their revenge upon him with a baseball bat. They beat him brutally and had I witnessed this as a teenager I would have applauded their brutality against my aggressor. It would have felt like sweet justice for the endless days of torture I had sustained at the hands of this guy.
But the beating he sustained caused some sort of catastrophic brain injury. The guy was never quite right again. As far as I know, no one was ever brought to justice for this assault. So the ultimate victim was this guy. My bully. His lifestyle had brought on his demise.
Now, at 60 years old, I had a different view of the world and its members. I thought about how I suffered at the hands and wrath of my father and suspected this boy’s life was probably far worse than mine. My dad was a nice guy. A peaceful man who never addressed his issues, but not an inherently violent man.
But what if this kid’s dad was a monster? What if he beat this kid all the time or got drunk and did worse things in his household. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors in any home in this world. In some form, there is heartbreak in every house on the block.
I had survived the pain of my childhood and come through it a better and more evolved man. This guy on the other hand had been altered forever because of a single incident.
But was it a single incident? What happens to a child that makes him a bully? Bullying isn’t something you’re born with. Bullies are created by adults. Mostly toxic men who are emotionally and morally bankrupt as people. They’re mentally broken and download all of the bad data into the heads of their sons and make more of themselves. It’s a vicious cycle of violence and suffering.
I thought about all of this information some more and concluded.
I would respond to this man with kindness. I had forgiven people in my adult life that were far worse than anything he ever did to me as a youth. I wrote:
“I do remember you. You used to hang out with the guys up at the corner who played ball and hockey in the street. Hope you’re doing well.”
This man may remember me, but in his current mental condition, he may not remember any of the details of his past with me due to his injury. But maybe he does remember the past and what he did to me. Maybe he reached out to test the waters and see if everything was okay with me and if I remembered. I remember it all in great detail, but he doesn’t need to know that. I’m sure he’s suffered enough in this life for his choices. I’ve had a wonderful, colorful life full of joy. He may struggle with some basic functions for all I know.
I forgive him. Forgiveness is hard and that’s why most people struggle with it. But look at it this way if you can…
During the second world war, Japan flew its planes to Hawaii and bombed Pearl Harbor. Just before 8 a.m. on a Sunday, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the base, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 airplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.
We later dropped not one but two atomic bombs on two of their cities to make them surrender. On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”
That’s an absolute nightmare when you think about it. But here’s the thing… during the war, our automobile plants stopped making cars and made planes like the Mustang to fight in the war. A car company in Japan did the same and developed the Zero to do battle against its enemies.
You’d think after killing 120,000 of their people in response to killing 2,400 of ours would be unforgivable.
But after only 40 years, Chrysler and Mitsubishi manufactured automobiles together in the same factories on American soil.
So if nations can forgive on such an incredible level, I think I can forgive some kid for knocking my books out of my hands and pushing me over some hedges for a couple of years. I’m sure what made him who he is was far worse than anything that ever happened to me as a kid.
Forgive. Don’t drink the poison hoping your enemies die. You’ll only be hurting yourself. I’m not saying to make friends with your enemies. But for goodness’ sake… let it go! Life’s too short.
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