Now quick…what does that make
you think of?
About 16 years ago, my wife
and I were sitting in a park just south of the 210 Freeway in La Crescenta,
California. We were at what my mom called at the time a “cousins’ picnic,”
which was made up largely by her mostly seventy-something first cousins that
were all transplants from North Dakota.
My mom’s cousin Mildred (her
husband Bob has passed away) was there with her daughter Pam (Pam was a couple
years older than me). So were Alice and Bill, Roy (never married), Paul and
Helen, Harlan and Pearl and Delores and Martin. My mom and dad were there too,
and for some odd reason, I can still vividly see those Scandinavian ancestors
(mostly first cousins once-removed to me) sitting around the wooden picnic
tables in the shade on that very hot summer day.
I recall attending somewhat
reluctantly, probably only after being shamed into it by my mom who probably
said that it would “mean a lot” to the older folks if my wife and I could make
the 60 or so mile drive to join the family picnic. It was hard for me to give
up a cherished weekend day to go to the gathering, but I remember seeing the
smiles as we arrived and feeling glad we’d made the effort.
Not sure this still happens
all that much anymore, but in those days, at least for folks of that age (maybe
it’s a North Dakota thing), the genders tended to separate after the meal. I
recall the women all sitting at the east end of the picnic tables chatting
about lost relations or some such, while us men all gathered at the west end to
kibitz about the stuff North Dakotans tend to discuss. I’m guessing that every
other male there was at least 70 at the time (I was in my early 30s), and
having just finished Tom Brokaw’s recent book “The Greatest Generation,” I
decided to ask them about the book and how they all felt about the “greatest
generation” moniker.
Over the course of my then
young life, I’d probably been around most of these characters at least 100
times. They always seemed so old to me, and in all those encounters over all
those years, I am fairly certain I’d never heard one of them make any reference
to being a veteran. None of them had read Brokaw’s book, and I recall them
being almost perplexed and annoyed by the contention that they were somehow special.
To a man they believed (my father was especially vehement about this), that my
generation (or any other) would be equally up to the task if ever faced with a
similar threat. To a man, they seemed to detest the implication that they
were somehow better…or that there was anything even remotely extraordinary
about what they did.
Each one of them had volunteered
for some branch of the service and though I had to pull it out of them with
repeated questions, they each had amazing wartime stories. My dad reluctantly
told of harrowing Kamikaze attacks while on the U.S.S. Ticonderoga, and
described in chilling detail the images right after the enemy planes smashed
into the deck.
My cousin Martin had been one of those cats that sat in the
little bubble in the back-bottom of a bomber operating a machine gun. He’d been
in missions over Berlin and Paris. I remember him reflecting humbly… “yeah…the
last time I saw Paris…it didn’t look too good.”
My cousin Harlan (now well into
his 90s…and he still drives) nonchalantly told of his boot camp experience,
shortly before being shipped off to his first battle experience on an island in
the Pacific. I asked him what island and remember him almost whispering “Okinawa.”
He described the chaos of the invasion and told of being shot in the leg
several times almost immediately after existing the beach landing craft. In what
still seems like a remarkably thick Swedish accent, he talked matter-of-factly
of getting patched up and sent back to the front several weeks later.
I recall
asking them if they were scared…and across the board, most of them responded by
shrugging their shoulders and say things like “yeah… I s’pose…but the troot is
we didn’t tink about it too much.”
On
the morning of June 6th, 1944, an extraordinary generation carried
out the invasion of Normandy. This morning, 70 years later to the day, I awoke at
3:55am and rolled out of the comfort of my bed to stumble downstairs to the
home gym and hammer out a poorly written blog.
It’s Friday, and today marks
the 70th anniversary of D-Day. For many, the day will pass without
even a thought about that event. For many more that will be reminded by some blurry
black and white images during a 30-second news story playing in the background or
a quick snippet on their smartphone (there’s no google doodle but there is a
reference at the bottom of the page), few will likely have a full understanding
of the significance of that day and its overall consequence.
Have a fabulous weekend, and
if you’re spending it doing anything other than storming a beach in a hellish
hail of gunfire, try to take a minute to feel a little grateful. If you see
some old chap shuffling along in plaid pants, a baseball cap and a windbreaker…you
just might want to say thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment