Stripping Down on a Sunday Eve

Nothing like the pain of the past. The one you think you left behind as you watched the people grow and live, gain years and wither. I realized today that the 1970s will carry the emotional cues—songs, shorts, TV shows gleaned and weaned in the only early years. And tonight, the M*A*S*H episode where Henry Blake dies in a helicopter over the Asian seas after he was discharged, sent from war to the hearth, the midlands, heartlands, the warmth, the nonwar. I cried for my father, my uncle I will lose. For the pain of warmth and cold, love and goodbye, love and death. I watched aware from the beginning credits that this is the most pain one can provide: childhood, love, death, and connection. I watched it aware. And it hurt.