I have never posted a blog like this before, but this looks like a good time.
Here is what Memorial Day means to me. I think it was about 1943 when my father of two got the notice that he had been drafted into the Navy and WWII. I did not realize what it all meant, but I knew it would and did have a big impact of me and my family. We lived in a rented shack back next to the alley that I think rented for about $15 a month. The roof leaked in several places and it was my job to keep the drip cans in the right places. I was the oldest son of age 3 going on 4.
The night before my father had to get on the bus that took him away, we sat at the dinner table and my father told me to take his chair at the table until he returned. He said that I was now "the man of the house" . As the oldest, I was proud to be able to sit in my father chair. At the time I did not totally understand the significance of that event. The next morning it was cold and foggy as we walked down to where my father would wait for the bus with several other fathers and their families. The bus stop was near the small post office where in side there was a bulletin board showing pictures of the "Most Wanted". My mother was crying and kissed my father just before he got on the bus and then he was gone.
From that point on I sat in my father's chair at the dinner table. As I remember, most dinners were boiled Pinto beans and corn bread. It filled us up and tasted good. I played with my friends whose fathers were mostly also gone to the war. There were a few fathers who did not go to war and I think it was because they were too old or had some other condition. My mother would get letters from my father, mostly in bunches. She would read most of them to me and my younger brother.
My mother got a family support check from the Navy that helped us get by, but she worked almost every day. She picked cotton and cut potatoes for seed and some times "chopped" cotton too. We did not have a car, so my mother would hitch a ride to the cotton fields with a friend and the farmer would pay the driver 25 cents to the owner of the car for the service. Gas was rationed as was sugar and meat. It did not effect us much since we ate mostly beans and cornbread. I used to help pick cotton by working ahead in the row and piling the picked cotton on the ground so my mother could pick it up when she came up with her sack. It was not a bad time for me.
I remember when the war was over because the father of a Mexican family down the alley came home to his six kids. They discharged the soldiers according to their ages and number of children and my father only had the two sons. It was about 5:00 pm when my father came home as a total surprise. We had no warning because we did not have a phone or anything like that. I was sitting at the dinner table in my father's chair when I saw a head passing by the kitchen window and knew it must be my father. I jumped up from the table and ran to the front door. Just as I got to the door, my father knocked on his own door. I opened the door and looked up at him with tears in my eyes. He reached down and grabbed me just as I blurted out the words that I will remember for the rest of my life, "I guess you know I am in kindergarten now." I was so proud of being in kindergarten that I had to share it with my father.
My mother was just getting up from the table when my father rushed across the room and grabbed her with both arms and gave her a big kiss. At that point my younger brother who was still sitting at the table began to cry. He did not know what to make of the situation seeing a man that he did not know grab his mother and kiss her.
Once things settled down, my father turned to his bag and took out a small hand made wooden box that contained a real pearl neckless that he put around my mother's neck. I still have that box and most of the pearls. It also contain some small bars of chocolate that my brother and I started to eat. It also now contains my first baby shoes too. The next day we all went together to visit friends and family to welcome my father home while I listened to stories of the war. My father was in the Navy Seabees and was stationed most of the time in the Philippines. My father had a few pictures that were soon stuck in our family photo album.
After that first week of visiting, my father spoke very little about his experience in the war like I know many others have also done. Life changed so much after that day for my family, most good, but some very bad. My father had one more son and after a very poor start, we all ended up millionaires, far away from that starting point. This is how I remember Memorial Day and to share it makes it an even more special day.
