Category Archives: America

2026, America, essay, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry

The Condition of the Honor Guard Gets Less Important

Being on the river, being a son, and remembering the anniversary of my dad’s death

Dad in Florida in 1955. Long before I was a thought. He always had something of this swagger in him. Always.

 

The river rose and fell quick.
A late August sweat box, the Ohio Valley
takes its pound of flesh
one drop at a time.

I’m smoking on the wharf before the Sunday cruise. It’s almost time to go get ready to light back off and wait for the telegraph to tell me to Stand By before it tells me we’re going Slow Astern.  You get used to the telegraph calls; some pilots use that telegraph like a gear shift, and some don’t. And not every telegraph call means something has to happen. Sometimes the boiler is tuned in and all you have to do is be prepared in the event something happens. Sometimes there’s an audible, an unusual call. That can take the form of a call that the boat is going Half Astern instead of Slow, and there are several reasons for that; and if I mention any of them here, I will surely leave out the one that an old captain will tell me I left out the most common one, so I’ll just say that the unofficial official policy on the matter is that there is no such thing as a normal cruise, a typical cruise, or a normal day. Unless, of course, the captain refers to it as such and then, as stated in the introduction to the official Rules of the Road for the Western River System, the rules apply except for when the rules don’t apply. If there is a rule that is an inviolate rule in regards to steamboat life, in probably life on the river in general, it’s this: Take Your Break When You Can.  

The American Legion was in town, en masse, over the weekend for a convention at which the Secretary of Dude Brahs was slated to speak. A huge group of the American Legion folks rode the boat, and I always enjoy interacting with veterans. By and large, they’re a no nonsense bunch. And because there’s a slight similarity between riverboat culture and military culture, they are generally good passengers. Curious, especially the Navy folks, like visiting the boiler and, like stationary boiler operators, have a base of knowledge and experience that can drive the conversation into more interesting places.

My dad was a veteran and while he didn’t hang out at the Legion Hall, I did, for a while, have a gig playing ‘Taps’ for military funerals in my hometown of Bethel, Ohio. I kept dress clothes in my locker at school and when I was called, I’d get out of class, grab my clothes, bring my trumpet, and go honor the fallen dead.  I took this very seriously. The guy who always picked me up was this guy named Archie Boyce. Archie had this thick, immortal mustache and barely restrained eyebrows, but I’m pretty sure that was all the hair on his head. He was always nice, always talked nicely about my dad, even though they hadn’t really talked in years. When I was a kid, Bethel and Tate Township were dry and Legion Hall 406 was the only actual bar in town. The bar was in the basement and sometimes Archie would take me to the legion hall and let me saddle up to the bar. He always made the same joke about being too young to drink. The honor guard was usually there, pre-gaming for the funeral. 

As I’ve gotten older, I understand this better. While I didn’t go the military route, I have a lot of friends who have, and when I was younger and after my dad died, I spent several years hanging around several Vietnam Vets, one of the wars my dad served in (the other was Korea, another war that wasn’t considered a war in the name of a legal loophole.)  I don’t remember the condition of the honor guard when we buried my dad. In the end, it didn’t matter because nothing mattered. The rifle shots seemed louder to me then than at any time before.I remember very little except that it rained and it was the last time I played “Taps.”   

I developed the tendency of sons
of dead dads to hunt out father figures.

17 year-old-boys have so much to learn
between that and watching him

die for a decade, most of what I needed
just confused me, slow and stubborn

living in the echo of honor guard rifle shots
and a trumpet note lingering long

in the September rain

“Getting your break in while you can, eh?” 

It was one of the passengers, an American Legionnaire who was waiting to board. I affirmed that I was. Did I mention that military folks understand the schedule? River time has in common with military time the concept of “hurry up and wait.” No one asked me what time boarding was because they already knew to a person when they were going to be able to get on the boat. As I was talking to him, it came out that I operated the boiler. He’d been in the Navy, and had read all about the Belle. So we talked about the boat, about the boilers, about the engines and steam pumps. I invited him to come down and look at the boiler, which he did after we were underway. 

My dad was one of those people who could talk to pretty much anyone. My wife is that way. I am not. It takes a certain amount of work and putting on a bit of my father’s face to interact with people. Left to my own, I’m quiet, broody, and full of conflicting currents. I alternate between peace and violence, song and silence, fire and ash, flash floods and calm waters. I have days of boundless energy and vision; then I have days when I can see nothing, feel little, and have the energy to turn over and go back to sleep. Most of the time, I make myself move on days like this. I don’t remember dad ever acting like he was having a bad day, though I know he had them. When I was 10-years-old, he and my mom came home from his  doctor’s appointment telling me and my brother that he would need to wear an oxygen bottle. They were still trying to figure out what caused it. The default explanation was that he smoked when he was younger; but he quit before he turned 40. At this conversation, he was almost 50. People who quit smoking report better health over time. Neither my dad nor the Department of Defense thought his time in the Navy, working in the belly of a diesel gunship on the North China Sea, nor his time as a jet tech and mechanic during Vietnam, preparing jets for bombing raids into North Vietnam, had anything to do with his lung problems. But he seemed to adapt as best he could. Or, that was what he let us see.

My status on the boat is both easy to explain and difficult to make myself understand. I’m there, but I’m not there. I work a few cruises a week, and I’m grateful for the work. I like being back on the river, back in the firebox, back in the engine room. There’s a telegraph in my core that rings messages from the invisible pilot house, telling me whether I’m heading ahead or astern, slow or full, or even half. I shift between being on the boat in a familiar pool and being cast off onto unfamiliar currents and conditions. I know I’m lucky to live the life I’m living and I’m more or less enjoying the ride. I find myself wondering what Dad would think about all of this, but I can’t live in that space too long because the dad in my head is a me-at-17-year-old-dad. This may or not make sense. You don’t get to know your parents as adults until you ARE an adult. Everything else about them is a product of what you need them to be. I’ve found this is true even when the dad in question wasn’t a good dad, though I was fortunate in that regard. Dad was good at being a dad, and where he failed was because he, like all dads, was just a human being and not the second hand of God he was in my head when I was small. But when my current status is confusing, even to me, I’m comforted by the thought that my me-at-17-year-old-dad would think it makes perfect sense. When I smoke my pipe, I think he’d probably chide me a little and tell me I should quit. But then again, his father smoked cigars. And it wasn’t the cigars that killed him. 

[first published on my substack: https://eymick.substack.com/p/the-condition-of-the-honor-guard]

 

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2025, America, Autumn, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry

Autumn 2025: 20-22

20.

the seasonal temporary heat
interrupted by the pounding rhythms
of approaching boots

21.

a manufactured state of emergency
the screams of children on burning playgrounds

22.

today, today play with the fire
light the burners long abandoned
in soul boilers

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2025, America, essay, no scape, nonfiction, Ohio River Valley Literature, Poet's Life, Working Class Literature

The Surveillance Age Comes Knocking

The knock on the screen door was so light Gypsi, our 12-year-old blue heeler that barks at leaves blowing down the sidewalk across the street and was lying on the mat in front of the door, didn’t react. I might not have even heard it, except I was looking for my coffee cup or something. We have three dogs, all of whom react to noises with varying degrees. Nala, the 8-year-old FOMO husky mix, pretty much barks whenever Gypsi barks, except for when she spies one of the neighborhood cats when she’s outside. She mostly stairs out the window the way I remember my grandma watching soap operas in the afternoon on television. Barley, the 12-year-old aussie shepherd mix, only barks at Something. He’s always had the knack of knowing when something ought to be barked at, though I’ve noticed him slipping a bit in the last year. He’s a good old son, though, and I give him the grace earned by a working dog in semi-retirement. 

But when Barley didn’t bark, I took notice. 

Our doorbell doesn’t work and as far as Amanda knows, has never worked. I’ve thought off and on about fixing it… or at least seeing if it’s the button or some wiring issue I don’t feel like digging out. But we have the dogs. And doorbells are generally more intrusive than they are useful. 

Amanda was sitting on the toilet with the bathroom door open, talking to me about something. I think I was about to ask her if she remembered where I set my coffee cup or whatever it was I was looking for. The knock at the door was so light she didn’t hear it, either. 

“There was a knock at the door,” I said, looking through the peephole. A standard issue dude bro, dressed in white down to his air-cushioned kicks with the prerequisite baseball cap turned backward, was standing on my porch. He was intentionally standing within view of the eyehole. A salesman, I thought. I briefly debated ignoring him. I couldn’t be sure he didn’t register my voice through the door or take note of my shadow through the spy lens. These new generation dude bros… what my 5-year-old granddaughter calls brahs might have heightened senses, especially the salesman models. 

“What?” 

“There was a knock on the door,” I repeated. I moved to open the door. In our small house, the bathroom is in eyeline of the front door. I ask my wife if she could please close the bathroom door so I could open the front door, and she obliges. I opened the door to find a blond, chisel-chinned dude brah standing there with a tablet. I almost miss when they carried clipboards, I thought. A soundworm of Ronald Reagan on The Tonight Show echoed in my ear. They show up carrying a clipboard and say ‘Hi I’m with the government and I’m here to help.’ Thundering laughter and applause at the joke we were all supposed to get. The name of a home security company was emblazoned on the dude brah’s fitted polo. There was an accompanying company ID hanging from a careless lanyard around his neck. I opened, stepped through, closed the front door behind me and opened the screen door.

His approach was flawless and his dedication to the script was admirable. He reached out his hand, which I didn’t take, and told me his name, which I don’t remember.  “I’m just out here upgrading our customers out here,” he said, nodding to the street, “and I thought I’d stop by and see if you were interested in protecting your home.” 

Not bad. I wondered if he practiced. He asked me my name, and I didn’t tell him. He went on to tell me that he was offering to set me up with a camera doorbell… “That’s why I PUNKED you,” he added, “because I noticed your doorbell didn’t work.” Genius. I wondered if he registered my eyeroll. He went on to try and sell me a free month of service, during which his company would be watching 24 hours a day. 

“Now I know,” he tried to hide a slight lip twitch, the kind people make when they step near fresh dog shit, “I know this is a safe neighborhood. In fact, your friends and neighbors tell me the biggest issue here is porch poachers.”

 Friends and neighbors, I thought. Does he mean the guy next door who lives with his parents and sells drugs or the meth heads a few houses down that burn plastic in the giant firepit out back?

I tell him I’m not interested and move to go back inside. He says he understands, then asks me my name again. Again, I don’t tell him. Undeterred, he points to the tablet, explaining that because his company will be watching 24 hours a day, if some dreaded porch poacher tries to take an Amazon package off my porch that the I-spy-little eye doorbell camera will say “Hey,” which naturally, will scare off any potential poachers. 

Porch Poachers. Sure, we’ve had some packages taken. Is it inconvenient to reorder? Mildly. It doesn’t happen that often and we don’t order any high ticket items like that. Does it piss me off when it happens? Yes. I thought about telling the dude brah about taking all the smart lights and speakers out of our house. The Faceless Woman, as Amanda took to calling it, would listen at odd times and was starting not to listen at all when it was supposed to. The smart device experiment had been my idea. It was also my idea to rip it all out. I didn’t say that to the dude brah. I also didn’t tell him what I thought of the new police program to use residential cameras for random surveillance. 

Again, with a little more edge in my voice, I tell the dude brah that I’m not interested. Then he smiles — bleach white teeth that have never met a cup of coffee or a cigarette, with vaguely sharp incisors — and asks, trying to hide that slight lip curl, am I really not interested in protecting my home. 

“I have three dogs and a shotgun,” I said, being sure to look him straight in his dead eyes like he’s a paper target. 

“Hell yeah!” he proclaimed.

I nod. “I don’t have problems like that.” 

I must have stumbled on the correct turn of phrase or tone that turned the if/then command in the dude brah’s brainbox. He stuck a hand out again and asked me my name. This time I shook it, still looking him dead in the eyes. 

“Ozymandias,” I told him. He repeated it, curiously and without comment, then walked away.

[cross posted at: https://open.substack.com/pub/eymick/p/the-surveillance-age-comes-knocking?r=fciwk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true]

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