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Six Low Crawl Our goal is peace with honor. - Richard Nixon I ate lightly at evening chow, expecting that if I ate too much, I would see it again. I also ate quickly and, when I was through, went to my room where I first greased up my underarms and crotch with Vaseline, carefully applied one Band-Aid and twO layers of tape to each heel, and changed into a pair of old fatigues. I expected Rancek to run us around the track a few times, but a few Japs would probably not be enough for him. The low-crawl pit that I had heard about but never seen would probably be in store for us, and I didn't want to ruin a newly starched and altered set offatigues. I then pm on my oldest and most comfortable pair of combat boots. Just as I was getting through, Budwell walked into the room, pulled Out his desk chair, and sat down heavily. ~ I don't suppose there's much that I can say of any help, Roomie," he began. "But I want you to know that I'll be pulling for you while you're out there." ~Thanks, that's ali I could ask for. I don't really know what to expect, but I don't think it's going to be something that I will want to do again any time soon." "Y eah, well, that's probably true, bur you know what I said about boredom , and this sure as hell won't be boring. I do, though, have a little theory about how you can get through things that you don't like." I finished tucking in the laces of my combat boots, began taking the things out of my pockets that I wouldn't need---cigarette lighter and Granddad's Case knife-and replied, "Well, you might as well go ahead and tell me. I expect you will whether I ask you to or no(." Budwelliaughed, "All right, here it is. When I was in law school, I had one particularly hard briefthat I had to get through with. I only had about a week and a half to get through, and I had to read through a stack of papers on more complicated cases than I had ever tried to assimilate before. So after about three days and nights, I began to panic. I first told myself that there wasn't any way that I could read all I had to and make enough sense out of it to write a decent brief. "But for some reason, suddenly a phrase came into my head. It must have been the Latin phrases that I had been reading in the law books I had been poring over that called it forch, but whatever the reason, the phrase tnnpusfogit, like the melody of a song, began to play through my head." I held up my hand to stop Budwell's reverie and asked, "Just a minute, now. What does that phrase mean in the law?H "Nothing," Budwell responded. "It has nothing to do with the law as far as I know. It's a Latin phrase that means 'time passes' or 'time flies: The phrase was a release for me, [ike letting out the bears at the roo or getting a last minute pardon. Suddenly the weight of time was liftcd.~ I shook my head, "I'm sorry. Budwell, but I don't see how such a simple phrase could really make any difference. You still were responsible for the brief. It sounds toO much to me like some of those silly, born-again fundamentalists I knew in college who would throw up their hands, raise their eyes to the sky, and say that their fate on the next pre-calc tcst was in God's hands. Then they'd flunk their way back to Snook or Bug Tussle and never take any of the credit for their failures. H "Cmon, Adams," Budwell angrily retorted, ''I'm not talking about the same thing, and you know it. Don't belittle my point." Softening, he went on, "Hey, friend, I'm JUSt trying to tell you something that helped me." I clapped my friend 011 rhe back, "Thanks, Roomie, I know you are. I guess I'm just a bit upright. I only have a few more minutes before I have to be out there." "You'll be okay, friend. Just remembet, man, tempusfogit. ume passes...

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