From 1980 to 1990 I wrote a column five days a week (Monday through Friday) along with general assignment reporting and sports writing for the Muncie Evening Press in Muncie, Indiana. The column was named Best in Indiana by United Press International (UPI). In the Press of Things originated during the 1920s with all reporters contributing to it. Later for many years it was written several times a week by the late Evan Owens, a dear friend. From time to time I will post some of my columns here and may even include one by Evan.
AFTER THE SHOOTING IT'S HARD TO TELL THE VETERANS APART
Nov 11, 1981
Veterans Day, what does it mean? A great deal to some people, very little to most.
A veteran, regardless of the war in which he or she served, is one of those who is left. That’s not the definition found in Webster’s, it appeared in a small volume titled "Beach Red" published 35 years ago – "War doesn’t prove who is right, only who is left."
While this is a day to honor American veterans, it’s hard to tell one from another when the shooting stops. Those who do the fighting, regardless of the uniform they wear or the language they speak, are pretty much alike, just average guys who have to kill the wrong people. Not all American veterans saw the enemy at close range, of course, and those who did saw the wrong faces, not those of the Kaiser, Hitler, Tojo, or the top men of North Korea or the Viet Cong.
He lay on his side, curly blond hair matted by the afternoon rain, face pressed to the wet blacktop of a narrow country road. Fingers of one hand gripped a half-open first aid packet, water collected in an upturned helmet a foot away.
He was too young to buy beer in Indiana. Too young to walk a college campus except as a visitor. Too young to die on a spring day when the air was warm and wild flowers bloomed nearby.
But he did. And those who crouched beside the road took no pleasure in the fact. Some might say they should have because his uniform was a different shade and his helmet a different shape. A bullet fired by one of them had found him as its mark. No one boasted of the kill, no one claimed the trophy.
He was too old and too slow to keep up. The others cleared the wall and kept going. He was still trying to climb over, clawing at the top with fingers that suddenly relaxed as bullets tore his body.
He turned and faced his pursuers, smiled a sickly smile as he sagged against the wall and to the ground. The overcoat that was too big came open and letters scattered in the wind.
Someone picked one up, handed it to the squad leader. He opened the envelope and a photo inside was passed from man to man. Each in turn looked at the body slouched against the wall, and saw the face of the man holding a young girl on his knee. Behind them stood two older children and a woman.
The squad leader knew the language, read the letter aloud. A commonplace letter, news of home, nothing special. At the bottom a postscript in a childish scrawl: "I love you, Papa. Hurry home."
The squad leader reached for another letter. Joe, a hardened killer at 19, shook his head and said. "Don’t read any more, Eddie." No one raised a protest.
The tank 20 feet away fired again and again at the stone farmhouse in a narrow valley. Only between bursts could the clatter of rifles and machine guns be heard. A squad of riflemen, out in front of the rest of the company, crouched behind a thick dirt hedgerow, waiting to be ordered forward.
A mile to the rear had been a training school for boys 12 and 13. They had joined the thin rank of defenders, been told to try to hold the line. They fought fiercely until cornered, then were little boys again.
One of them squeezed through the narrow space between the tank and hedgerow, stopped and looked around uncertainly. His right hand held a rifle, tears streamed down his face.
Someone cried, "Put your hands on your head." The words were lost in the incessant racket.
Still, the boy grasped their meaning. He began to raise his hands, and with them the rifle. It was a threatening gesture. Only later, when there was time to think, came the realization that it was unintended. With it came the memory that would never go away – the look of disbelief, the shock, the pain. The ranks of the enemy were one fewer, but who was there to rejoice?
They have served by the millions in this century. And died by the millions. Young, old, black, white, red, yellow. From all walks of life, from every section of the globe, in uniforms of various hues. The differences seem small once they’ve died.. You look and wonder who he was, where he came from, who will cry for him.
Those who are left gain weight, go bald, grow old while the medals tarnish in a drawer. The years pass but certain memories never fade. And those who didn’t squeeze a trigger never quite understand.
Who can truly say whether it was worth it? No one, but any person of common sense knows there had to be a better way.
Today is set aside to honor American veterans. Many countries have similar days. Until the time when they are unnecessary, any claims that men are civilized will ring hollowly over the countless graves of those who learned otherwise.
VISITING A VETERANS HOSPITAL
Dec 12-1985
If this will be a bountiful Christmas at your house, then take a moment to consider sharing a little of it with someone less fortunate. You needn’t look far to find them.
My mind was busy with such thoughts the other day while driving back from the Veterans Administration Hospital in Marion. During the hour or so we were there I was thinking again of just what it is that the spirit of Christmas should be and where you go to find it. Long years have passed since I last located it out among the throngs of people.
I felt it, though , on the grounds of the old hospital. I sensed it there among the brick buildings, the tall trees, the countless rows of headstones in the National Cemetery. They weren’t planning to get out the Christmas decorations for another week, so for a while I didn’t understand why it was that the spirit seemed so much in evidence.
It came to me while we were having coffee in the canteen. Not a revelation, not some new flash of insight into the ways of the world, just the annual realization that the true spirit of Christmas can’t be purchased no mater how much money you may carry in your pocket. When you are among people in less fortunate circumstances than yourself, only then will it come to you. When it does, suddenly the parties and the pleasures, the tinsel and the glitter all seem shallow and unimportant. The spirit of the season doesn’t come gift wrapped, it comes in the sharing of yourself. That holds true even though you may have nothing to share but a smile, a wave of your hand, a word or two that shows you care.
The permanent residents at Marion, they have given of themselves. As much as they had to offer, that was how much they gave to the rest of us, so the spirit of sharing and selflessness permeates all such places every day of the year.
We were there by chance, not because of the season. Ten grocery sacks and a large shopping bag filled with brand new books were underfoot, always in the way. It was time to do something, so we took them to the VA hospital. I had recalled it was in the library at a military hospital, where book are always important, that I first discovered my favorite author, Cornell Woolrich.
We stopped in the canteen after dropping off the books at the office of Penny Armes, who is in charge of volunteer services. It was a cold afternoon and hot coffee was only a quarter a cup. Men who live there wandered in and out, warming up with coffee or looking over the stock in the PX across the hall.
Two booths away a man about my age carried on an animated conversation, most of it about home. He told a few stories and answered several questions – but no one the rest of us could see was there with him.
Another of 60 or so filled a cup with coffee, paid the cashier, then walked to the booth behind me. He stopped, though, when he saw Jackie. Bending so he was close to her, he said, “Are you going to take me home today, Aunt Louise?”
By coincidence Jackie’s middle name is Louise. She smiled, blinking back a tear unless I am mistaken and told him, “Not today.”
He wasn’t surprised, he probably had heard it before. A few seconds passed, then he said, “But you’ll come to see me in the ward?”
Jackie said she would, so he straightened up again and said, “Well, then, I’ll just sit over here,” and went on to the booth he had in mind.
An older man, probably 70, stopped at the door when he saw me. He smiled, thinking he knew me from somewhere, nodded and lifted a hand in greeting. I smiled, too, and waved back. He went on outside.
When our cups were empty and we stood up, the man behind us looked worried. “Are you leaving?” he asked. Jackie said we were, so again he said, “But you’ll see me in the ward?”
We had just gotten to the car when he came out the door. He went to a man sitting alone on a bench, tapping a cigarette from a pack as he approached. The man gave him a light, but neither of them spoke. Then the one who carries the memory of an aunt in a mind that somewhere along the way became confused walked briskly off with the bearing of a man on parade at Fort Benning or Quantico.
As we drove away we passed the man who had waved to me. He did again, face lighting up at the sight of his old friend. I wondered who he was, and the others too. Where were they from, what experiences had they had after answering their country’s call? And the younger man of about 30 who crossed the street in front of us, who was he? The legs that had taken him to Vietnam now dragged limply behind a pair of crutches.
Some will go home for Christmas. Some can count dozens of Christmases alone. A few will dress in their best on Christmas morning, then wait for someone who never comes. In the evening they will say, if anyone asks, that a son or a daughter or a cousin would have come, they really wanted to, but they are very busy and successful people and you know how it is.
Gifts don’t’ much matter, although they enjoy them, of course. A few minutes of someone’s time, anyone’s time, that matters very much. Somewhere in the past they gave America all of their own, every second of it that was left to them.
BACKYARD ANIMALS & DOG SHOWS
We have a dove with an injured wing. She can still fly, but not well.
At times she walks great distances across the yard, usually from one feeding area to another. Like most of her kind when injured, she doesn’t take flight as quickly as the others when something frightens them. She waits, looking around to see if she can locate the cause of the alarm. To a bird such a delay can be fatal.
When she does fly she has trouble keeping to the path she wishes to follow. Balancing on a wire or limb is difficult, almost impossible. Sometimes she lands on a tabletop or other unaccustomed place. When she does she topples forward, but manages to regain her balance before going over completely.
Watching her it occurs to me that among creatures of the wild a handicap is even more terrible than in a human. She has been ostracized by others of her kind. They have left her to perish as she will, although at times another will watch her strange way of moving about. There is nothing they can do so they leave her alone.
Even the smallest, least intelligent of living things must wonder when an injury or affliction strikes suddenly. Watching them – a bird with an injured wing, a rabbit that has lost an eye, a squirrel whose tail is gone – is not a happy thing.
* * *
Jackie follows along uncomplainingly on the numerous occasions when I decide to go somewhere she doesn’t really care to go. Every so often though, she takes her revenge. That’s how I ended up at a dog show recently.
It isn’t that I don’t like dogs, understand, but dog shows just aren’t my thing. They are very serious business to some people, however, and not to be made light of. But try as I may, I just can’t keep a straight face while watching a 200-pound man or woman running around a circle holding a leash with something that looks very much like a rag mop on the other end.
That’s the first thing that strikes you at dogs shows – these are not dogs you are likely to meet scrounging in a trash can when you decide to take a shortcut through an alley behind Walnut Street. But darn it, those are my kind of dogs. The ones that draw back and bare their teeth because they think you may have designs on the same trash can they’ve staked out.
Old Casey never would have made it through the front door at a dog show, and now I see Nipper didn’t either. Maybe you read about Nipper. He’s the dog in the RCA trademark, the white terrier with one ear cocked because he hears his master’s voice coming from one of those old trumpet speakers.
They wanted to take a Nipper look-alike to a promotional display at a dog show in England, but they turned him away because he isn’t of a breed recognized by The Kennel Club. So be it, but we still love you, Nipper. We have one that belonged to my dad, complete with an Edison Phonograph and trumpet speaker.
My dad brought the other dog, Casey, home as a pup when I was eight. He was part Spitz, part Collie, tougher looking than he really was. A brown chow in East Akron sent him flying for home whenever they’d meet. I didn’t mind that, but it was embarrassing when some runt no bigger than a squirrel did the same thing.
“Hah! You call that a dog?” some other kid would say and the next thing you knew another one would start yelling, “Fight! Fight!” and kids would come running from every back yard and alley.
Casey was a good old dog, though, and probably wouldn’t have minded being scoffed at by The Kennel Club. His happiest moments seemed to be those when he’d come home wet and dirty on a misty day when the smell of rubber was heavy in the East Akron air. His worst came when someone would say, “Bath,” and he wouldn’t have cared a bit for all that brushing and combing you see at a dog show.
Casey died when I was 23, so he had been around nearly two-thirds of my life. He welcomed me back from a big war, not caring that I had changed a lot even though he hadn’t. I buried him beside a sapling that now is a tall tree. He had a happy life, I think, and, like all animals, didn’t know it would ever end.
* * *
Sunday may be the first day of the week on the calendar but most of us think of it as the last. Saturday and Sunday, the weekend. Monday starts a new one.
Anyway, have you ever sat back on a Sunday, reviewed the week in your mind and realized the most intelligent conversation you had was with a bird? Say with Mango at G&M Pet and Garden Center. I think Mango is a mynah bird but he didn’t say. Or maybe he’s confused about it.
I said, “Hello, Mango.” He didn’t say anything so I went on. Then he said, “Hello,” so I went back.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Hello.”
“Yeah, hello, Mango.”
“Hello.”
“Well, I’ve gotta be goin’ along. Goodbye, Mango.”
“Hello.”
“Look, is that all you can say, hello?”
“Polly wants a cracker.”
Now you know what my other conversations were like.
