jayward33.blog-city.com
LAND OF A THOUSAND DANCES
posted Sunday, 13 July 2008
LAND OF A THOUSAND DANCES
Takes me back to the late sixties and the explosion of artistic and musical expression that came on the scene. I was in the Army and was in Kingston at Vimy barracks learning my new trade as a teletype and cipher technician in the Signal Corp. I had changed trades because I felt my career in the infantry was over having been passed over by several of my mates who had many years less in rank than I did. My morale was lower than whale shit and I needed a change of scene.
It helped that I was making about $100 dollars more a month in my new trade than a person who out ranked me by three ranks in the infantry. Really it was a no brainer as far as my family was concerned. The Army had to compete with what people could receive on civvy street for the new technical trades in the computer industry whereas the infantry canon fodder could be had at much less a price.
My Dad died in May of 1970 and my knees had blown up and been operated on in January of the same year. I went into a depressed state and stayed there for about five years. I left the Army and then my family life came apart and I came back to the west coast and didn't see my kids for six years. Emotionally it was pretty hard to take.
I had periods where I drank too much and was very erratic and unfocussed.
My second long term relationship came to an end in 1982 and since then I have avoided any serious entanglements with the opposite sex.
The year 1988 disappeared in an alcoholic haze and I quit drink forever on the night of 18th September 1988. It took me about three years to dry out and another six years to deal with the problems of my bipolar disease. I tried medication but all that did was make me suicidal and worse than the disease.
I finally found a situation that I could be happy in. First of all I stopped working for other people and accepted that an artist's life was the only one where I had any chance of being happy. There were sometimes when meals were hard to come by but, be that as it may, they were in the main happy days.
My output in terms of my photography and writing has been, dare I say it, quite satisfying and I have been in a very good space for close to sixteen years now. I have good friends and something to look forward to every day, I hooked up with my old Army buddies and talk to them via e mail and the occasional visit to Victoria. I had turned my back on them for close to forty five years but they accepted me back into the fold without comment and we have expanded our friendships with common objectives since then.
La Dolce Vita!
Ciao, JWL
Takes me back to the late sixties and the explosion of artistic and musical expression that came on the scene. I was in the Army and was in Kingston at Vimy barracks learning my new trade as a teletype and cipher technician in the Signal Corp. I had changed trades because I felt my career in the infantry was over having been passed over by several of my mates who had many years less in rank than I did. My morale was lower than whale shit and I needed a change of scene.
It helped that I was making about $100 dollars more a month in my new trade than a person who out ranked me by three ranks in the infantry. Really it was a no brainer as far as my family was concerned. The Army had to compete with what people could receive on civvy street for the new technical trades in the computer industry whereas the infantry canon fodder could be had at much less a price.
My Dad died in May of 1970 and my knees had blown up and been operated on in January of the same year. I went into a depressed state and stayed there for about five years. I left the Army and then my family life came apart and I came back to the west coast and didn't see my kids for six years. Emotionally it was pretty hard to take.
I had periods where I drank too much and was very erratic and unfocussed.
My second long term relationship came to an end in 1982 and since then I have avoided any serious entanglements with the opposite sex.
The year 1988 disappeared in an alcoholic haze and I quit drink forever on the night of 18th September 1988. It took me about three years to dry out and another six years to deal with the problems of my bipolar disease. I tried medication but all that did was make me suicidal and worse than the disease.
I finally found a situation that I could be happy in. First of all I stopped working for other people and accepted that an artist's life was the only one where I had any chance of being happy. There were sometimes when meals were hard to come by but, be that as it may, they were in the main happy days.
My output in terms of my photography and writing has been, dare I say it, quite satisfying and I have been in a very good space for close to sixteen years now. I have good friends and something to look forward to every day, I hooked up with my old Army buddies and talk to them via e mail and the occasional visit to Victoria. I had turned my back on them for close to forty five years but they accepted me back into the fold without comment and we have expanded our friendships with common objectives since then.
La Dolce Vita!
Ciao, JWL
Talk to me (1)
1. BILLY WILLBOND left...
Sunday, 13 July 2008 10:23 am :: http://iwvpa.net/willbondwha
With all the things you have done and seen that makes you a caring human
being - You support the AIDS ORPHANS and the suffering poor when you had
little you still gave more - You self medicated on the demon rum to cover
things you thought you'd done - you suffered long and you survived and now
your work it is more alive - your poems tell the gritty truth of your tough
and long lost military youth - your photos speak a poetic talk as you
continue to walk the walk - Thank you John for being there for those of us
who care and share - you saw the mean street at first hand and you are one
who understands the plight of those who sleep out there - your poems and
photos are raw and bare - be well my friend-billy