Thinking of My Grandpa Spence and Honoring All Who Serve To Protect The Privileges We Have

There are many regrets one has when aging, and some of them are simply natural, because youth is wasted on the young. I would love to have had the opportunity to discuss with my grandpa Spence his experiences in the Navy during WWII and to get as many as his stories as I could. I learned with Alice in Kentucky that too few take the time to record the stories of the greatest generation ever to grace the American soil. I want to piece more of his story into the narrative of the U.S. as I know it, but it is unlikely it will ever occur. it is too late.

Last spring, Chitunga, my mother and I went to the gravesite where my grandfather and his bride, Ann Lysak, are buried. Mom always says, "It never feels like they are here," and I have to agree. But it's where their core memories reside - at least in the general feel of the towns near Lebanon Reservoir and Hamilton.

I sometimes wonder what my Grandparent's generation would think about everything going on right now. I wonder if the pace of everything would overwhelm them and if they would be horrified or mesmerized by the technology (after all, my grandma was impressed by Nintendo and my grandfather by a miniature piano synthesizer). They only knew rotary dials on their phones - no wireless, no cordless, no answering machines - that all came after they left.

Ah, but today is a day for respecting the generations before us. I am thinking of all who have served and made the U.S. possible - even with the whacky, crazy, and out-of-control shenanigans of current administrations. I hope to think that the men and women of yesteryear fought for the true definition of democracy and freedom and not the way some are defining it for us no.

Happy Memorial Day. So many lives...all for what we have today. So much respect for my nephew, Dylan, who heads to bootcamp this July.