Nepo Brats

 

Recently, I've been hearing a new buzzword: Nepo Baby. It’s being used to refer to kids of movie stars in Hollywood who find themselves cast or taking part in movies simply because of whose children they are. The basic gist is that nepotism is getting them where they find themselves. I'm not really sure why anyone would be surprised at that. It’s understandable that if your dad or mom is a big movie star, they might be friends with casting agents who’d want to do them a favor. Likewise, it is also possible that those same friends might've met the child at some point, and rather than going out looking for the next Lindsay Lohan, they just select Junior for the part instead.

Over the course of my life, I felt a few jobs with family-owned companies. At no point was I ever stupid enough to believe that I’d be promoted above the boss's son. In fact, the boss's son was probably going to wind up being my boss if I continued working there. Naturally, some nepotism would lead to a good choice, whereas others were terrible. I think the worst situation of all was when I worked for a clothing company where the entire three-generation family was working at the store along with a few folks who were not family. We got to see family drama dragged in from home to the store, and at various points, in time we were expected to select sides. I was smart enough not to play that game, and to move on as soon as possible. I ended up in the Air Force, which leads me to another type of Nepo Baby.

My choice to go into the service was at least partly driven by my familiarity with what life after enlistment would be like. It was an insight I gained over a lifetime because my father was in the Army. When I got to basic training, at least a dozen of us quickly figured out that we were second or third-generation military brats. It gave us a distinct advantage simply because we were familiar with what that lifestyle entailed. We were also sure of what life would look like at the end of basic training, whereas many of our fellow Airmen were deluded that their entire career would be like basic training. In the end, I think two folks from my flight were discharged in the first week for inability to adapt.

Adapting is what a military brat does best. However, in this case, we were not adapting but simply returning home. Our parents had guided us on how to follow instructions, budget time, make decisions on the fly, and can process critical thinking. All of those skills made the transition into uniform much easier. This was not the type of nepotism where you got something because of who your dad was, but you were successful in the job because of how your parents raised you. Don't get me wrong, there were several people I was in basic training with who came from the civilian world and adapted just fine by the end, but for me and my fellow military brats, it was just easier.

While people are upset that some Hollywood Nepo Baby is getting ahead unfairly because of who their parents are, they should take a moment to be thankful for the military brat Nepos. Those men and women are defending this nation and have been doing so for two, three, or more generations. It is a job that less than seven percent of the country's population will ever choose to do and in the end, those who do get nothing additional for following in their parent's footsteps–– except earned pride.

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Raised Mobile/Living Permanent

One of the few downsides to being a Military Brat is that you lack physical permanence. You know, everything that you own, including the house it is sitting in, is temporary or at the very least must be mobile. As I grew up, I kept the original boxes to pack them up when time came to move on to the next place. In some ways, it's a good lesson in minimalism because you evaluate everything you get through a lens of the item’s permanence in your life. Besides that, my dad never allowed us to hang more than one thing on a wall, using a single nail, which kept you from having too many things that needed to be hung. The real reason was that it prevented him from having to patch the wall or paying to have the base civil engineers repair it.

For much of my adult life, since I served in the military, I maintained this kind of mobile attitude. Even now, if you go into the storeroom, you’ll find the original boxes for many things I own, in case I have to box them up to transport them to a new place. I’m not really sure why, because even though I did extended tours in the Middle East, my home has remained the same for almost sixteen years. I think about this from time to time and have a reckoning that causes me to throw away a few boxes, but the rest remain.

This mindset of mobility probably caused me to avoid permanence in the mounting of my Lynyrd Skynyrd autographed guitar.  After bringing it home, I bought a display case, used a temporary adhesive to mount some interior lights, and taped a few additional items like the M&G passes, concert tickets, and commemorative brass plaque next to the guitar. Even my Skynyrd guitar pick collection was just woven into the strings on the guitar to keep it temporary. The guitar is mounted perfectly level inside the case to avoid drilling additional holes. The kick block for the bottom of the guitar is not secured at all, held in place by gravity. It is passable, but I was never really satisfied with this setup. 

In the intervening years, the taped items fell off. The lighting was battery-powered, which required deconstruction to put in new batteries. A special lithium battery powered the remote for the lights — so I rarely turned them on. Some picks warped from the pressure of the guitar strings. I sat the display case on a table rather than wall-mounting it, even though it is unstable because of the flip-up locks on the bottom side. 

I looked at it recently and couldn’t figure out why I didn’t fix things, even if it meant giving up the item’s mobility. So rather than just letting it go, I decided on a plan to improve the display while making it permanent.

The first step was to take out everything from inside the case. This included removing the guitar mounts—– I wanted to start with a blank field and plan out a new way of displaying the guitar.

I changed the guitar’s angle from level to a diagonal and centered the instrument horizontally. Then, I added some mounting foam to the guitar’s back, which brought the guitar’s body further out and added depth.

Initially, I had ordered two sets of lights to use in the case but only mounted one. So I placed one set of lights at the top to the far left, focusing on the autographs. Then, I put the second set on the bottom right, focusing on the items mounted in the open space under the guitar neck. The first time, both sets of lights were permanently screwed to the case.

The light sets came from sfDisplay, a great company from which I’ve purchased several mounting cases and accessories. I really like the way the lights look, and they are also thin enough to not be overly distracting. In addition, each of the four lights can be aimed individually. The only drawback is the requirement of remote control and batteries.

Each light set requires six AA batteries, in banks of three each. Quick math will tell you that means each light pair requires 4.5 volts. I was battery replacement kits, having replaced batteries in several accessories in my home. I just needed to find the right one. The Gerson 93974 - AAA Battery Replacement Power Supply is a perfect match, giving me five separate leads, with each supplying the required voltage.

NOTE: I am supplying this link to Amazon for reference. I can’t recommend buying it from any of the sources available. This was by far the most cumbersome item to get for my project. I ordered five of them through Amazon only to have each change delivery date from the one day promised to four weeks or more. Eventually, I found the item on eBay, but that source no longer has the part in stock.

With power needs handled, I needed to remove the need for the remote, as I planned to use a Smart Plug to control the lights. This required me to rewire each light set to always be on. I won’t go into detail, but it took me under ten minutes to rewire each of them, including the time necessary to remove/replace the twelve screws holding the unit together. A straightforward job.

Luckily, I had a Leviton Smart Plug on hand to provide lighting automation. I am surprised to see how its price has gone up.  

The brass plaque inside the case was deeply scratched, so a replacement was needed. The new one came from sfDisplay, who created and delivered it in under a week.

I stripped the old adhesive off the tickets and M&G badges — the warped guitar picks went into a vice to help flatten them to allow for proper mounting. One problem I ran into in doing this was the amount of dust and extraneous schmutz that seemed to multiply all over the black velour background of the case. So I tried a lint roller and, failing that, I went to my trustee Pet class Dyson stick vacuum to get rid of it. I also took the opportunity to clean both sides of the Plexiglas.

Since I was not using the flip-up locks, I removed them to no longer cause an issue with the case’s balance. Unfortunately, this left a problem with the key-lock hardware. To add sufficient height, so the key-lock was not touching the tabletop, I attached chair leg footpads on the four corners plus two in the middle. This added stability to the case and prevented the table from being scratched by the case’s hardware.

When the Gerson unit arrived, I installed and tested both light bars to ensure everything was good. Because of each connection’s six-foot cable length, I removed the unused lead to eliminate clutter. After drilling holes through the back, I passed the power lines through and then secured them with Gorilla tape.

After adjusting the lights, I brought the bottom of the guitar out to add a slight inward tilt at the top to show off the autographs better. Next, I placed the plaque, tickets, and VIP passes under the guitar’s neck and positioned the picks along the left end before vacuuming out the case and cleaning the Plexiglas once more.

After closing it up and putting it back on the table, I made several adjustments to the angle of the lights to make them more targeted and eliminate flare. Then, after plugging it into the Smart Plug, I programmed it to turn on the guitar’s lights when someone entered the room, turning off automatically nine minutes later.

Voila! My Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar is now permanently mounted, and I think it’s much more attractive than when I started.

As I stand and look at my completed project, I have to admit that after patting myself on the back; I mentally plotted out how to prepare the guitar for eventual transport. Since everything is firmly mounted, I can stuff it with bubble wrap and place a piece of cardboard over the Plexiglas to keep it from getting scratched before wrapping it in a moving blanket. Apparently, my Military Brat culture will be with me for the rest of my life.

I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

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Pluribus Locis Nostrum -- Brat On!

I am proud to be a military brat. If you're not familiar with the term, it means that one of my parents served in the military. As a result, I grew up relocating for new assignments every few years. This mobile lifestyle had its challenges and as we moved from base to base I was forced to make new friends, learn new places, and adapt to new schools every few years. Like most military brats, I credit that style of growing up as beneficial because I learned how to adjust and gained a global view of the world that most people do not have.

Like many military brats, my years as a brat ended when I entered military service myself. In my view, this is no more unusual than the kid who takes over the family business from his parents. It's just that our family business was defending the nation. Those of us in the service who were prior brats walked in familiar with life on a military base. For us, it was just going home.

Now I've reached that place in life where the one downside of being a military brat is found, where are all of those friends I made over the years? For the person who grew up and lived their entire life in a single place, finding a person you went to sixth grade with is easy.  Not so for those of us who did sixth grade in an overseas school on a base that no longer exists. The Internet has made it easier to find people, and I've been able to find and get in touch with a few people I knew growing up. Of course, that doesn't work well for people I knew younger in life whose last name was never part of what I knew about them. Also, getting in touch with the girls I grew up with is more difficult because many of their names have changed due to marriage. 

One incident occurred my senior year of High School that keeps me hopeful that I will eventually run into more of the folks I grew up with as time goes on. My father was stationed at Fort Eustis, the last base he was assigned to before he retired, and I was working as a busboy at the Officer's Club. After we would finish our shift, the busboys would gather together and have and enjoy a few illegal beers while shooting pool. One night we talked about things that happened in our past and bases where we lived over the years. When I mentioned Fort Ord, Tom, one of my fellow busboys, commented that his dad was assigned there during Vietnam like mine.

A few days later, Tom brought in a picture from his second grade class at Fort Ord. As he handed it to me, he told me that he was in the front row. For some reason, the kids and background looked familiar to me, and I started to scan the faces in the picture.  Lo and behold, in the second row, three kids from the right, was me. Tom and I had gone to the second grade together.  Ten years later, in another state at the opposite end of the country, we were together again getting ready to graduate. Only a military brat has that kind of experience. Of course, after graduation, Tom and I went our separate ways, and I've never been able to locate him since.

Now, some mornings I enjoy my coffee while spending a bit of time with ghosts from the past. I wonder what they are up to today, from Mary Ellen Anderson, the first girl I ever kissed, to Tom Arnold, who I attended second grade and graduated high school with.  They are all out there somewhere. I hope they're all happy and doing fine. I also ponder the truth that at least three of the dozen or so bases I grew up on don't exist anymore. Not many non-brats can claim that their hometown vanished because of a BRAC.

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Not To Hell and Not In A Handbasket

Looking at the date of my last entry, I realize how long it has been since I've written and posted something here. Usually, if there is any sort of pause, there is a valid reason. Last year, I reran several older postings while I was working on the final editing of From Within the Firebird's Nest. Earlier this year, I was dealing with care for an aging parent; the same issue a lot of people at my age are starting to encounter. But this last bit of silence had no basis in an outside cause, it was entirely internal. I do take the term depression lightly, so I will just say that I was feeling down about what I was seeing around me and it was causing me to lose faith.

Without getting into an exact start date, because even that is politically charged, I am saddened by the ever-increasing divisiveness, racial discord, extreme ideological differences, or whatever you want to call it in our country. A large part of my reaction to this is because I can't personally identify with the situations being used as a basis for rationalizing the behavior. I was raised as a military brat, as with a vast majority of fellow military brats, the environment I was lived in was fully integrated on every level. 

That didn't mean we were just all thrown together for bits of time during the day-- we were fully immersed in a diverse culture as the norm rather than the exception. The person living on the other side of the wall in your government assigned duplex was more often than not a person of a different race, origin, religion, and background than you were. This forced closeness caused one remarkable thing to happen – – you were forced to get along with others because you were always in contact with others who differed from you. Tolerance was not something demanded it was required for social survival. All of this was long before the use of such terms as diversity and tolerance. To us, it was just the way we lived.

As a result of this type of upbringing, and the many moves which occurred over the course of a lifetime, military brats are often the most adaptive people you could ever meet and also the least judgmental. The first time I became aware of differences in race was when I was required to go to a school off-base for the first time in Oklahoma. On the very first day of school, I was challenged by a group of local kids because the person I was hanging out with was of a different race and our friendship wasn't considered proper for their society. Too damn bad, he remained my best friend until I moved just before the ninth grade.

After completing high school, and a couple years of college, I went into the Air Force which was another fully integrated society. In the Air Force, you didn't judge a person based on trivial crap like race or religion – you judged a person based on their abilities and those you felt could be relied upon. Because of the time, I went into the military, the 80s, it was not unusual to know someone in your unit or even in your dorm who had a different sexual preference. Even though it was against regulation, it was not a factor upon which most people judged others. If the person did their job well and was reliable, that was all you needed to accept them.

Once I transitioned to the Reserve, I started to work for Civil Service and entered my third fully integrated society. There were some cracks in the structure of this one because some of the fellow civilians I worked with had never moved beyond the city in which they were born. As a result, they carried with them any prejudices they were raised with. But they were not allowed to bring those prejudices into the workplace. Not a perfect solution but it kept things running.

I tell this bit of backstory because to understand where I am, you have to know where I came from. It is because of my personal history that I find much of what exists in the news to be thoroughly depressing. A side note: I do not rely on a single news source but require myself to use five different sources when developing my opinions. Purposely, I have chosen two of the news sources I disagree with, one from overseas, and two which are more in line with my own beliefs. This helps provide much-needed balance to what I take in, I am also careful to segregate news from opinion-based reporting. 

If you've checked out current news stories, you would be led to believe all of America is at each other's throats and we are on the verge of a violent internal Civil War for control of our nation's future.  Everyone seems to be accusing anyone who disagrees of being a something-ist or filled with something-ism.  Words are being weaponized and vocabulary condemned or forbidden regardless of the user’s intent, meaning or context.  Every speaker has a death grip on their viewpoint as being protected by the First Amendment while they usually have no idea what the amendment actually says.   Freedom of expression does not free you from responsibility for what you said or the right of another person to dissent.  While I have enough remaining optimism to believe no news reporting agency is reporting falsehoods purposely, I do think some agencies are guilty of intentionally slanting stories to a particular viewpoint and omitting stories that make the other side look good. Even with my attempt at balance, every day appeared to me to be of more and more concern for my nation's future.

Hope:  Without visible support going to a destination unseen.

Then about two weeks ago, I had to take a trip down to check on my Dad, and as a result, I got out of my own sphere and into America itself. I drove across Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee and even though it isn't everywhere in the country, it was a pretty good sampling. What I saw brought back my optimism.

At several of the gas stations where I stopped, people held the door and greeted one another. Seems minor doesn't it? The action is – but the meaning behind it isn't. That deeper meaning was that both people saw each other as human beings and worthy of common courtesy. Isn't that the basis of society? Accepting another person as a fellow human being and therefore worthy of your best? In restaurants, I encountered people of differing races treating each other politely regardless of which side of the dinner table they were on. Sure, people can be paid to be polite, but it always shows through as the basis for their action. I observed people earnestly treating each other decently.

A few times, I saw people pulled off to the side of the road due to vehicle breakdown. In every instance, someone else had stopped to help them. This is someone going out of their way to help someone they don't know and someone they will probably never encounter again.  Being selfless – – the very essence of what allows communities to thrive and prosper.  I also saw law enforcement protecting our populace.  Even though they occasionally had pulled a car over for some infraction, at no point in time did I hear about the officer or the person who got a ticket attempting to be violent to each other.  Mutual respect for the law, isn't that also a basis of society?

Aside from observing, I also participated. I greeted and smiled at people when I encountered them and received the same friendliness in return. I acted respectfully to those behind the counter and those serving me -- and received same. While stuck in a waiting room, I had a lengthy conversation with a gentleman who was of a different race but who was sharing the waiting experience with me.  We became compatriots of the shared experience even if just a little while.  

My point is that the divisions which are being screamed about on a daily basis are not as cavernous or universal as the media would have us believe.  There are opposing sides out there, and there are people who are being mistreated and have a valid claim about mistreatment. But for the most part, I don't think things are as sad or as hopeless as are being presented.  

Finally, I was blessed with the birth of my 10th grandchild. She is healthy and beautiful. -- and another contributor to the return of my optimism about the future.

So, I am back at work on my latest novel, and I am again writing my blog. To paraphrase John Steinbeck, my world is once again spinning in greased grooves.

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