A Louisiana Summer in the Middle of New Mexico

We walked by JT on this morning’s stroll through the gardens.  He surprised me by his insistence I remember his name and the dates on his plaque.  By the time the dogs got to the wilderness to chase the dirt-rats, I had forgotten most of his name and one of the years, so I had to make a special trip back in order to pass JT’s grave again.  Using a chant, I repeated the information in a rhythm I continued to say in my head after writing it on a notepad. 

I’ve got to remember to bring a pen and paper on these walks.

After calculating the years, I comprehended that JT was 23 when he died.  He would have been 53 today, if he had lived—three years older than I. 

Bragging some, I have to say, I’m getting pretty good at navigating the Net for information on newly-found-friends, because I gleaned a decent amount of data about this young man in two hours.  (In comparison, it took six to discover Little Davie had divorced Aurelia, and she hadn’t come close to actually killing him.) 

Here’s some of what I found:  JT was born in August, a very hot month, especially in Louisiana.  I went on a vacation in February to New Orleans about eight years ago, a few months after Hurricane Katrina.  I know I couldn’t have taken a Louisiana August. 

JT died on July 1, in Arboles, Colorado, which is close to Durango.  He worked for a Farmington oil company that no longer does business.  It makes sense, though; that this young man would go into such work, living most of his life in Shreveport, which is the off-shore hub for the oil drilling industry.

In 1983 some type of misfortune occurred in a desert job site, and JT was killed.  I speculate his little family was too poor to ship his body to Louisiana, too poor for much of a funeral, too poor to spend money on a head plate with all the engraved information—since it had merely his name, the year of his birth and the year he died. 

His wife, Laura likely had to save every penny the company had given her as compensation.  She most likely took her two boys, JT junior and Little Jason, back to where the summers are hot and the air is as heavy and sweaty as a New Orleanian long-shore man while the sea blows mocking breezes with disparaging regularity. 

Not like in New Mexico where the summers swelter with drought-dry heat while dusty tannish-red sand makes the eyes crusty and painful as it flows across the highway during storms--just like Nebraska winter snow does—snake-like, hugging the ground as if it had never come from a cloud let alone seen one.

Who could blame her for leaving?—wanting to return to what she knew, to a culture she understood—to be with family—JT’s momma promising to help raise the boys, knowing what this young widow went through since she had buried JT’s daddy years ago—he had died in the middle of the Gulf, however; with a mile of water under his boots, and his hard hat smudged with grease from the chugging machinery—a popular melody which meant work and wealth.

Yes, I liked JT right off. 

He was friendly, politely bending to pat the pups one at a time before tipping his hat and calling me “Ma’am,” even though I’ll never consider myself old enough for that appellation. 

The voice I heard in a whisper was full of soft Louisiana lilting lyrics, similar to those my Grandma Jean sang on quiet summer evenings in the 1960’s.  My father annually made these northern pilgrimages, driving our vintage grey-green station wagon from Pocatello to Washington State to visit his father and step-mother.  I remember Grandma Jean’s rhythmical Southern alto during late-night conversations, my father adding a deep-bass as he leaned thick elbows on a linoleum-covered kitchen table standing in the center of a Walla Walla clapboard, two-storey house. 

In my mind’s eye, I saw JT and Grandma Jean with the same Cajun-inspired grins, accompanied by good-natured laughter which originated from the heart, not the heat.  They had the same brilliant summer sky blue eyes which beamed with tiny white-stars—you know the kind—when nearly blinding light twinkles off ripples of moving water. 

Their richly intoned voices seemed as cool as tall red glasses of iced-lemonade about to bead perspiration in the shade of a screened-in porch, like those in the front of shotgun-styled houses down where granite graves sit on top of thick Delta clay, where gators are jus’ iddy-biddy nuisances, and lacy grey-green moss drips from crooked magnolia limbs like melting ice cream running down chocolate dipped waffle cones.

I bet JT used his boys’ entire names—first, middle and last—like Grandma Jean did when I got into trouble.

“Beth Elmajean Boldman, if yer not insi’ this house in t’next ten-secon’s, Imagoin’ ta shave t’top layah ov skin frum yer backsi’so nice ‘n’ neat yew won’t be-a-siddin’dow-n fa’ a-week-ov-Sunday dinnahs!” 

I can tell you with a hand on the Bible she was a woman of her word—I felt every smack with accurate acuity.  Oh, yes, ma’am, I did!  And to this day, when someone says my middle name, on purpose or by accident, I cringe instinctively.

JT might have used such singing imagery, a similar poetic metaphor to get his kids a-running—a memorable turn of phrase which would make Jeff Foxworthy proud to be a red-neck.

My backside aches just to think about it.

 

Grandma Jean, Me (age 2.5), my brother Cameron

I look like Grandma Jean's mini-me, don't I?

 



Day 8 It goes on and on!

When it comes to divorce, one must remember there are at least two versions of the story—if not more if children are involved..  It’s that way in life and believe it or not, it's the same in death—a lesson I was definitely reminded of meeting “Little Davie,” a young man who eternally sleeps not far from his parents, “Big Davie” and “Joanie Lee.”

His unassuming name plate lies a few yards into Memory Gardens, but I don’t remember seeing his mom or dad, then again, I didn’t look around.  I was trying to remember all the information on his head plate.

After two hours on the Net, I found where “Little Davie” died—Tuba City, Arizona.   He had been a fireman’s assistant in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and had been born somewhere in the state of Washington. 

As I got a handle on his family tree, I started getting small crumbs of information, but with those tidbits came the following: “That c--- is a piece of work” and “Why are you bothering to look her sh-- up—she is nuthin’ but a fat old slut!”  This happened as I found his wife’s name on Ancestry.com –“Aurelia” {remember I never use real names—names don’t matter—it’s their stories which are interesting}.

I tried to ignore his angry rants.  I had the television on and was kind of—but not really listening to A&E’s “My Ghost Story—Caught on Tape,” so you can understand I thought I was picking up ideas from the show—which was natural.

Then came, “Don’t you listen tew anything dat man says.  He’s crazy.” 

I thought I was making up this rather dramatic and fairly entertaining argument—this he said/she said thing usually makes for good drama and to be honest I wasn't feeling in good vibes on our walk this morning, nor was I feeling like writing anything.   

As I kept searching for Little Davie’s cause of death, I heard, “Ya know she killed me--yeah, it’s true.  Why don’t you look in the Arizona’s historical prison records, because she did it—she took out a pistol and shot me for no-reason-what-so-ever.  I never laid a hand on the b----!  The fat f------ cow.  Go on, look it up, you’ll find her in the f------ prison records under K---- Murderer.”

After another hour, I was beginning to think I was going off my rocker—which I tend to do as a matter of habit.

A female tone, with a slight hint of a German accent piped in, “See, he vas lying to you.  I never killed heem, never shot heem—perhaps I shot at heem—but I made sure I missed heem by a good, long mile--the big baby.  He’s an s-o-b from way back.  But I scared heem dat day--dat’s for sure.”

“The f------ cow!  She would have killed me—she wanted to killed me!  Saying all that sh-- that I beat her, telling the f------ cops I tried to strangle her for no reason.  You heard her, didn’t you f------- good reasons!  If you had heard that German yappin' constantly for two years you would have wanted to shut the f------- b---- up too!  OK—well, I might have lunged for her throat—but for crist’s sake, who wouldn't want to?!  She was the one shooting the f------ aimed a pistol at me!”

I couldn’t hear myself think, let alone hear the television with all their yelling because that was when they started going at each other as if anyone on either side of this life's veil.  They were shouting, trying to convince the other that his or her version was the truth, but after forty years, who gives a flying fart who's story is true?  They're dead for cryin’ out loud! 

 

It goes to show that what baggage we don’t unpack or throw away in this life, goes with us in the next.

My heart went out to Little Davie; he had died in 1971 at the age of 24.  Then again, I have natural sympathies for abused women.

I started to find a lot of information about Aurelia at that moment.  Even she didn’t know exactly when she was born—somewhere in Germany in or about1948—arriving on the U.S. Ship “Homeland” from Europe not long after World War II; entering New York Harbor at the age of maybe two or three.  She came with a few members of her family, but by the time she arrived in Arizona, I couldn’t find a single name that belonged on the passenger list.  By the time she got to that desert state in 1966 I wonder if any of her relatives were alive.  It was that year she married her handsome 19-year old sailor, and she, was 18.  They chose Solano County, California—where else would one find a sailor but near San Francisco?  A year later “Davie Jr.” was born, and that’s when things really got out of control—black eyes, broken dishes, Shore Patrolmen making late-night visits so the neighbors could get some sleep—naval detectives interviewing the culprits, because both of them had violent tempers, and I’m not even sure who exactly got the shiners—it wouldn’t surprise me they both had to cover up such shameful evidence.

One or the other wised up and called the whole thing off—sometime in October of 1968.  Aurelia stayed in sunny Vallejo, California, while in Tuba, City, “Little Davie” met his demise—how—I have no idea—neither one of them would shut up long enough to tell me.

Nonetheless, Aurelia went on with her life—(wink, wink, nod, nod).  She married a man named Lou, a German American, born in Minnesota and who happened to be 42 years older than she was.  They got hitched on May 15, 1970, and I doubt very much that he was a free-spirited or drugged-out hippie.  When I saw her address in Camino Alto, I guess she wasn’t living in the slums!  Of course, she was looking out for her boy.  Oddly enough, Lou didn’t live long after their nuptials, and Aurelia buried him a week after his death on November 29, 1971.  I never found out how Lou died either. 

Because she used two or three different versions of her name, Aurelia could have married again—and I lost track of her after 1974.  I know she’s dead—I wouldn’t have found myself in the middle of yet another argument if she wasn’t. 

 

Something odd happened while I roamed between doing my laundry at my neighbor’s and looking up information about this “very loving couple.” 

 

One of my majolica plates worth about $50 fell off the wall and broke into a dozen pieces.  The 3M sticker hook that is advertised not to come off the wall stopped sticking and the plate fell—nothing really paranormal, but still…odd uh.  Eventually, I had to kick both of them out of the house with, “Please, people!  Take it outside, will ya?!”

After they left everything settled down—I wasn’t feeling agitated, and more importantly the dogs didn’t look like someone had hit them and was about to do it again.  They’re chasing each other around like they normally do.

Who do I believe—Little Davie’s or Aurelia’s version?  Neither.  Both.  Who knows?  They probably have lied about the other so much not even they know exactly what really happened.  Which is pretty ironic, don't you think?

Day 7 A Killer Headache

I suffered all day from a migraine after the dogs went for their walk this morning.  Strangely, for the half hour there I couldn't get the "feel" of the garden, even after saying good morning to T, Gary, Donny, Gracie and even Pepe--from a safe distance I might add.

Nevertheless, on the way home, I met Fondie, who died in Memphis, or should I say, "perished" as quoted in her local obit.  She was only 47, a former Marine who had seen deployment in Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom then return to became a postal worker.  I walked away from her grave three times, and three times I dragged the pups back to look at her plaque, staring at her name, drawn back for some strange reason, wondering why her name was spell so creatively, wondering if she was Black (I'm 1/4th Black as an adopted kid), wondering why I couldn't walk casually by and get home for some breakfast.

Fondie had indeed been a beautiful Black woman, from the picture posted in her obit, (I was compelled to look ay it upon returning home.  Of course, nothing in the few paragraphs announcing her local funeral revealed how she died.  At first, I wondered if it have been a car accident.  Statistics show that 40% of those dying every day do so in an automobile accident while 45% die due to some physical reason, such as a heart-attack, cancer, an infection, or a disease.  For a minute I was sure it was an accident.  But after reading her obituary a second time, a "gut" instinct said "shooting."  (Only 14%--die due to accidents at home--such as falling off a ladder, while a tiny portion of what's left of that 100%, die in a burst of quick violence--usually some woman killed by a husband or boyfriend, which is why the police always bring the guy into their interrogation rooms--because 9 times out of 10, the murdered victim is killed by someone he or she knows.    But it's an even smaller percentage which remains a mystery; because they are random, meaningless, brutal, committed by strangers--and for strange reasons. 

Who would shoot and kill such a wonderful mom, grandmother, Marine?
 
I hoped it wasn't an ex-boy friend, or worse, a random violent blast from a gun stuck out a window of a car that swerved in front of a house from which she had finished delivering a few letters and a whole lot of junk mail.  One of those moments where a member of some evil affiliation needed to slaughter some person who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, be it a child, a by-stander, or a mail-carrier, in order to "prove" his or her worthiness to belong to this " wicked social club.". That sort of death would have given anyone a horrible headache.

Fondie, could have died from a tumor.  Like Arnold said in "Kindergarten Cop" I keep hearing, "It's not a toomah!"  Which goes back to a shooting thing, which is making me so angry the pain in my head is starting to dissipate as I write this--something I wasn't going to do because of the migraine:  the irony of this situation is not lost on me. 

You don't think Fondie was trying to tell me something, do you?--trying to tell me how she died in the only way she could?  If so, I would rather not get this kind of communication again.  I didn't get anything done--slept for most of the day, and prayed God (while taking more migraine medication) would make this pain would let go of me--perhaps go and visit someone in Memphis instead.

If it was a message from a woman not that much younger than I, whose dark eyes and lovely caramel-colored skin haunted me in my dreams.  Fondie, I got the message!  But don't fret, my dear.  Karma (I'm using that term for the lack of a better one), karma works in strange and wonderful ways--what goes around, comes around.  If God doesn't mete out the proper justice in this world, oh, the blood of the innocent are even now crying out from the Earth!  His merciful bowels are filled with righteous vengeance which will come in the Great and Terrible Day of Judgment, when all secret deeds-- yours, mine, and theirs will be revealed--where blood will testify with more truth than a witness can in any court in this world. 

I'm glad I met you Fondie, but no more migraines, okay?

Day 6 Oh Donny Me Boy

Whenever I take time to visit Memorial Gardens, my day goes a bit better—except today.  This morning I met a woman I’ve been seeing for the last couple of days, visiting one of the newer resting sites—one without a stone pillow skillfully carved with names and dates and appropriate decorations.

I finished picking up some broken branches which had come down during yesterday’s wind and headed for her.  The day before I missed talking to her by a dozen feet; so I wasn’t going to make the same mistake by hesitating. 

When I boldly approached, she glanced up, grey eyes filled with grey grief which dampened tired, suddenly aging features.  She looked as if she hadn’t slept for quite a while.

I impertinently offered the sole condolence a stranger can to another—I simply asked if she would like a hug.  We embraced as if we had known each other for years.  She clung with such a profound need it took my breath away.

With a small amount of prompting she disconsolately informed me this newly-made bed composed of uneven squares of sod struggling to grow as best it could in such a desert climate belonged to her son “Donny.”  I muttered the expected reply.   She continued to answer my meddlesome questions.

Donny had been the 30 year-old father of two daughters.  He loved his mother, his children with a tender heart, but with such passion which tended rule his actions—like choosing to fall in love with an unfaithful wife who took advantage of his gentle adoration, until one night he caught her and her elicit partner in the act.  Such passionate men as Donny tend to give into impulsive actions, not thinking, not analyzing, not projecting consequences into future situations—consequences which would affect all the important people in his life—affect the true and loyal—particularly a dear mother and children.

I could almost hear him say as he gunned the car’s engine, racing from the mocking, ironically composed scene, blinded by tears of throbbing unhappiness which had habitually burned his face, “I’ll show her!”

“The police think he killed himself,” his desperate mother explained.  “They’re still investigating.”

When police officers tell family members this, they are really saying they pretty-much know what happened; it’s just a matter of how long it will take to get the report typed and sent in triplicate from the coroner’s office, stapled to another report from the investigating officer who finally intra-office mails it to the desk of one of dozens of city attorneys, who may or may not get around to tell this poor woman her son did take his own life.  Who in the hell wants to say this sort of thing to a mother who comes every day to the garden to sit next to Donny’s eternal resting place crying over the what-ifs, the if-onlys, and the might-have-beens.

The situation is a ubiquitous epic, an operatic tragic plot told for centuries.  I’ve read their out-comes in books or even felt the suicide wandered from loved one to loved one, begging them to forgive him for that one, stupid, impulsive act which was meant to solve one problem but ended up creating a hundred unintended ones.

These spirits do not rest easy in their coffin-covered beds.  They spend much of their energy going from a family member, a friend or a child, trying to explain that they never meant to hurt them—he was either so tired of the pain dying seemed to be the logical solution, or he did it to hurt someone else entirely.

This never works.  When a person does some act in the hope of cursing his adversary, he mistakenly believes she will beg forgiveness, will realize the pain and turmoil she caused and will plead for mercy from the torment her soul is wracked with.

One hundred percent of the time it is the man shaking a fist at heaven, cursing an unfaithful spouse, an unfeeling boss, or a tormenting neighbor who is the only one feeling the pain.  The opposite party is always oblivious, never realizing the ache of the situation, or (and this is worse) she knows exactly what she is doing and revels in the agony she has created as carefully as a master chef has conjured up a once in a life-time feast.

I’m sure Donny knows this—but now is too late.  Such enlightenment always comes too late.  That’s why suicide is life’s pathetic tragedy—why so many operas, plays, and novels center plots on these situations.  Why audiences come away with damp eyes, the arrogant-and-simple minded members  saying with worldly superiority—“I’d never be that foolish.  I’d have shot the b---- and that would have ended that story right there and then.”

What a piece of work is man—I mean all of us really.

 

Day 5 Mediums and the Gang-Banger

Do I believe in “psychics”?   

Yes and No.

There are some mediums on television who truly have the “gift” for “seeing” dead people.  But there are three times as many people who call themselves psychic who are no more psychic than my dog Buster--he's not, by the way.

How do you know the difference? you might ask.  Here’s a hint, if the person calling him/herself psychic asks for money—he/she is a fake!  They will also do this trick in a large group of people:  they will say something that sounds like this: “I’m picking up a name of a person with the first name that starts with an S or an M—is there anyone with relative with a name starting with an S or M?”  (Many popular names will begin with letter such as J, S, M, K or T.

That trick makes me laugh, because if the person did have this gift, he/she would walk straight up to that member of the audience and say, “Your Uncle Milo wants me to tell you….”

You get the idea.  If a person has this God-given ability, whatever he or she said would not have any ambiguity.  The information he or she told would be filled with accurate and specific facts--so many there wouldn’t be a doubt the message came from Grandma Jean or Cousin Ralph by God's gracious permission.  

That’s how I feel about mediums.   If they had a message from a dead loved-one, they wouldn’t want money—it would be like asking for money for something holy.  Is that something a “real” medium would do?  It never made sense to my way of thinking (no pun intended).

If I tell you I had a long conversation with a resident of Memory Gardens, you can believe it or move to the next blog--I don't care one way or the other.  I don’t claim to have a “gift” like those “real” mediums (a lot of the time I don’t think even “real” psychics get everything right—that’s different topic).  Since the deaths of my mother and father, I’ve gotten better at “listening” to these still, small voices—that’s all I’m admitting. 

I have a very good friend who is a “true” psychic.  Another way of knowing a “real” one from a “fake” one is:  real ones hate to admit to anyone they have this ability for fear of being laughed at or called ugly names.  Going back to my friend—she says my power of discerning the dead is getting better because I’ve been hanging around them a lot since moving to Farmington, and living next to a cemetery is like enrolling in a college course--Communications 525  Communicating with Dead People.

Whether this is true or not, I’m not going to try to convince anyone what I generally hear and/or feel from the dead people I meet in Memory Gardens is “real.”  Go ahead, think I have a wonderful imagination (which I do, by the way), think I’m crazy (didn’t I admit I was on my very first blog entry?), or think I hold long conversations with the park’s inhabitants (sometimes even I don’t believe I heard what I heard or felt what I felt—take that to the bank).

Today I managed to distract the dogs from going from a walk this evening in order to watch tonight’s fireworks.  We did go out this morning as usual.  Again Beanie chased the ground hogs, but this time those freakin’ rodents teased him mercilessly.  One would pop a head up in a hole—Beanie sped for it as it ducked into the burrow.  Then another would poke a mocking little nose out of another hole and squeak insults at the poor little dog, who got angry and dashed for that guy, who disappeared with a rude stated comment.  I let Beanie do this for a long time before ending his humiliation.

 

What was strange about the situation was, Buster didn't want to join in, and he usually wants to do everything his brother does.

He walked straight to a particular grave and sniffed curiously.  It lay in a section of the park which was in the wilderness where most of the hole-rats reside.  Still, the up-right headstone was literally fifteen feet away from its nearest neighbor—maybe his relatives wanted him to stay clear of the other residents or perhaps it was because the location stayed shady in this New Mexican desert until late in the morning.  (See, I’m not psychic, hah!)

Anyway, his name was “Pepé,” and like many Latinos had three first names before a family one.  His friends and relatives had gone to a lot of effort and expense to announce the eighteen year-old's names, dates, picture, but oddly enough gang affiliation.  The oval image alone told a story you didn’t need to be a medium to read.

Knowing this didn’t stop me from starting a conversation, even though there wasn’t a good “feeling” about this shade-quilted bed.  I started with the blunt statement, “I hope you didn’t go out in a blaze of gunfire.”

I felt him grinning, and it wasn’t like the one he wore in the picture.  There was a pride, a smugness to the gesture even dead due to nefarious activities. 

“Clearly, you didn’t learn anything from what happened to you,” I said, pulling Buster from the stone, as if Pepé’s influence would rub off on the small dog.

Here’s the strange part.  I clearly heard a voice I knew was his say, “Wanna know why I’m out here like this, b----?  ‘Cuz soonah ‘r latah, my homeboys R goin’ ta be here wid me.  So f--- off, and dunt let your f------ pero take a f------ dump near me—ever!”

Buster hadn’t pooped near that grave; he hadn’t even peed on it, which I wouldn’t have allowed, even though this hombre deserved it for speaking to me like that.  What he said wasn’t as bad as some of the things my students had thrown abusively at me, however. 

If Pepé had been alive he wouldn’t have scared me half as much as he did now he was dead.  I had kept my home address private from my violent prone students, but this gang-banger knew where I lived.  If he hadn't “chained” himself to that singular bit of ground I would have been more than concerned.  Nonetheless, he had staked out the spot, waiting patiently for his friends to show up—and I don’t mean driving their souped-up, whoopty-cars out to his grave to decorate it with gang memorabilia.

As we returned home, I felt Pepé lean against his stone head rest the way he might have done against a friend’s flaming red car, making sure I and the dogs were leaving, giving us a cheeky grin, and throwing a gang sign which silently repeated everything he had said.

I didn’t look back nor did the dogs.  It was if they had heard his every word, had seen his every gesture, and had understood exactly what he meant. 

Beanie wouldn’t come near it when I called to him to stop chasing those blasted dirt-rats. 

It was the first time I was glad to be leaving Memory Gardens.

 

The gang banger's grave is the one with the cross on the far right--see how far it is from the nearest grave on the left.

 

Day 4 One-Hellava-Dame

(For Cathy--A Nurse Gracie would instantly recognize as a sister in arms!)

This morning the dogs visited friends, so they didn’t get to go to Memory Gardens until this evening.  We went around 5:30 pm because it rained and wasn’t 93 degrees.  They did their routine, dragged me (I want to say kicking and screaming to the garden) but I’ve come to love going to the cemetery as much as they do. 

Beanie chased a hole-rat (my new name for those ground hogs who make tunnels) and was only three inches in the rear before the blasted pest disappeared down a rather large hole.  Some of their burrows have very roomy entrances.  If they aren’t careful, the dogs will be able to get more than half of their little terrier bodies inside one—which means the chances of Buster or Beanie actually catching a rodent goes up by at least two may be even three percent.

As we continued our circuit around the grounds, we met a garden employee. I’m going to call her Liz, the Event Planner.  When I have a better chance of actually sitting down and chatting with her, I’ll spend an entire blog entry on how much she impressed me.  But even though tonight’s topic isn’t on Liz, I did find out that Memory Gardens has over 7500 “live-in” residents.  There are enough stories for five or six decades-worth of blog entries, and every week I note there is at least one if not two funerals.  Each tenant has a story; some are good, some are not so good, and some are most likely boring.  I’ll try to avoid writing about those; but to date I haven’t heard a blah one or had a boring walk yet.

Earlier today, I got to thinking about another veteran I met about a week ago.  Her name is “Gracie,” and she arrived in the park in the first part of the 21^st century.  She didn’t die in combat, or a car accident or in a violent way—at least I didn’t get the impression she had.  By the dates on her granite pillow, she lived into an advanced age and at one time in her life she had been a U.S. Army Nurse during World War II.  When I noticed her service I couldn’t help thinking about the 1970-80’s television show “M.A.S.H” (short for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) starring Alan Alda.  When I Googled “MASH units,” I was disappointed to learn those didn’t come into existence until 1946, operating mainly during the Korean War—the last MASH was deactivated in February of 2006.

In my dad’s war, the one that began on an infamous day and lasted until August 9^th, 1945, I had the impression that Gracie worked in dozens of places, starting in North Africa, then traveled all over Western Europe—I’m sure she loved the travel and all the sight-seeing.  In comparison to nurses in previous wars, she worked closer to the front than any of her contemporaries realized—those facts most likely weren’t “news-worthy.”  She either worked in a “field” or “an evac (evacuation) hospital,” a woman who had volunteered, trained, and gone to war right beside the well-trained men who thought they were too tough to die but did in large numbers, while women like Gracie fought with all they had to save them from lethal projectiles, poisonous vapors, or deadly aerial missiles.  (I bet more than one politician in Washington D.C. prided himself on thinking as he signed war-time legislation, that he hadn’t allowed a single women within a hundred miles of combat.  Like Hell!)

Because of my father’s gory war-bed-time-stories, over the years I have read hundreds of fictional and non-fictional books on World War II let alone all the other historical time periods.  In those factual accounts, I learned many Army field hospitals or Red Cross units were frequently attacked by both the Germans and the Japanese.  (In the Pacific theater—as if war was a place reserved for paying spectators, hundreds of U.S. Army nurses became POW’s, ill-treated and even executed by a culture who believed that if a prisoner allowed him or herself to be captured, instead of committing ritual suicide, then he or she deserved to be treated as cruelly, as demeaning, and as humiliating as possible; and if such care turned fatal, so be it—a prisoner’s fate didn’t deserved anything close to being humane.) 

It might not have been regulation, but if the enemy attacked a field hospital overflowing with wounded and dying G.I’s, I wouldn’t doubt that one of those ballsy, strong-willed, American nurses didn’t pick up a M1 rifle in order to protect her patients—not unlike a mother grizzly defending her cubs—and everyone knows the last thing a person wants to be is between a momma bear and her offspring.  The same rule applies to a stupid German SS trooper who thought shooting up a U.S. hospital would be a lark to tell his bodies about.  That is until a madder-than-hell first lieutenant nurse hitched up her kakis, slid a round into a rifle, and carefully blew his freakin’ head off.  She then set down the smoking-hot-muzzled weapon, wiped a blond curl behind an ear, (not looking at the dead guy again), and returned to her dozens of patients in order to check pulses, IV drips, rows of stitches, and blood pressure stats on metal or rough-hewn clip boards.

American Army nurses were rare species prior to December 7^th, only about 1000 of them were stationed in a dozen places such as Virginia, Hawaii, and the Philippines.  By the end of the war, there were over 50,000—one of them was Gracie.  By 1943 there were even 160 Black nurses in the Army Nurse Corps.

All of these magnificent women saw the worse war had to offer—blood, guts, and arrogant doctors who thought they knew everything, who rarely listened to a head nurse who knew a patient’s slow pulse indicated his quickly repaired aorta had ruptured and blood was flowing into the pericardial sack like spill-water from the Hoover Dam.  If the s-o-b of a surgeon didn’t crack the poor soldier’s chest in the next minute the G.I. would be returning state-side alright—in a body bag—they didn’t always have coffins.  Sometimes they didn’t even get to be buried in the country of their birth.

These nurses didn’t work twelve-hour shifts like they do today.  No, sometimes they worked three to four days taking one minute breaks—resting long enough to swallow a cold cup of awful tasting java and take a squat in a foxhole—not really caring if some Marine private ogled her bare bottom before returning to the operating tent.

When the adversary’s bombs ignored the big red crosses on top of the tents where the rows of bandaged soldiers lay dying on cots that had seen use in 1918, these women in white surgical gowns would throw themselves over these poor men and their gaping wounds, sometimes taking the shrapnel that would have finished the G.I. off for good.  I couldn’t find the number of Army nurses who were actually wounded in this world-wide conflict, but in those four years in which they rarely if ever got home for a few days of R&R, they received 1,619 medals, citations, or commendations.  Out of those 50,000 women, 201 were gently laid in flag draped coffins.

When I read Gracie’s head plaque, I straightened my stooped shoulders, gave her a grin only another woman would understand, and saluted like my daddy had taught me when I was four years old.

“Gracie, old gal,” I said as the dogs actually stood quietly, “you must have been one-hellava-dame.  Good-goin’ girlfrield.”

As I walked away, I thought I heard her actually chuckle. 

 

No wonder I'm on Prozac!

 

One of many I call best Friends--Cathy Black

Doggy telepathy and the Veteran's Garden

It amazes me how much dogs love going on walks.  All the dogs I ever had since I started working and living on my own loved going on walks.  If I was a dog, I think I would love walking then stretching out on the couch.  When the dogs get passed a certain old age (in dog years of course) then they realize becoming a couch-potato isn’t such a bad career move. 

The little BT’s I own to date will turn two in August—that’s 14 in human years.  I’ve been around enough teenage boys to know that 14 is not old enough to understand the benefits of lounging around without any electronic entertainment devices; and if the dogs could simulate chasing cats, rodents, lizards and even each other on a Gameboy or a Play Station then the couch would hold a great deal of appeal to them.  For now, however, walks are the thing. 

Getting up at 8 am to take them on a morning constitutional is bad enough for an old woman whose bones aren’t made for walking, but without my knowledge, Beanie and Buster held a family meeting and decided that one stroll a day just wasn’t cutting it.  So yesterday, they ignored all my attempts of entertaining them from the comfort of the couch as I stared mindlessly at the t.v.  They couldn’t have cared less for the bones I offered.  They stared at the outside as if four feet of snow and a below-zero temperature greeted them.  And all throw toys had become completely blasé!  I wish you could have seen their little round, doggy faces as I tossed one toy after another—they sat there watching me, expecting me to get up and fetch them for their entertainment.  I even laughed as I actually did get up a couple of times and threw the toys, trying to use all my manipulative skills to get them tired out so I could do nothing.

Finally, they communicated, doggy-telepathically, what they wanted—take us for a walk and make sure it’s in the cemetery!

I decided we were doing to walk through the veteran section of the garden--those who were members of our country’s armed forces.  Most had seen service during World War II and Vietnam, but on this evening’s stroll I came across one man who had been a Marine, or should I say “devil-dog,” during World War I—born in 1887!  Then I met two men I’m going to call Gordy and T (not their real names of course).

Both had been Marines, Gordy a lance corporal and T a sergeant (I learned as a kid whose father had been a navy man, that you don’t salute sergeants because they work for a living—lol!).  The first died in 2010, the second in 2011.  I blanched at their ages, 20 and 23.  It is not natural for people to die so young unless you are Marines.  Still, the shock of the dates made my heart shrink and my eyes moistened.

Naturally, I assumed these fine young devil-dogs, leathernecks and sh-- eaters had given their last full measure of devotion in the terror of mortar and rifle rounds, while the enemy died wishing they never had come to see an American Marine, and of course, they would never see one again.

Growing up with a World War II veteran and listening to the edited war-stories he selectively told, I learned two very important things about men who put on uniforms for a living.  First, men in Marine and Navy blues are the best looking men God ever created, and second, when they do die in battle, they sure as shootin’ take as many of the enemy with them into that long good night as they can.

After returning home, I fired up the Internet determined to learn how Gordy and T died, where, when, and how many of the f-in' enemy accompanied them to that undiscovered country from which no man returns.  I searched for hours, quickly finding their local obituaries but unable to find their honorable names on any casualty list from Afghanistan or Iraq.  The longer I came up empty handed, the more frustrated I became, because the truth behind their deaths began to nag at me like the dogs do when they want to go outside when I don’t want to do it.

It was close to eleven at night when the detective instincts (also inherited from my dad—he was a detective for NIS—which is now called NCIS—yes, like the t.v. show) sent me back to the places which had some Intel about their deaths—the obits.  I was even more careful about reading them this time.  With each perusal, the nagging truth converted into a prolonged trumpet sound of “Taps.” 

These two, wonderful, intelligent, devoted, handsome young Marines had not died in combat—had not seen the enemy or had taken their toll which is the goal of all Marine Recon platoon members and every Navy S.E.A.L. who ever survived BUD’s.  No, they obviously died in ordinary, stupid, usually avoidable (because the guy driving the other vehicle can’t keep his freakin’ attention on the road!) traffic accidents.

Before turning off my laptop, I pulled up T’s picture.  He had a clean-shaven lean, authoritarian expression every Marine sergeant is trained to wear at times like that (the formal picture taking time), his blue dress-A uniform immaculate, his barracks cover so white it cast a gleam in the camera lens.  I bet his black dress shoes were so shiny he could have shaved using one as a mirror.

In my mind’s eye, I saw him driving down a Costa Mesa street, heading home from a late-night college class, heading home to a wife who hadn’t seen him all day—most likely in several days because he was busy bettering himself and his career.  I could see him tired but attentive as the drunk-driver turned onto the street T was driving down, in the opposite direction.

I could hear the cuss phrases all of which begin with the letter F Marines use at times when they know death is coming at them and they can’t do anything to avoid it.  I know he didn’t scream in terror as the drunk swerved into his lane.  I know he gripped the steering wheel tighter, told God to take care of his family and loved-ones he was responsible for, not even blinking when the whirling sodden inebriated vehicle slammed into his.

Being a Mormon and believing what I do about the afterlife is a comfort when thinking about such moments.  This is not the end, and when this life finishes, there is always someone on the other side of the veil to greet the new recruit in order to explain the situation and indicate where the light and tunnel are located.  I like to think a man such as my dad, who passed away in 1986, greeted T with a firm handshake and a smile.  T might have recognized him as an officer (dad had been a lieutenant commander) and even given his guide a crisp Marine salute as he listened to every detailed order then following each direction.  Yes, I like to think something like that happened even as the drunk staggered out of his crumpled, smoking car not caring to even give the lifeless body in the second totaled vehicle a glance as by-standers call 911, while distant wailing sirens sped to the scene.

I didn’t want to think the drunk most-likely got off with a few months in jail, his license revoked, and lived to drink again while such a great man like T would never get home from school.

I turned off the computer, mentally thanking T for getting up, putting on his fatigues, lacing up his boots, deploying where and when they ordered him to and do the job they paid him very little to do every day of his short Marine career.  T might have died in a needless traffic accident, but his life wasn’t tragic—it was heroic in its normalcy; heroic for doing a job that could have ended in death; heroic because I could never have done his job—not even if I was sane—not even if they paid me a million dollars to do it.

I fell asleep thanking Gordy and T, thanking them for their lives, their honor, their heroic examples as excellent devil-dogs they were.  Ooyah!
 

My Dad, Rufus W. Boldman on Deployment in 1974 Puerto Rico--a real cushy deploy, uh.