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26 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW BERT ALMON WHICH WAY THE WIND BLEW for Robert Solomon After the cookout, hamburgers and spare ribs, we listened to Bach on electrostatic speakers— Leyden jars ofa sort, capable of shocking— and talked about Benjamin Franklin, the first to propose the electrocution of criminals, the calculating man who offered a republic, if we could keep it. Then we talked about the crazy sixties, how the republic almost slipped away. Tough meat indeed on those bones, who understands it all? I liked your memories of the Pentagon March: when some stayed to provoke instructive violence, you left in a rented car. Benign cynicism is the salt that keeps you sane. The battered work for gurus now, or join the PTA, while the young plot to make money. As always, the republic flies in ambiguous weather, twisting its fragile and perilous string. 27 ALMON UNDER ORDERS I remember in the mid-sixties taking the train home at Easter, a self-propelled single car, filled with young recruits bound for a camp at El Paso. My wife was pregnant, a cluster of cells shaping within her, following their own instructions. We walked to the back window once, away from the restless smoke of cigarettes, and watched threads of steel spin out into the night. The draftees passed the time with games of chance, the rattle of dice and crisp shuffling of cards. My daughter is almost thirteen now, and no one discusses the war, but I wonder how many of the dead rode with us on that train. ...

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