Memories of fun times
Kids say the darnedest things.
We had just moved from South America to the US and were given on-post housing. We were in Company Grade Housing; one house away was the junction of our neighborhood, Field Grade Housing, and Senior Enlisted Housing. None of the kids knew anything about the military.
One day our eldest came in and told us one of the other children had said her father was a Master Sergeant, and wanted to know if that was a high rank. I replied that he would probably say that his real rank was “soldier.” When she asked what rank I was, I told her that my rank was also “soldier. In response to further questions, I assured her that this was the highest rank of all. My children rarely saw me in uniform because almost all of my jobs had required that I wear civilian clothing.
At the end of my career, I was given a medal and afforded a friendly send-off. I wore a dress uniform to receive the medal. That same daughter asked me, “Where did you get those clothes from?” She was now sixteen, and the last time I had routinely worn a uniform she had been six.
Our youngest began Kindergarten not long after our return from South America. We had heard parents sing praises of Mrs. Anderson, one of the kindergarten teachers, and were thrilled when told to go to the elementary school to meet with her. On the way home, our daughter told us that Mrs. Anderson didn’t look at all the way she had expected. I was surprised, because we had always lived in integrated neighborhoods. I didn’t expect her skin color to make a difference. I asked our daughter why she found Mrs. Anderson unusual.
“She’s so short,” our daughter replied. I learned more about myself than about her.
Oops, I did it again.
While we were living in Germany, we visited quite a few historical sites such as museums and castles. Each offered guided tours, and if there were no English one starting soon, we’d simply join the next one. I spoke most Western European languages, and could figure out the rest. We joined one at a small museum, and I couldn’t recognize a single word. It was Polish.
In 1983 my maternal grandmother died in Arizona. We were living in Maryland, so I flew to Arizona to pick up her ashes; she wanted to be buried in Maryland. I was unable to fit the urn in my carry-on, so I put it in a suitcase. Which the airline lost. When I reported the lost luggage to the airline, they asked me what was in the suitcase. “My grandmother,” I answered. They, of course, called security. Once home, I spent more than a week avoiding my mother’s phone calls, not wanting to cause her grief about her mother’s missing ashes.
The suitcase was eventually delivered, and I confessed to my mother. She laughed. “Well, you know she always did like to travel.”
Winning a Nuclear War
A very satisfying memory was declaring nuclear war, and winning. By then my mother was a resident of an assisted living center. On her admission we had been told that if, after three years, she could no longer afford to pay her rent, her income would be accepted in exchange for her rent. My wife was her principal caretaker; I believe she was my mother’s favorite child. I know that for a variety of reasons my wife considered her to be her own mother. I went to the director as my mother approached her three-year anniversary, and told him she was destitute. He told me that the company’s owner was still contemplating whether to honor the promise or not.
I saw him again after a few days, where he told me the parent organization had decided not to honor the promise. I got the company’s most recent 10-K and 4-K, reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The rest was a piece of cake. In the period between our talks, the parent company had issued new shares of stock to the public, and a director had made a sale of his own stock. There had been no public statement of the pending decision. Actuarial tables and publicly-available data on the company’s customer demographics showed that honoring the promise would cost the corporation twice its prior five years’ Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Amortization (EBITDA). I had him.
I called the corporate headquarters, the SEC and the American Stock Exchange. By the next morning the home had extended her lease for one month, giving us time to find an appropriate alternative. The director had also left to pursue other opportunities. We found a home that appeared dilapidated on the outside, but that was the book’s cover. On the inside it had the best staff we’d ever found, and limited occupancy to two people to a room. No bells and whistles, just a trained staff that cared well for their patients.
The memory of defeating the bait and switch was good news and even better that you located a solid care home. Hard to contemplate that senior care remains an unsolved issue for most. That for profit corporations and hedge funds can get away with substandard care is awful.
those are great and meaningful memories. I was cleaning out my office last week and was flooded by memories, painful and joyful. Thanks for sharing