Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 16:51:33 -0700
From: Michael Chase <goya-AT-uvic.ca>
Subject: Re: PLC: 4th of July


At 10:28 PM -0000 on 7/6/98, T. Q. Alexander wrote:

> I live in the city of Long Beach, California....

M.C.: Thanks for a very beautiful post, Thad. I too was brought up by my
grandparents, and my grandfather was also a mechanically-inclined,
gadget-loving veteran. I'm not ashamed to say my eyes were plenty moist by
the time I finished your poetic invocation; congrats.!

	Best, Mike.



 Where I am liveing now is at the
> house of my late grandparents in a nice residential area just two blocks down
> from the California State University of Long Beach, where I will be
> transferring to next semester to find and build my future. My grandfather
> fought in W.W.II along with his son-inlaw, my father, who both went Navy. My
> father's brother enlisted at the same time, but he found his interest
>with the
> Army. All three engaged in combat; faced death and dying, loss and hate, and
> all three made it back from the war with medals, stories, and some memories
> they never could relieve themselves of. All three bought homes on the G.I.
> bill. Unfortunately, my parents had to sell our G. I. house a long time back.
> As well, my father, many years ago had passed away; lost were his medals,
> photos and his memoirs of combat, to his second and malicious wife --- a
> Grimm's tale stepmother. Some time ago, perhaps 3 years ago, my uncle and his
> wife --- a war bride that he married and brought home from Japan after the
> surrender --- sold their G.I. home. Now, their living out their remaining
> years, mobile, in an R.V. that contains everything they could possibly need,
> and have now, permanently included themselves, along with their other
>migratory
> friends, to roll under the pennant of the "Good Sam" tribe.
>
> And now, here I am, like a sentinal to an old monument which stands as a
>silent
> tale to a historical event that has long been forgotten. I remain in the last
> home of our families that was purchased through the G.I. Bill. No bank
>owns it
> --- nor will they ever --- and the yearly taxes are met diligently --- so the
> government cannot have it back.
>
> Long Beach is part of Los Angeles County. This years celebration was as
>mild as
> I can remember. Don't get me wrong, our local neighborhoods were out in full
> patriotism, flying ol' Glory and the smell of Bar-B-Qs and sounds of laughter
> resonated throughout --- well enough. Community events Nation wide where in
> full glory, and fireworks lit up the night sky and thundered to the applause
> and awes of a Nation full of spectators. It just felt different this year;
> lacking perhaps a little historical acknowledgment.
>
> This year I bought a new flag to hang on the house outside on the porch
>awning.
> It's colors where bright and bold as I pulled it out of it's plastic and
> cardboard packaging, clean and new with it's unfrayed halyard and
>shinny-white
> enamled pole. It replases the old one I was using, that I found in the garage
> when I first moved here. That garage still smells like I remembered
>grandfather
> when I was a small child, with all his tools and oils and cutting fluids for
> the projects he brought home from the Long Beach Naval base where he was
> employed, and retired from as a welder, after the war. Of all his
>possessions,
> I inherited those which I most associated him with; this little shop in the
> garage with the tools and work benches and small scrapes of ideas and small
> inventions that he was not allowed to find the time to complete. The
>dusty jars
> and assorted bins of nuts and bolts, nails and pipe fittings still remain on
> their shelves, or hanging from over head, or remain to be sorted from
> mis-matched sizes and tempers within the old coffee cans on the floor ---
>and I
> looked at the old flag I was to replace. I unfurled it in all it's thread
>bare
> and dirt stained greatness and inhaled the fragrance of it's history. It's
> smell, from being stored in the garage, brought back my childhood and those
> fond memories of my visits to this house of my grand parents. I smelt my
> grandfather tinkering in his garage. I smelt my grandmother and the fresh
>clean
> sheets hanging on the line under the sun in the garden. I found the cool
>summer
> evenings with the smell of the sprinkler on the freshly cut grass, and the
> roses and jasmine in full bloom. The smell of the morning coffee from an old
> percolator of grandmothers. The sound of her stirring her coffee in a
>china cup
> that she held in her hand, distant in it's saucer, as she contemplated the
> daily choirs, around the house that they so proudly owned from her husbands
> enlistment, and I found myself, opening the front door to hang out an old and
> stained flag that still flew as proud as any on the breeze of a July
>afternoon.
>
>
> Me
> --
> Thad Q. Alexander
> (rattler-AT-thegrid.net)
> OCC Undergraduate
> Long Beach, CA.
> USA
> ---
> CHAUCER-AT-listserv.uic.edu
> Phillitcrit-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Phil-lit-AT-Was found ethically unfit for my presence:11\3\97
> SHAKSPER-AT-ws.bowiestate.edu
> Great Books of Western Civilization
> ---
> The good parts of a book may be only something a writer
> is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck
> of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.
>     ----Ernest Hemingway
>
>
>
>
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	Michael Chase
	(goya-AT-uvic.ca)
	Dept. of Greek and Roman Studies
	University of Victoria
	Victoria, B.C., Canada

	As of Aug. 15, 1998:

	Michael Chase
	(chase-AT-callimac.vjf.cnrs.fr)
	C.N.R.S.
	U. P. R. 76
 	B=E2timent C
	7, rue Guy Mocquet, B. P. no 8, 94801 Villejuif CEDEX
  	FRANCE




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