tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post5105972309983294109..comments2023-10-19T05:40:59.162-04:00Comments on Sippican Cottage: Memorial DaySippicanCottagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14940797380578921776noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-6394689914220595112012-05-29T12:40:38.687-04:002012-05-29T12:40:38.687-04:00Excellent piece. Beyond touching to soul-piercing...Excellent piece. Beyond touching to soul-piercing.SiGraybeardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00280583031339062059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-13284966452667831672012-05-28T23:15:53.419-04:002012-05-28T23:15:53.419-04:00This reminds me, a bit sideways, of finding a Purp...This reminds me, a bit sideways, of finding a Purple Heart, folded American flag, and picture of a U.S. Army corporal in a dresser in my Grandmother's house. <br /><br />She had recently been moved to a nursing home after breaking her hip, and she sent me looking for something or other. Instead I found the above.<br /><br />I didn't recognize the picture. There was a citation with the picture, but I didn't recognize the name. Citation stated that the soldier had died in North Africa in 1943.<br /><br />I asked my Dad about it, and he knew who it was - the only son of a woman who was old when I was very young, and related to my family. I, and he, knew her as one of many "Aunts" who were really close cousins. Aunt Teen in this case, which was short for Justine.<br /><br />Her husband, who worked for a railroad, had died on that job before World War II. She had a daughter also, who had married after the War and moved to the West Coast.<br /><br />She had died before I was in High School, and for whatever reason - closest relative around, I suppose - my Grandmother ended up with the Flag, Medal, Pic and Citation.<br /><br />The thing about it was, my Father was very close to her. He was born in '35, and often spent time at her house while his parents were away; besides that he had several friends near his age who lived near her. So he was often at her home. And he was at her home the day she found out her son had been killed.<br /><br />He remembered it vividly, even though he was barely nine. He and a friend were chasing around a frizzled chicken. (Look it up.)<br /><br />Up drives a car, and out of it steps a man in uniform. That stopped him and his friend. They didn't know what that meant, though.<br /><br />Uniform man walks to the front door; daughter answers and almost collapses right there, but runs inside; out comes Aunt Teen. Then she does collapse.<br /><br />My Father was angered and confused. He knew about the war, but he was a kid. His parents and close kin either weren't military or were too old to be in the fight. And Teen's son was much older than he - he's not sure if he ever actually met him.<br /><br />What impressed him most was that his Aunt Teen was pretty much destroyed by whatever news Uniform Man had presented. And that bothered him a lot. He wanted to know why. Eventually the daughter explained it to him, and he made his way home.<br /><br />I had never heard this story before. My father said it was the first time he realized that the War was a very real thing, killing very real people, and not just an abstraction from the newspapers and radio, and an excuse to organize kids for scrap metal hunts.<br /><br />He also told me it had left him with a instinctive distaste and revulsion for Germans, far more than the Japanese. He didn't remember Teen's son, but he knew he had been killed by Germans, and he saw what that did to her. <br /><br />That was something else I never heard out of him. <br /><br />War's brutal and simple but it's got a lot of strange angles.T.K. Tortchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00553301766027577975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-25473377825832026512012-05-28T18:55:34.527-04:002012-05-28T18:55:34.527-04:00I only learned this past April that I had a cousin...I only learned this past April that I had a cousin, my grandfather's brother's son, who died on the USS Arizona, at Pearl Harbor. He was 23, and had my maiden name of Bonebrake. I looked up a registry, found a picture, and he looks very much like the rest of the family. Only... forever young.<br /><br />Your writing is delicious.Lesliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02284936021406079076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-70700268477463466572012-05-28T15:54:28.403-04:002012-05-28T15:54:28.403-04:00It was this subject that first made me stick aroun...It was this subject that first made me stick around here, a sound decision.Thudhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18320037763190473684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-13770416279814654512012-05-28T15:33:18.323-04:002012-05-28T15:33:18.323-04:00You are a superb artist with words as well as wood...You are a superb artist with words as well as wood. When I think of all the young students who are exposed only to literature in their approved textbooks, I want to weep.Old Tybee Rangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13457590564486120765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14474631.post-78417745945502505932012-05-28T15:25:17.495-04:002012-05-28T15:25:17.495-04:00Neither of them want for anything.Neither of them want for anything.BigFrednoreply@blogger.com