i learned very early in life that if i could just survive one more day ... one more day may that,s why i could never plan for the future ... people that plan are people that know where they will live ... who their parents are ...etc
and then i was tempered also by steel ... a hard and cruel war.. and my psychiatrist says its very common for men in thier ages to finally come to grips with their demons... late forties... i sought help but only after years of insanity... my medicine helps me now .. they said i had that " post -traumatic stress syndrome" even before the war..just from my violent and abusive and neglectful childhood.. but i really never amounted to anything.. i was,t a great scholar... i was,t a good artist... i wasn,t much of anything.. i was a pretty good soldier but i didn,t last long... i was a GOOD airplane gypsy but never thought of it as a career... even though it lasted almost 30 yrs... i never wanted to achieve anything... anything lasting.. i never thought of the future.. one day at a time.. i have few possessions... always ready to go.. i was in 22 schools by the 6th grade.. sometimes in and out of the same school 3 times!... i was passed around.. some kids grow up with the same mom and dad and the same family and the same HOUSE AND THE SAME CLASSMATES AND THE Same schools and the same TEACHERS .. ETC.. i was always looking out a bus window at night wondering.... it is hard to always be the new kid... new kid with hard clothes and no lunch money!...but i am sure you paid your dues too .. everyone pays dues... i think of Hary James wailing away for years in the circus band but without that experience he would,t have his signature high and very loud cornet style... and Armstrong had that throat injury that gave him the voice and that stacatto perfect pitch with his trumpet .. and where did that crack in Billy Holiday,s voice come from? And that frantic frantic itchy itchy full bush of crisp perfect notes from "bird"????....how did such an insane goofball like Vincent van Gogh create such troubling and spectacular and wonderful painting ever???...he was like the best jazz men .. but my point is this..
we all were made... we all came from somewhere.. and beneath the surface is were we all reside.. we can never escape who we are .. and who we are is decided at the early age ... i wasn,t in circus band .. BUT I,M LIKE everyone else.. as children we are influenced and formed... for good and bad.. we all have our stories.. may we were all in the circus band with Harry James....