The Wrong Uniform

The Uniform I have a framed photo on my desk of three little boys dressed in oversized German uniforms doing a nazi salute A black, square box- camera, a picture was taken in 1946. I was eight years old. My uniform jacket reached below my knees like an over an overcoat was roomy and warm and shielded me from the cold westerly wind that blew over the flat landscape and trees stood permanently bent as elderly people are I was allowed to keep the/jacket coat and happily walked home The war (as wars go) had been a mild one; we didn’t know that millions of people had died under much suffering in the name of a “Hail Hitler.” At home, my mother refused to sew natural buttons on my coat and rejected me wearing it outside, but she didn’t mind if I wore it inside, as it was warm and we had little coal for heating when the weather was cold. The grownups make a child’s world difficult so, many things are forbidden, don’t do this, don’t do that, an endless warning against what was daring; I wore my coat till it shrunk and became a jacket and too tight around my shoulders.