The Artful Trade

1968 Amputees say they still feel a missing leg. There's a phantom pain that remains long after what's taken is gone. It was long ago. But I still feel it. 1968 is the year part of me was taken. That year brought terrible collisions between old virtues and new verities. Truths taken of faith were tested and sometimes failed. Families were shaken to the bone by wars declared fought in jungles but also undeclared wars fought over kitchen tables. It was the year I discovered loss. The kind that climbs down and in and stays. And this year, 2024, has begun to feel like then. I recognize something in it. Something coming . 1968 began when a kid I knew was expelled from my Catholic grammar school for the grave sin of wearing Beatle boots. We both wore white shirts and clip on ties but the nuns explained he was a heretic. His hair was over his ears. And though we learned to read together, memorized the commandments and confessed our sins each Friday that year, they s