Re: Topic Slant: Re: Need recommendations on security

"POP"

| > And a chance to bend my ear about the 'way back times'. Like
| > how she kept
| > cows during WWII and traded home made butter (not really black
| > market) for
| > other stuff that was in short supply.
|
| Frog Prince, your experiences are making me relive some wonderful
| memories of three fantastic people in my life.  My Mother, which
| needs no explanation, and my b-i-w's Mother Myrtle, and my wife's
| Uncle Junior.
|
| Myrtle and Uncle Junior were a lot like your friend sounds.
| Only, they were dairy farmers in upstate NY, full of "probly" and
| 'couldov", washing the nipples, & treating teats, all that kind
| of thing; decidedly poor and depression era folks who brought it
| forward with them, and tough as nails when it counted.  Things
| were so different in those days, and so much easier it seems,
| even though we know better!  Or at least I do.
|    I spent some of Myrtle's last hours at her bedside, looking
| out the window at the "men" out working in the fields, and all
| they were doing wrong, how they should have done it, and
| discussing what to do for tomorrow's dinner since tonight's was
| almost cooked, and even some talk of her own Mother whom she
| insisted she was going to see soon.  Of course, outside that
| window was nothing but the hospital parking lot, but it was one
| of the warmest times of my life.
|    Uncle Junior was just one of those types that actually DID
| seem to know everything, and if he didn't he had nothing to say
| on the subject.  At 87 he was still able to climb the silo and
| the hay bales to get into the mow, and could beat me up there
| every time!  He died fixing fences, just like he said he wanted
| to do!
|
| Hang onto that friend and appreciate every second you can spend
| with her.  She sounds like the kind you could spend a lifetime
| with and still not get to know half of what she knew, or live
| half of what she lived.  They just don't make 'em like that
| anymore.  They leave/left legacies they had no idea they were
| leaving us.

Her husband (I've verified to the extent possible) was on the carrier that
launched Doolittle's raid on Tokyo) he was also in charge of the engineering
projects that designed/tested the explosive systems that separated the
various booster stages in the space program.

My wife, my son and I are active Hospice volunteers and get a lot of that
sort of 'stuff' so far I've met men who survived Battan (spl),  flew with
Doolittle on his air raid on Tokyo, more than a few who flew in B17's, women
who tested and flew all the war birds with the Woman's air core.  Shared
confidences with marines from Iwo Jima (spl?), some of the boys (which is
what they were) who hit the beach of Normandy in the first wave,  members of
the paratroops who went in the back way.

What I hear are memories filtered through love and lives lost and even if
only 50% true well worth my time to visit these folk. Sad part is that while
these are such moving stories but I'm under NDA so I can't even so much as
discuss anything with anyone else.  Hard copy is way out of line but still I
must record their musings perhaps after I'm long dead it will not matter.

I have been permitted to have my grand kids visit with some of my hospice
friends and what THEY tell my grand kids is another matter.

Hardest, for me, are the folk from NAM ... these guys are MY age and hurtin'