Veteran's Day

I won't bother to post about how proud I am to have been part of a military family that served during WWII and Korea (my father, uncle, and aunt) and Vietnam (my brother). I've done all of that before on this blog. I'll simply say that they were in my heart today.

People who aren't part of the military life probably don't "get it". My father was a college graduate, thanks to his football scholarship--the only one in his family of nine siblings to even graduate from high school. He married my mother and became a teacher and coach. Then, on the day of his first child's birth, Pearl Harbor happened. Thereafter, he took a commission in the Navy Reserve, and my childhood was set in stone by the government. It was a tough life...something I never really understood because my mother made sure we didn't suffer from instability or lack of love. Our constant moving had to have been hard on her. I didn't know until many years later how hard it was on me. I had a happy childhood. Still, my father went to work in a uniform. I was always so proud of that. I loved it that sailors on the streets of San Francisco would cross the street just so they wouldn't have to pause and salute as we passed by. Wow! People saluted my dad!! We were so steeped in military tradition and protocol that others didn't get that I felt special. My blood runs red, white, and blue.

Today, I posed as a Doughnut Girl for The Salvation Army at a luncheon to honor Duke Energy's veterans. Grandma Judy (my grandchildren's other grandma) and I showed up in WWI costumes. The Doughnut Girls were "lassies" that were sent to France in 1917 to boost the morale of American soldiers who had endured 35 days of continuous rain in the trenches. It was an honor. The strangest thing for me was that the "man of the hour" was someone I had just met in worship on Sunday--an 83-year-old man who was a 3-year prisoner of war in Germany during WWII...who had entered my otherwise empty pew to worship next to me last Sunday! It was a nice day.

After I got home, I went out to work on the leaves in the yard, but only managed to get three sheet-loads of leaves to the curb. I need help. I just don't have the desire! There are three young men moving into a rental home two doors down. Maybe they will help?? We'll see!

On Oprah today, Marie Osmond spent most of the interview weeping about her son who committed suicide last winter. It was an emotional interview, which I understood...but then, in tribute to him at the end of the show, she sang "Pie Jesu" from "Requiem." OMG! She sang in a pure, classical operatic voice. I had goose-bumps and tears! That doesn't happen often with me. It was a moment of humble joy! Hope you heard it!