ICY HOT SENIOR MOMENT

ICY HOT DEODORANT, Jamestown, NC

As I completed yet another trip around the sun recently, I’ve observed that the years, body aches and Senior moments keep moving faster than the end of a toilet paper roll. As I was mindlessly going through my post shower routine yesterday while listening to a compelling report on NPR radio, I reached for the deodorant stick and applied a quick swipe of Icy Hot analgesic to my left arm pit! I quickly grabbed a wash cloth to mitigate the immediate reaction but the dye was cast. The good news is that my arm pit has been pain free for the past 24 hours and I may do a TV testimonial!

GO-GETTERS

 

GO GETTERS, High Point, NC

As I was creeping along this morning in the never-ending Starbucks drive-thru, treating myself for a good workout at the gym, I passed this Jimmy John’s Go-Getters Hiring sign.  I amazed myself as my senior brain reached deep within its depths to retrieve an old fifty-year memory.  I was a young Industrial Engineer making one of my first visits to a remote production plant deep within the country.

I had just observed a news report on one of the Fitness Center televisions that there are now ten million job openings in this country that have gone wanting, as many folks are content to still rely on government handouts.  Paying people not to work is just fine until you run out of the working folks’ money and/or you need to stop printing money that devalues what’s already in circulation.

I remembered arriving from Kansas City at quitting time and was amazed at the line of cars that was picking up the mostly female workers.  It was reminiscent of the vehicle lines that gather at the end of a school day.  I incredulously asked the manager what was going on?  He matter-of-factly said “Why, all of these guys are Go-Getters.”  He could see that I didn’t get it, so he explained it in simple terms for me.  “Well, you see, right now most of these guys have probably spent a good part of their day deer hunting.  And they drop off their women at the beginning of the shift and then “go get ‘er” in the afternoon!” 

I don’t think these are the kind of Go-Getters that Jimmy John’s has in mind unless they’re in the drive-thru getting a sandwich.

EARN THIS. EARN IT!

 

Captain Miller and Private Ryan

Observations on Veteran’s Day 2021

Veterans Day was established on November 11 to recognize all veterans who honorably served in the U.S. military.  It acknowledges the armistice ending WWI which took effect on 11-11-1918 at 11:00 am.  Ed Rees. a congressman from Emporia, Kansas and a contemporary of my grandfather Ed Davis from Emporia, introduced a bill to make the date a federal holiday.  It was signed into law in 1954 by another Kansas native, President Eisenhower.

My great uncle returned home to Kansas suffering the ill effects of the trench gas of WWI and two uncles never recovered from the horrors of war suffered in the Pacific campaign of WWII, leaving my grandparents with the distinction of being Gold Star parents.

I graduated college and immediately began working as an Industrial Engineer at a Hercules solid rocket propellant plant at the outset of the Vietnam War.  My draft papers arrived as the war was winding down and were subsequently cancelled, so I was never exposed to war combat.  Just returning to the D-Day invasion and the fateful battle of Ramelle at the end of the renowned film, Saving Private Ryan, on the cusp of another Veterans Day remembrance was enough of an emotional roller coaster that I cannot imagine what any veteran experienced in actual combat.

The greatest generation that lived through the Great Depression and won WWII is now all but gone.  I witnessed a deplaning honor flight in Washington DC years ago and it was very emotional.  Many were just then beginning to tell their story.  And it would be a great travesty to forget their immense sacrifice.  Every generation has their own unique challenges and one of ours is to constantly remind ourselves that freedom is but one generation away from being lost.  And freedom is not free.

Captain Miller and his band of brothers we sent on a mission after D-Day to locate and bring back Private James Ryan, whose three brothers had all been killed in action.  He had been ordered to return to his mother’s side on an Iowa farm as her only surviving son.  The film opens with an elderly Private Ryan visiting the Normandy Cemetery at the cross of Captain Miller who saved Ryan’s life but lost his.  Captain Miller’s dying words to Ryan were “James.  Earn this.  Earn it.”  The gut-wrenching response at the grave site as his family stood aside was “I’ve tried to live my life the best that I could.  I hope it was enough.”  The film switches back to this scene at the end when Ryan’s wife approaches and he implores her “Tell me I’m a good man.”  His wife replies, “You are.”

Small acts of decency in the hellish horrors of combat can be the only saving grace of humanity.  On the 11/11/2021 observation of Veteran’s Day, may we all understand the sacrifice that has carried us to this day. 

And vow to “Earn This.  Earn It!” 

OPENING SCENE:

https://youtu.be/0HUf68gFGEE

ENDING SCENE:

https://youtu.be/IZgoufN99n8