roseembolism (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roseembolism) wrote2011-05-30 11:41 pm
roseembolism) wrote2011-05-30 11:41 pm
A Memorial Day Drink for my Parents
My Dad was a W.W.II veteran, and my mom still is, so I'm having a drink in their honor. By all rights I should by honoring my mom with a glass of Merlot or Chardonnay (ick!), and my dad with a glass of Jack Daniels bought on sale at Right Aid, with me driving him to the store when my mother wasn't around like a conspirator in a bank hold-up. But I think a Lemon Drop will suffice.
My Dad worked for the army air force, the details are hazy. Evidently he had a health defect that kept him from active duty, so he went to Lockheed Martin, and worked as an engineer for the bombers. He had a ceremonial piston valve from a B-12 Liberator, which is huge compared to the ones from a car. I used to pretend it was a spaceship when I was a kid and reading Heinlein novels. Later, he worked as a safety engineer for NASA during the moonshots, and the aircraft companies that were the hot, glamorous tech firms of the 50s and 60s. They remembered him; in the late 90s, he testified for the defense in a toxic waste dumping class action suit. He enjoyed the attention.
My mother was not a WAVE, she was a WAM. She says it stood for "Wide Ass Marine". She joined the Marines to get away from her schizophrenic mother, and ended up in the San Francisco Presidio, doing bureaucratic stuff. She would go dancing with the gay guys she knew, and evidently was quite popular. Later she became a teacher, and as a socialist with friends who had fought and died in the Lincoln Brigade, only avoided being blacklisted by resigning due to pregnancy. Later she became a principal, a member of the Thousand Oaks planning commission, and continued to defend the school system against interfering reactionaries with a subtlety that would impress an Akido master, and that I will never match. Later she opened one of the first centers in California for testing and teaching Learning Disabled children. She currently does a lot of weaving on her looms, and travels to shows.
My point, if I have one, is the memories I have of these veterans, neither of whom fired a bullet in anger, and who's lives continued long after their war, and in one case, is still continuing. And yet they did their duty in a time of crisis, and for that I salute them, and have a drink for them.
My Dad worked for the army air force, the details are hazy. Evidently he had a health defect that kept him from active duty, so he went to Lockheed Martin, and worked as an engineer for the bombers. He had a ceremonial piston valve from a B-12 Liberator, which is huge compared to the ones from a car. I used to pretend it was a spaceship when I was a kid and reading Heinlein novels. Later, he worked as a safety engineer for NASA during the moonshots, and the aircraft companies that were the hot, glamorous tech firms of the 50s and 60s. They remembered him; in the late 90s, he testified for the defense in a toxic waste dumping class action suit. He enjoyed the attention.
My mother was not a WAVE, she was a WAM. She says it stood for "Wide Ass Marine". She joined the Marines to get away from her schizophrenic mother, and ended up in the San Francisco Presidio, doing bureaucratic stuff. She would go dancing with the gay guys she knew, and evidently was quite popular. Later she became a teacher, and as a socialist with friends who had fought and died in the Lincoln Brigade, only avoided being blacklisted by resigning due to pregnancy. Later she became a principal, a member of the Thousand Oaks planning commission, and continued to defend the school system against interfering reactionaries with a subtlety that would impress an Akido master, and that I will never match. Later she opened one of the first centers in California for testing and teaching Learning Disabled children. She currently does a lot of weaving on her looms, and travels to shows.
My point, if I have one, is the memories I have of these veterans, neither of whom fired a bullet in anger, and who's lives continued long after their war, and in one case, is still continuing. And yet they did their duty in a time of crisis, and for that I salute them, and have a drink for them.