GENERAL ORDERS

Now there are many general orders, and I am going to go thru the three that were given to me in basic training. We had to memorize them and be able to recite them whenever we were asked.

Anywho, something that I wanted to clear up, since I didn't put the last entry together too clear, is that while I have started out with talking about women in a less than flattering way, it is because that is but a view thru the prism. There are some men who look directly thru 'the glass darkly', and perpetuate the cycle of animus between men and women.

I don't. Simple as that. But if someone were to take me for a card carrying member of the 'He-Man Woman Haters Club', they would be mistaken. The reason that I may sound critical about women and some of their behaviour in relationships, is that is who I date!! It is not to say that men don't have their own set of flaws that further adds to the issues in relationships.

REDUNDANCY SAVES LIVES

As much as Coach Singletary put 'we' are going to make this happen, with him stepping up like that, when it came to finding out how they were going to 'win', I think it was understood that HE would be doing most of that!

At the end of the day, someone has to be the CEO, sit at the desk where the buck stops, which is why I think that in that first 'General Order', submission was the unspoken ideal in that. In order to follow someone like that, THEY have to be worthy of such authority.

"If you can't get anyone to follow you, then your are just out on a long walk." - Unk

Thinking on my 'starter marriage', I may have been angry with her, mad at fate, but at then end of it, I came to what was left, which was me. It took awhile, but when I stopped asking 'Why she didn't ..?', and started to wonder 'Why I DIDN'T ...', it was like a light went on.

We had a poor marriage mainly because I was a poor husband. Accepting that she really wanted to be married to me (which is still a tablespoon of castor oil ... tough to swallow and ready to come back up!), then I asked myself the question, did I provide what she needed to be a good wife and Mother?

The 49 er's finished strong as a young, struggling team trying to find its identity could close a season filled with big change. One of the reason that I would guess that factored in the decision to hire Coach Singletary as the permanent head coach, is that he will provide the team the leadership, the stewarding that a good coach provides.

I did not do that. A lot of men are conflicted because there has been a blurring of roles and finding oneself is competing with outside influences. Don't want to stray and I don't want to lose track by describing how the environment has changed, but it seems more complicated to 'be what you are'.

And what I am, is a man.

I think that my ex wife could have been a better wife, had I been a better man. But like many young brothers (again, speaking from what I know, not necessarily think, hence the specification) who grow up without a male figure in the home and are exposed to so much degradation of women (and that is just in their homes!), black women particularly, it is hard to 'find yourself', and learn how you should behave in a relationship.

Can't throw off the influence of the media, especially when there isn't any structure in the home. But I won't accept that as a justification for anything that I have done. Even with the subjective things I didn't like about my wife, I still think that I failed to provide her with what SHE NEEDED to be a good wife.

I blundered thru the rest of my 20's ... part hurt, and part lost because I wasn't really 'up' to being leader. And the thing about a good leader is that he also has to be submissive.

A leader says, "I did it."
A good leader says, "They did it."
The best leader, the men say, "We did it!"

A long time ago, I mentioned how one of the early cracks in my marriage, was the issue over 'breakfast'. It wasn't that I wanted a wife to do all the 'classic' wife stuff. But for me to play my role in the marriage, that was something I had identified as something I would need from her.

I don't think that I really communicated how 'we were going to win'. Had I had been as clear as Mike Singletary was ... because I didn't want her to cook breakfast as extension of 'male authority', but because I thought it would have been a big factor in our 'winning'.

Defining how 'we' are going to do things, I think still falls to the man. What happens after that is less fluid, less set in stone, but in the beginning, that is what happens, Gloria Steinem be darned!! That is part of the ritual, and that is that with that.

And it isn't just that women should be held to being submissive, men need to be submissive to the responsibility they have, in that someone is willing to put themselves in their hands. The purpose of marrying someone is more than having someone to help pay rent, to cook dinner or to buy the latest Fendi bag ...

I made sure when I settled my account with Mookie, that I got from her the acknowledgment that I wasn't just 'who she thought I was', but more importantly, I was who I SAID I WAS.

And when that wasn't enough for her, I felt 'properly relieved'.