Bueller?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Posted on 07/14/2005 11:24:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
BEVERLY HILLS -- For my sins, my wife, who is also by far my best friend, is out of town on a mission of mercy for not only this summer, but for most of the next twelve months. And, although I have lived in Los Angeles for almost thirty years and have many friends here and a lot to do taking care of our many dogs and cats, plus a bit of work to do each day, I am lonely.
I walk the streets of Beverly Hills with my dogs and when I see a couple smiling and talking together, I am acutely jealous -- even though my wife has only been gone about five weeks so far and will come home on occasion. I do get to talk to her several times a day, and I do get to sleep in bed with my beautiful German short-haired pointer, Brigid, but I am lonely.
This puts me in mind of people who have real loneliness problems: women whose husband are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Men whose wives are in Bosnia or Okinawa. These are people with feelings every bit as real as mine, who feel pain and emptiness at least as much as I do, and they don't see their spouses or loved ones for a year at a time. And they all dread seeing a government car coming up the street with a chaplain in it, which will mean they will never see their husband or wife again on this earth.
Then I think of women who were married to a man for sixty years, and then one day they came home from the hospital alone. Or men who never loved anyone but one woman in their whole lives -- like my father with my mother -- and then one day had to live, for the only time in his life, at age 80, by himself. Or the child whose father will never come through the door again because of a roadside bomb in Mosul.
There are a lot of lonely people out there. And they are hurting. Loneliness hurts like the cut of a knife. Mine is only the smallest pinprick. I'll see my wife again soon, if all's well. But what about the Army and Marine wives who go to sleep in their king-sized beds alone for a year? What about the Navy Seal's wife who just heard that her husband will not be coming home from Afghanistan? Or the man who never learned to make a bed and now his wife is gone forever and he's eating out of a can watching a TV show he can't even hear? Or the child whose father will never teach him how to bat a ball or parallel park because he's in a military cemetery?
Our lives are measured by what we do for others, not by how much money we make. Spending time with lonely people, military families, widows, widowers, this is a pretty easy way to make a huge difference in a suffering human life. So when you think of your uncle who just lost his aunt, when you think of the woman down the street whose husband was just called up by the Guard and sent to Iraq, don't just think about them: ask them out to dinner. Invite them to a barbecue. Just call them up to gossip.
People are always asking me for stock tips because they think I know something about the market. Usually, I don't. But I do know this. Sharing company with a lonely man or woman or child is about as good an investment in your own net worth as a human being as you can make. Do it today.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu, and author of "Ben Stein's Diary" each month in The American Spectator. Click here to subscribe.
Oh my goodness.
Wow.
Bueller?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Pearls of wisdom from part-time "pixie" Ben Stein.
Not much to say. I am choked up, as I think of my own wife and child, back in California while I am deployed.
Only one word for Mr Stein: Thanks.
Ben Stein has written other articles that were very pro-military. He probably feels even more lonely living in Beverly Hills due so few supporting the military there!
God bless you.
And thank you.
Ben Stein for SCOTUS!
ping
Great article.
And thank you.
Thank you too, and God Bless. Please be careful and if you fly the mighty C-5 back home, you know what I do.
I think Stein is one of the most underrated and in some cases unknown conservative voices out there. I've always liked what he has to say.
Cool! Do you fly those? I've never been on one of those and as a civilian, I fly commercial planes when I go on R&R now. In my early days here, we flew C-130s to Kuwait to get out. Combat landings on those things coming back into country were WAY more fun than the ones on the commercial jets. ;-)
No, I work with the maintenance techs. When we go back home (Sept, I think,) we'll fly home in the mighty FRED (F---n' Ridiculous Economic Disaster.) :)
Good article.
Yeah, me too from north of Baghdad
Thanks for all you're doing in-country. I'd like to think my C-5 mechanics can help to make your time a little easier, especially when you get to go home.
Ben has long been a favorite writer & commentator of mine.
Contrast the character and quality of his writing with this:
--Jeanine Garogfalo taking off at Ben Stein, calling him names, among other things also "this pr1ck..."
Oh, dear! I'm going to talk to my pastor this Sunday about people in the church who might like an invitation from a large family :-).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.