The Eastern Bear: An Autobiography (A Kaisserreich fanfiction)

Entry #1: May 12, 1936

Presidio of  Monterey, California

My Ma and Pa sent this journal in the mail today, I got it first thing this morning after sun-up drills. She asked me to start writing in it, see if I could get a kick out of keeping my memories on a page. Maybe send it to a publisher when this mess in America has changed or blown over. 

But I feel as the mess here in America won't be going away anytime soon. The Depression and well, Black Monday has only made things worse. Now it's harder to find a job more than ever. My family back in Fresno has probably faced some difficult times. I'm glad I'm not a burden to them, out here in Monterey. Military life is hard but, then again what can a man do out here, in these times? In the west, you can barely find a job. If you're lucky, you'll find an acting job out here and make serious money that can set you up for the rest of your life. If you're well, a common man like most of us out here, usually the military or working in a store or factory. 

The West, well, we didn't feel the full force of the Depression like the East or the old South. we got our fair share of unemployment, yeah. But the West is still about the movies and the actors and actresses. We shade our depression with media, the great stars and all that. I guess that's the mentality here. Me? I don't know too much about acting. Whenever I have some free time or a few weeks off I take my car and drive around the coast. San Francisco, Los Angeles. Those places. And you see quite a bit of actors, some famous some looking to get famous. 

Either way, the political opinions here are much more mellow than the ones on the other side of the country. There people fight, for dictators and socialists. Militias, burning buildings, all that. I'm glad my family moved out of Chicago in 1930. That place is a mess, a hive for growing socialists loyal to John Reed. What a character that man is. Thinks that he can be the next Sebastien Faure. The American people won't bow down to socialist ideals so easily as the Europeans did when the going got tough for them. 

That being said, I don't like the current president, Hoover. He has done nothing for his people, and I sure as hell know for a fact he won't be reelected this next election. His bills rarely get passed, and when they do, they barely help anyone. We need some new alternatives, new faces in the oval office, and fast. 

Long isn't right. He's a ruler, a dictator, a king. He wants to keep everyone in line, like the Kaiser himself. Everything going through him. He has presence in the South, where they echo his name everyday while in the bars and saloons and in the bayou's and the humid areas of Florida. But in reality, he won't be president. He doesn't have the support of the rest of the American people. The South can't decide for Nebraskans, for Californians, for Alaskans. 

There are others, of course. Not just those two Radicals. John Nance Garner, or as the Texans call him, "Cactus Jack". He seems alright. His plans seem like solutions to the things we are facing, and he doesn't seem like a man who would back down from either Long or Reed. Alf Landon is another candidate, a Republican like Hoover. Yet he doesn't strike me as a man that would follow in Hoover's footsteps. He seems different. 

Hell, I don't know. I'm just a Colonel stationed in the sunshine state, hoping that Americans would stop hurting each other over their radical thoughts and start thinking rationally. But I doubt people would listen to me. I'm no preacher like Long, or a masterful thinker like Reed. 

America is a powder keg. One incident, and it will all go down in flames. I'm telling ya, it doesn't matter if you're a moderate. I feel that it will come down to all of us when we have to choose sides. And I don't know where I'll stand. Truthfully, I don't know.