Tuesday, May 6, 2014

I got to vote today.....

I know the little sticker says, "I voted"....but I prefer to think of it as, "I got to vote today"...

While it is a "right", I also think of it as a hard won "privilege"...

After the voting booth, some errands needed to be run.

I usually drive the shopping cart when Marianne and I go to the store, and today was no different at Tractor

Supply. I was loadin' up bags of birdseed when I noticed a seasoned citizen wrestling with a 50 pounder.

"Sir, I can help you with that."

"Ya know, when you get to be 91, you kinda slow down a bit."

"Well sir, let me know when you'll be 91, 'cause you don't look a day over 75."

He kinda chuckled at my attempt at charm, and I added, "Did you serve during World War II?"

"Yes I did. In the Pacific. On Luzon and Mindanao, in the Philippines."

"Marines?"

"No, I was a surgical assistant. Sometimes my memory isn't too good."

"Well, I would imagine that there are some things you don't want to remember."

He paused. "That's right", he said. "And that's why."

He went on to tell me that he went to Hiroshima just a few weeks after our A-Bomb fell on it.

A member of our "Greatest Generation".

I shook his hand. "Thank you for your service, sir."

"Thank you."

He was soon out of my sight. But he is not out of my mind.

I GOT TO VOTE TODAY.







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