by Henry, ©2025
(Jul. 2, 2025) — “The Happy Song” (1:57)
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to ‘The Pulse of the Nation,’ the place to hear it here first. Today’s featured guest is a Vietnam Veteran who came back nuts, got a bunch of pills from the VA that made him ‘NUTS PLUS,’ went to school to become a shrink, was hired by the VA and then fired by the VA because he refused to push pills, hung up his shingle for private practice, taught at university level, published – even a screenplay – and retired going on the ‘chicken salad circuit,’ doing his best to keep Veterans from ‘eating a bullet,’ the preferred method of suicide 7:1.”
“Thank you for having me and thank you for the comprehensive introduction, although you failed to mention my numerous bestsellers of my ‘How to be a Successful Neighborhood Shrink’ series.”
“Of course, how forgetful of me. So, you mentioned that the Fourth is the worst day of the year for you. Would you care to explain that for our viewers?”
“But of course. For those of you who were ever in a firefight or a really big firefight that the brass calls a ‘battle,’ and it happens to be at night, then you’ve seen the flashes of light off the clouds. When there are not any clouds the smoke and dust rising amounts to the same thing. And let’s throw in hearing the distant ‘thunder’ when there are no rain clouds or seeing the distant ‘lightning’ when it’s the cannons going off or bombs and shells exploding.”
“Sounds frightening.”
“And that’s why I stay away from city fireworks displays and don’t go to ball games at night.”
“Bad memories?”
“More like ‘Don’t tempt the Devil.’”
“Pardon me?”
“My PTSD nightmares focused on a napalm cloud, black with an orange center and me lying helpless with no piece.”
“Piece?”
“Gun.”
“Oh.”
“So excuse me that I don’t buy fireworks or ‘ooh and ah’ at bombs bursting in air; got it?”
“Got it. Okay, that’s all the time we have so this is Henry, filling in for Roving, along with Professor ‘Zork’ Zorkophsky, wishing you all a goodnight: Goodnight.
“I never knew that, I mean, about Veterans and fireworks. I understand now. There’s some frozen sliders that you can nuke while I got some leftovers from the bait shop. What do you say we go out back to the picnic table?”
“An American Trilogy” (4:15)