Thinking of Dad

Well, I guess I’m finally that cranky old Slow Poke: the one who does 25 in a 35—the one who rolls up his driver’s window, when you pull alongside with your rock-n-roll blaring. The one who always signals the same direction whether turning right or left. The one who keeps the kid’s ball when it flies in his front yard attacking the roses--he talks to them, and God alone can decipher their colorful language. But the one who also limps from an old war injury, the reason why we are not all speaking German, and high stepping in Bone-crushing boots. No Rockettes do I speak of. No smiles from that merciless Chorus Line. He was also the generation who dropped the bomb--the big one-- and had lived 50 years with that fateful decision. “It was the right thing to do… them or us” repeated through the decades of nightmares. War is something most young people only write songs about—protest against... smoke a joint and have a beer afterwards…. While brave young men and women leave limbs on the battlefield to protect the right for so many to be thankless fools….