Christmas, 1983
A Larry story about getting caught in a lie while in Beirut, care packages for the troops, and the spirit of Christmas.
Hi! I originally published this Christmas story in 2020, which means the majority of situation normies haven’t had a chance to read this one. It’s a Larry story—my favorite genre. If you’re not familiar with the stories I tell about my dad, Larry, you can read one about the time he tried to talk the Sultan of Oman into hosting my Bar Mitzvah, and how that irreverent request set in motion a joke that pissed off Bob Hope. Or, you can check out my dad’s bio here. Spoiler alert: he was the world’s best sound man. While some parts of this story are specific to 2020, I’m sharing it today because I think it’s still relevant, sadly.
OK, so this story takes place in 1983, around Christmas time. I was six, Allison was four.
One day, Dad announced that he was going to Beirut on a USO show with Bob Hope. Lebanon was in the middle of a civil war, and U.S. Marines were on the ground in Beirut. There were important geopolitical considerations here about empire, ideology, power, humanity, and the absur…
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