I don’t have a lot tonight. Enjoyed dinner out with my sister’s sons last night, and out with my folks tonight.

I keep going back to Hillerman’s bio, because every time I listen to it, I get something new from him to think about.

After Hillerman was discharged from the army and the war ended, he headed to University of Oklahoma to start his education as a journalist. In the memoir, he made an interesting observation. The fraternity houses, he observed, were full of former soldiers, fly boys and sailors who had no interest in the usual frat activities. They were at universities to get an education, to find wives, and to get on with their lives. After experiencing the horrors and hardships of war, there was little interest in pledging and playing the Greek game. The boys were beyond the point of playing in college. They had already been spared their lives once, and had little desire to start the rest of it playing around.

I thought that was a brilliant observation. When you’ve go through the horrific hazing of serving as a combat soldier, you probably don’t feel much like messing around with superfluous sidetracks.

You learn to ignore the immaterial.

And to recognize, and embrace, the essential.