Tag / Rockaway Beach

by Brian E. Holbrook

Hair-Trigger Nation

The End of the Beginning

Like most of America, thirty years ago, I fell in love with the Ken Burns documentary, The Civil War.

I’d been a weird history kid my whole life. In elementary school, my mom bought me a monthly subscription to these collectable index cards called Story of America. They had descriptions of historic events on one side and a depiction of the event (or a photo of something related to it) on the other

They were color-coded into different categories that you would organize in the included flip-top file box. Every month you got ten new cards on some significant event or person in American history. They’re how I learned about The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, and The Sand Creek Massacre, and the Tweed Machine. They were great. I still recall many of the illustrations.

In second grade, I was enthralled by Dick Cavett’s Remember When on HBO, and Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War on PBS. I was probably the only kid in class who was genuinely excited to watch old black-and-white episodes of Biography when they rolled in the projector.

Which is why, thirty years ago, I was happy to be sitting cross-legged in the orange shag carpet of my parents’ living room, watching PBS.

Click To Keep Reading
by Brian E. Holbrook

The Comforting Roar of Eternity

Sometimes, usually at night, when the tide comes in, I’ll be sitting here in my living room, windows open, watching the TV and wondering:

“What the hell is that roaring noise?”

Then I remember it’s the Pacific, just over the berm, clawing at the beach, just like it has been for 200 million years –long before any of my kind were around to hear it.

It puts me in my place, this ocean.

So I mute the TV and listen to the closest I’ll ever get to eternity whisper in my ear.

“You don’t matter.” It says. “You are nothing. This is all nothing. None of this means anything. I will be clawing at this beach 200 million years from now, long after your kind are gone.”

There are people I know who would consider this discouraging, or terrifying, or even a form of heresy or blasphemy. But for me? It is a comfort like a mother’s embrace.

“It has all been OK.” It says. “All you’ve worried about, and fretted over, and tortured yourself because of during long nights of doubt? It’s as insignificant as beach sand. It all gets washed away, eventually.”

And some part of me wishes that it weren’t true; that I’d somehow carved something indelible into the time or space that I have occupied –some proof that I’d mattered somehow. But I’ve seen enough of death to know that the ocean isn’t lying.

We fade within two generations, often sooner. We are sparks from a bonfire: beautiful, blazing, unique, and soon forgotten.

But the longer I live here next to this unimaginably ancient sea, I understand that it is OK. It’s OK to be a spark that is born, rises, touches nothing, and fades away. That is the cycle. That is life.

That’s the truth the Pacific knows.

And sometimes, when I mute my TV, it whispers it in my ear.

by Brian E. Holbrook

The Runner

“Dragline: You’re an original, that’s what you are! Them mullet-heads didn’t even know you was foolin’!
Luke: Foolin’ ’em, huh? You can’t fool ’em about somethin’ like that. They broke me…
Dragline: Aw. All that time, you was plannin’ on runnin’ again.
Luke: I never planned anything in my life.”

— Cool Hand Luke

I’m not sure that I’ve ever made a truly considered decision. I don’t recall ever making a life-altering choice after careful research and deliberation. I have never faced a daunting challenge and weighed all of my options and their possible repercussions to arrive at the best course of action. I leap then look, and have all of my life.

On the day I joined the Army, I had awoken that morning with no inkling that I would do so. I was largely homeless at the time and needed a job –a job that would hire me, train me, house me, feed me, and clothe me. I just happened to be walking past the Armed Forces Recruiting Center when I realized this, so I walked on in. I had no real affinity or preference for the Army, they just happened to be the only recruiters who weren’t at lunch.

Continue reading →