Memories...

Fox news occasionally runs pictures of our service men and women who were killed in Iraq accompanied by solemn music with the words at the end "Never Forget". The images of those brave men and women, some smiling, some serious, proud in their uniforms were on my mind when I drifted back 36 years to a summer evening in Oneida. It rained earlier and the air was damp but warm. I was walking in the business section lugging the box with the Kirby vacuum looking for the address of my next demonstration. Between two businesses I found the door and went up the stairs to the second floor apartment. It didn't look like a possible sale to me because the Kirby was expensive and this didn't look like an expensive apartment. My next appointment wasn't for two hours and the boss gets mad if I didn't make the effort. I knocked on the door hoping there wouldn't be an answer. An old woman opened the door and was very glad to see me. She escorted me into their living room and along the way I couldn't help but notice there were no carpets, only tile. Why did these old people go for a demo of a Kirby with no carpets? The old woman's husband waited for us in the living room and he too was very happy to see me. I kneeled down on the floor and opened the Kirby box and started the demo. Usually it takes most of 90 minutes to do a demo but with no carpets the time was cut in half. At the end I half asked if they wanted to buy it and to my amazement they did. I filled out the paperwork and got their signatures. The old woman asked me if I wanted to see something and I said sure. I had time to kill before my next appointment, so better to spend it here than in a dinner sipping a cup of coffee. I followed her into a back room and there on the wall were pictures, medals, ribbons and other mementos of their two sons, their only children, both killed in Vietnam. I was about their age. I looked at the display, the shrine in awe with a creepy feeling coming over me. Was this the reason I was here? Was this why they were so happy to see me? Why they bought a vacuum cleaner they obviously didn't need? I was too young, too inexperienced to know the answers but I was profoundly moved. All their dreams, dreams of grandchildren and happy visits, letters, phone calls, holiday dinners were gone, replaced by this shrine. There on the wall were the framed letters, signed by President Johnson about their sons. There was the medals pinned in their velvet lined boxes. Pictures of them as little boys on their bikes. The room was stark with harsh lighting and linoleum floors. Yet it had a certain glory. Even now, 36 years later it affects me.

On Memorial Day we honor the dead but I think the living left behind should be honored too.

God Bless America