September 25, 2003
Dear Everyone:
Greetings from
Now the guy who spent millions of dollars of his own money to pay for “volunteers” to get signatures on the petition to recall the governor is urging voters to vote against the Recall. Well, not exactly. What he is now saying is, if you can’t bring yourself to vote for a Republican, vote No on the Recall. So much for “It’s not about politics.”
And if you missed last night’s televised debate, well you didn’t really miss that much. It was sort of like a cross between one of those “reality” shows, minus the bad language, and a kind of verbal food fight, minus the meringue. Nobody “won” and nobody “lost”. Not even the voters, who may have gotten at least an idea of what the candidates might do if one got elected, and then lost their temper.
In other news…
Way back when Mother was getting ready to move from a three-bedroom house, with a large garage, into a one-bedroom apartment, with a small storage area upstairs, she boxed up all of the things that Grandpa had left and placed them in a sea chest. In time, the sea chest (along with the antique phone booth) was shipped to “Jeannie”, who had said she would deliver Grandpa’s things to the Antioch Post of the American Legion.
Time flies…
Last weekend, “Jeannie” and I finally made a path through her garage to the sea chest and went through the contents. Some things turned out not to be Grandpa’s at all. But most were mementoes from his days with the American Legion. All 43 years of them. These we moved into a cardboard box and put in the trunk of my car.
Once home, I went through the stuff, making a list:
A framed photograph of the Antioch Baseball Team… from 1921
Two woolen Legion hats, both resplendent in
embroidery, pins and badges, and the scent of many, many mothballs
Various membership cards, dating from 1958 to 1974,
presumably his last year with the Legion
A plaque commemorating Grandpa’s 43 years with the
Legion
A certificate of honor, apparently from around the same time, signed by then President Richard Nixon
(The last one might actually have some intrinsic value. I wonder how much Nixon’s signature is worth on the historical autograph market?)
Lots of other things as well, photographs of Grandpa and others. And there was an ancient piece of typing paper, single-spaced, with typing on both sides. It was originally found in Grandpa’s last wallet, and had been folded, unfolded and refolded hundreds of times. Each single line was the setup, or punch line, of one of Grandpa’s famous “dirty” jokes.
With the “catalog” in hand, I logged onto
AOL and
did a keyword search on American Legion.
Got hundreds, if not thousands, of hits.
But it was relatively easy to drill down until I reached
I sent the commander an email, explaining who I was, and who William Byron “Pud” Noia was, and asking if they would like any of Grandpa’s things. At best, I really expected a polite “Thanks, but no thanks. We’re more interested in attracting new members than remembering former members who are long gone.” It was more of a courtesy to contact the Legion than anything else.
To my surprise, I received a very gracious, and enthusiastic reply from the commander. She wrote (yes, “she”) that they would be very happy to accept any and all donations we wished to make. It seems they have very few mementoes around because past commanders had taken them when they left.
Come to think of it:
Duh! Where do you
suppose Grandpa got all of his in the first place?
So, either this weekend or next, I’ll pack the stuff into my car
and drive up to
And Grandpa’s things will be back with the Legion where they really belong.
Love, as always,
Pete
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