mo leftovers - 1

There are many leftovers around us everyday in many different categories. In the course of writing, I find that I have many leftover words, phrases and even verses that didn’t fit in the subject of the moment and I keep them scattered and lurking about on odd pieces of paper around my computer. This in hopes that someday they will fit somewhere and can be of use. Well – now is the time! This will be a miscellaneous, odds and ends missive and one paragraph may not relate at all to the next except in the fact that it was written by me.

An interest of mine is history, particularly that concerning World War 2 and more particularly the first hand accounts written by the person involved. There are many of these on the internet and they take the form of a journal, or letters written back and forth from battlefield to home and accounts written from memory. In the reading of one account, by a soldier from the South Pacific, I found this odd little verse that he included in one of his letters to his sweetheart back home. This man was college educated and the rest of his writings indicated as much, so I don’t know if he was the actual composer or not. The date of the original letter was circa 1943.

I want to be where you is
instead of where I be
for when I are where you are not
that ain’t no place to be.

I used to think the world was great
but now it has a taint
for I have gone where you is not
and left you where I ain’t.

Also in some of these writings I ran across a couple of acronyms that came into being in that time period. The first is SNAFU – the cleaned up civilian definition is “situation normal all fouled up”. The second was FUBAR – again this is civilianized – “fouled up beyond all recognition”. The first of these I have heard many times – the second I had forgotten. They were both used to describe the method of operation of things in the military. ec

To be continued.