The Wall

     One of the things Kay and I enjoy doing is to roam the countryside looking for festivals, antique stores, historic sites and just about anything that grabs our attention. Usually we go on these outings on Sunday afternoon but today is Friday and Kay found out that the Traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial would be in Lincolnton this afternoon, so we went.
     Lincolnton is about an hour and a half away and as I drove I wondered what my reaction would be to something that represents such a big part of my life. Being a Vietnam veteran I had long wanted to see the memorial but at the same time I have wondered if I was deserving of the Honor. True, I did serve two tours in the Vietnam war in the late 1960's and if you have read my previous stories about those times you would understand my doubts - I was there, I was willing and I came home when so many didn't and I wonder why.
      Over the years I have seen many war memorials in every town and city I have ever passed thru, memorials for the American Revolution, Spanish American War, The War of 1812, Civil War, WW1, WW2, Korea and others. These memorials represented events before or shortly after my birth and my only personal relationship to them was the fact that my father, uncles and ancestors were involved in them and I was proud of them for it but I don't think I ever really understood what that meant.
     Upon arrival, I saw a scaled down replica of the real memorial in Washington, D.C., it was accurately assembled across the outfield of the local baseball field. There were American flags attached to the chain-link fence in the background and there were smaller American flags at various points at the base of the memorial - these were placed there by people who knew someone whose name was  engraved on the wall. There were vehicles from many Georgia counties and several from out of state, there were buses from senior centers and churches, cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles filled the parking lot. Most of the people were in their seventies like me, others were older.  They walked with canes and sat in wheelchairs, they were bent over with age and stood tall with pride, they had grey hair, they were bald, they were overweight and thin but they came to this special place to honor the memory of someone special to them from long ago.
     There were volunteers to help you find the one name, out of the more than 58,000 names engraved on the wall, that meant something special to you, maybe he was a loved one or maybe a good friend. I didn't know of anyone who was killed in the war except for my second cousins' husband but I didn't know him and have forgotten his name so I just wandered around. We looked at the exhibits and pictures of young men who never grew old and will never be forgotten.
     My thoughts went back to the 1960's, it was a turbulent time and the Vietnam War was unpopular to say the least, I remember hearing the stories of soldiers returning home and being spit on or called baby killers. It didn't happen to me but it did happen.
     There were several times that my outfit was told we would be going into combat only to stand down at the last minute, we were scared but we put up a front for each other because we were still just kids who didn't want their buddies thinking bad of them. Years later I would wonder what it was like to be in combat not knowing if the next bullet whizzing overhead might have my name on it. I developed a deep respect for the men who were "in country", I remembered watching tracer rounds cross the night skies from afar, those men in the darkness were probably scared but like me they didn't show it for fear their buddies might think bad of them, so they did their job and scratched another day off their short timers calendar in the morning.
     So here I was walking beside a black granite wall with over 58,000 names engraved on it, the names of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, men and women many no more than teenagers who never had a chance to grow up, others were older but not by much, all were gone way too soon. War is an old mans game, young men are the pawns. I was over whelmed with sadness for these strangers, I tried to hold back tears as I gazed upon row after row of names of young men that I could proudly call my brothers and wondered why me and not them, why did I get to grow up, raise a family and grow old - why ?
     As I walked around Kay was beside me, she held my hand or touched my shoulder and for a while as I drove away she sat quietly. We have been on many day trips around the state, usually I drive and ask Kay to pick a direction, she has picked well. Today was different, I knew beforehand where we were going, I wasn't sure I wanted to go and once I got there I was filled with sadness for what the memorial meant and joy for what it meant to men and women of my generation especially those of us who were there.
     Thank you Kay for taking me on a journey to the past, thank you for loving me.

Birthing A New Generation

     Way back in the annals of civilization families were large and women had their  babies at home and if they were lucky they had the help of neighboring wives to assist them. The families were large because the labor force that was needed to work the farms most people lived on, women gave birth at home because there were no hospitals to go to and few Dr's if any to attend to them. Giving birth was often difficult and many babies and mothers didn't survive, I have visited the grave of my Great Grandmother who had previously given birth to five kids, the sixth baby ( a girl ) died a month after birth followed a month later by her mother and in the same graveyard is my Aunt who died at birth.
     Well times have changed thru the ages, families have become smaller mainly due to the cost to raise a child to adulthood  ( about $250,000 in 2015 ) and the labor requirements are no longer needed to run the farm as few people live on farms now days. Today women give birth to their babies in hospitals assisted by a host of doctors and nurses, even Dads are a part of the process. Though modern science has made many improvements in birthing as far as the medical aspects go nothing has changed in the process itself. There are easy births and difficult ones, some go on for hours while others are over with in mere minutes and they still say that the first one is the most difficult.
     Take my own birth for instance, bear in mind this is all hearsay because I don't remember it but I was reminded many times of the difficulty my mother had giving birth to me. I was the first of five kids in my family, the year was 1947, the hospitals were few and far apart, the doctors still made house calls and birthing at home in your own bed still occurred. In my case there was no hospital but there was a sanitarium which was a kind of scaled down hospital that had Drs and nurses so I was born in a sanitarium a few miles north of Gallatin, Tn.. I am told the labor was long and painful and in the end mom not only had a bouncing baby boy she also developed something called pleurisy an ailment she never let me forget about. That is about all that I can say about my birth except that after my birth my other four siblings were a piece of cake.
     Fast forward about 33 years, after trying to get pregnant for the past 13 years Linda and I were successful. Linda was as happy as any expectant mother could be, she beamed with pride, I on the other hand was scared to death. Her pregnancy was somewhat uneventful, she went to work every day, came home, ate dinner and went to bed. Being pregnant is not an easy task for a woman, it takes a lot out of them and Linda was no different. I used to joke and tell people that she slept for the whole nine months - I wasn't too far wrong. When the time came for Danny to greet the world Linda and I were watching t.v. and she kept getting up to use the bathroom and after about the third trip she came back in saying she thinks her water broke. Now when the water breaks it usually means it is time to get in the car and go to the hospital but rather than rush into anything Linda calmly went and packed a small bag of clothing and then took a shower, we arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes later ( the hospital was only two miles away ).
     They took Linda in to the preparation room and called her Dr who happened to be Hungarian and spoke with a somewhat heavy accent. Soon after his arrival he came out to the waiting room and started telling me that there was a minor problem, it took me a few minutes to comprehend what it was he was trying to tell me. At last he held up an x-ray picture which showed that Danny had at the last minute flipped back upright and was not in the correct head first position and no amount of persuasion was going to turn him around so they were going to have to perform a Cesarean Section. I didn't know if he was just telling me or asking me for permission, all I could say was OK, fathers like me were the reason the delivery room was off limits. About 30 minutes later the Dr returned and told me in his heavy accent that I had a baby boy, he pointed to his surgical gown to show me a rather large wet spot and explained that all of Danny's parts were working. My firstborn arrived in this world July 10, 1980. After seeing my son thru the window of the nursery I walked beside Linda as they rolled her to her room from recovery, still a little groggy all she wanted to know was " is he beautiful ?" my answer was " of course ".
     There is a sidebar that needs to go along with this story. Danny was the only boy in the nursery and he had a head full of thick black hair long enough that the nurses wanted to tie a blue ribbon in it. The next day I returned to see my family and was talking to Linda when one of her friends came in, I took the opportunity to look in the nursery to see Danny. There was an older couple looking thru the glass at there new granddaughter who was obviously upset about something as she was loudly crying and kicking the air, they were marveling over how pretty and precious she was.  The nurses rolled Danny next to the little girl and he laid there sound asleep, and not meaning to brag, he was the most beautiful baby there. The older couple now turned their to Danny and started saying how precious he was. Moments later their son walked in, they told him how beautiful their granddaughter was and how much they adored her and how happy they were, they shook his hand and hugged him proudly, then the lady told her son that she wanted him to get started on another one and she wanted it to look just like this one ( she was pointed to Danny ). As proud as I was I couldn't help but say something so I put my hand on the other guys shoulder and told him good luck, it took 13 years to get this one right.
     Two years later we found ourselves in the family way again. Linda didn't get much sleep this time as she had a toddler to take care of but she didn't seem to mind, she was devoted to Danny. Things were going well until about seven or eight months into the pregnancy. It was one of those times when life jumps up and throws a wrench into the works, I got word that the company was shutting down my operation but had acquired another company in California and wanted me to transfer out there, in retrospect this was one move I should have turned down - but I didn't. I went to California and got the job and even went back to get acquainted with the people and that is where I was when Linda went into labor, by the time I got home the next day Clay had arrived.
     Once again this is hearsay but it was Linda who told me and she never lied. To preface the story, Linda had a Cesarean Section with Danny and due to her age and and the prior c-section she would have to undergo another c-section with Clay, she was prepared. A date was set for the procedure and life went on normally until one night her water broke and a neighbor took her to the hospital where the nursing staff took her to be prepped for a c-section. During the preparation the nurse looked down and saw that Clay had a foot sticking out which was not a good sign. Linda was rushed to the delivery room, it was too late for a c-section, Clay was going to be a natural breech birth, the boy was going to come out feet first which he did on August 24, 1982. It was a hard birthing for Linda but I think she would have done it all over again for Clay, he was her baby and held a special spot in her heart.
     I must confess that in the beginning I wanted a baby of my own but for various reasons it did not happen, I was even told that I could not father any kids because of a low sperm count. We or maybe just I resigned myself to not having kids, I had nieces and nephews and friends who had kids and that seemed to be enough. Linda on the other hand looked into adoption  and was on the verge of telling me that we were next on the list when she found out she was pregnant, the news while welcoming  struck fear into my heart. I was too old to be a new father, to set in my ways for any change but by the time Danny was crawling I was putting him on my shoulder walking him around the neighborhood showing him off to all we met.
     Now I have Grandchildren of my own, they are growing like weeds and change every time I see them. MJ and Matthew were both c-section babies and I expect their mother will someday regale them with her stories.
     I am sure modern medicine will continue to evolve in the future and make giving birth completely safe for both mother and baby but the birthing process will be the same as it has been for thousands of years, there will be difficult births and easy ones, some will last for hours while others will be over in mere minutes. The fathers will be proud, the mothers will smile with happiness as the circle of life goes on.
   
   
     

The Last One

                                                             The Last One


     Getting older means change, change in your life style because you are not as good as you once were and change because some things are just not as important as they used to be or some things become more important than others. Whatever changes Linda and I were experiencing in the spring of 2005 had come to a head, we had reached that point in our life that we knew we needed to make one more change. We had a 15 year old house that needed a lot of work and it still would not be the house we wanted so the obvious answer was to sell it.
      Over the last 38 years of marriage we had owned seven homes and accumulated some 27 + addresses so a condition of sale was that the new house was to be the last house we would own, the one that we would be carried out of feet first. So in June of 2005 we found a new home that would be the last one.
      We bought a house that Linda liked, it was smaller, one level and had trees in the yard. It was just the two of us and one loud and irritating bird that Linda loved so we downsized. The bird got sick and died suddenly so we rescued Licking Lizzy, a black Lab / Cocker mix. Lizzy was one of the first projects that I undertook in our new home, we used to laugh and tell people she was our $3000 dog, the rescue group charged us about $50 but I had to install a chain link fence around the yard, lay 13 pallets of sod and install a storm door with a doggy door, Lizzy is now working on 13 or maybe 14 years old and she may yet out live me. Over the next few years Linda planted shrubs and flowers and I built her a covered deck on the back so she could sit and watch the birds, squirrels and Lizzy. It was her domain, her kingdom, she was deserving of the happiness it brought her.
     We had good times there and many memories were made, things were as they should be. We were happy but then life caught up with us and kinda got in the way. Turns out this was Linda's last house and after she passed the house took on a new feeling so to speak, nothing was the same anymore and though Linda was no longer there the memory of her was everywhere.
     Once again my life changed, I had been kicked in the gut and didn't know which way to turn so I sought the help of people who were walking down the same path.
     I met Kay in a grief support group, Wayne her husband of 35 years had passed away from cancer a week before Linda. Over time we became close and fell in love and eventually married, some thought it was too soon for that but then they were not walking in our shoes so they had no understanding of our feelings and would not until the time came for them to walk their own path of loneliness and despair.
     Kay had similar feelings towards her house that I had for mine so she sold it and after a long search we purchased a fixer upper that took us about a year before we could move in to it and we are still putting the final touches on the inside. The main thing is that it is "our" house and though we still think of our loved ones often the memories we make now are ours.
     Now it was moving time, a time to let go of a life that will never be forgotten only moved in to the shadows of memories from long ago. Just as Kay did when she sold her house, I cleaned out things that wouldn't fit into the new house, things that no longer fit into my life. I decided to give the kids the things that belonged to Linda that I was holding as an inheritance and then we moved into our new home.
     Well, I sold the house on Solomon Dr. the other day. It was hard to leave it behind but somehow I don't think Linda would mind.
     Ironically this new home is also the last one , the one they will carry us out of or at least carry me out seeing as how I am older than Kay. Until the final day comes for either of us to be carried out we will make a new life for ourselves. It is our life now filled with memories of the past and hopes for the future. Past memories occasionally rise up giving us moments of sorrow or happiness but we have each other to love and hold on to.
     To the naysayers I say - one day you may find yourself in similar circumstances, I hope that you find a pathway that makes you happy.