Columns
A couple of sure vets
Everybody loves a good re-run once in a while. So I was thinking I’d embarrass my parents once again this year with this VD homage. (Um, that’s “VD” as in Veteran’s Day, and NOT that other far less amusing VD — Valentine’s Day.)
When I think of Veteran's Day, I mentally snap to 'ten-HUT for my mom and dad.
They're vets of "The Big One," World War II. My dad had left his Veedersburg, Ind., home in the summer of 1941 and enlisted, so he was already in uniform when America got involved, and he stayed in it throughout. (Well, I'm sure he changed into clean uniforms once in while.)
While my dad was cultivating a taste for army food, my mom was helping in all the ways that a teenage schoolgirl in Indianapolis could. She assisted my grandpa with his duties as a block warden, she finished her compulsory education, she conserved and rationed. And prayed.
Dad spent almost two years on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. (You might ask, "Is there an 'Old Caledonia'?" And I might reply, "Send me five dollars and a self-addressed stamped envelope and I'll tell you." Ho-ho, just kidding. Sort of.
(The facts are: "Caledonia" is the name the ancient Romans gave to ancient Scotland, back in the days when the ancient Stuarts were running around in ancient kilts and playing golf almost as poorly as today's Stuarts.)
A couple years ago, I finally memorized the dates that dad was overseas. He reached New Caledonia on April 21, 1942, the day after his 20th birthday. I figure the other end of the equation is one of the most important days of my life, even though it was 4,860 days before I was born - he headed home – all in one piece – on April 1, 1944. I imagine he didn't fool around that April Fool's Day.
Something tells me that on the voyage home, he might not have foreseen a future that would bring him a degree from Wabash College (on the GI Bill), marriage to a DePauw University co-ed (58 years and counting), and long careers for both of them in elementary and high-school education - including their own “continuing education” at the hands of their five brilliant children.
Having mentioned dad's birthdate, some of you scholars out there might have noticed it's the same as Hitler's. Yes, THAT Hitler. But our family karma balances out with my mom's birthday - it's June 6th. You don’t have to be a war historian to know the memorable wartime event that happened on that date: actress Veronica Lake toured an aircraft factory and got her hair caught in some machinery. Of course, that's not the only thing they remember it for.
My siblings and I are all curious types, so we're always interested in mom and dad's memories of the war years. Their experiences and feelings about those times could fill a book. I’d be glad to help them write it, but not until they overcome the serious modesty problem that's plagued them all their lives. In today's LOOKEE-AT-ME culture, their story - about two quiet, stalwart, salt-of-the-earth lives - lacks the necessary hyperbolically-hyped hype. But nobody can ever get 'em to brag. Except about their eight grandsons.
My parents love to read, and they have scores of books about World War II. I was very fond of one of them when I was a kid. It's called "Up Front." It's a book of wartime cartoons by a guy named Bill Mauldin, who honored the fortitude of ordinary GI's through two foot soldiers named "Willie and Joe."
Mauldin's drawings of Willie and Joe are wonderful - a couple of regular guys always balancing their weariness against their determination. They always need a shave, and a change of uniform. (And in spite of the fact that Willie and Joe won a Pulitzer Prize for Mauldin, I once read that General George Patton just HATED the way they looked.)
As a kid, I'd draw my own versions of Willie and Joe. They were about what you'd expect from a 10-year old, although I did do a pretty nice job with their stubbly whiskers. Of course, I could observe and touch the occasionally unshaven face of a real-live vet.
Lucky me.
uuu
PS: Thanks, dad, thanks, mom, and thanks to every vet of the front lines or the home front.
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com
Add a comment at www.rushvillerepublican.com.
- Columns
-
- River runs through it My wife and I are very competitive. Take skiing for example. I don’t like skiing. Mary Ellen says she doesn’t like it more than I don’t.
- Soothing '60's surf sounds I'm sitting in my home office enjoying a serenade of rhythmic pulsations emanating from the outside wall.
- All that glitters isn’t gold Have you seen all the ads on satellite or cable television urging us to invest in gold?
- Some famous and not-so-famous last words (Friends, as I was looking for an old column I did in 2003 about the Chicago Cubs, I came across this. It’s not all about the Cubs, but it certainly hints at what the Cubs’ last words are at the end of every season, “There’s always next year.)
- Things have changed over the years Rushville used to own the power plant that supplied the city with electricity. The local telephone company was also owned and operated by those in town who used it.
- Rants, raves and random thoughts 072410 Greetings, one and all, and welcome! Submitted correspondence has been on the increase of late, for which I thank you, and we’ll get to it in short order. First, a thought or two from Your Humble Narrator.
- Rising speculation about bombing Iran's nukes Many years ago, I was privileged to attend a dinner with James Rowe, one of the "passion for anonymity" young aides to Franklin Roosevelt, original author of the winning strategy for Harry Truman's 1948 campaign and close confidante of then-President Lyndon Johnson.
- English channels When I was kid, there were a lot of rules in our house. My father had a workshop in the basement, so his list of no no's was a great deal longer than Mom's: paint thinner is not a beverage; a band saw is not a musical instrument; a blow torch is not a hair dryer.
- Through sunglasses darkly As promised last week, I now present “The Disaster on East Aster,” the street we lived on during our summer vacation to Wildwood Crest, N.J.
- Working harder to buy locally When my wife posted something on Facebook this week about the concept of “buying local” it got me thinking. How hard do we really try to do that? Do we really care?
- More Columns Headlines
