Memorial Day, 2013

We got a call late Friday afternoon from our daughter Michelle asking if we would like to babysit while she and her husband Robert went to a movie.  It would have taken more force than I could muster to stop Sheila from this opportunity to spend a whole evening with our only grandchild, Little Ben Bob.

We stopped for dinner on the way at a place that we hadn't eaten at in quite a while.  Viet Huong on 21st Street near Memorial is one of those little treasures that every city has and often only the locals (and sometimes the locals of a particular ethnic community)  know about. Billy the owner is my age or perhaps a little older.  He was a professional military man before making the perilous trek to America after the fall.  Amazingly, his wife remembered us and our order as soon as she saw us even though we hadn't been in in over a year.  Their strikingly attractive daughter Marie glided around the room in a pair of very short white shorts and a breezy summer top stopping men's hearts on every pass.

I always have the Bun Ga Nuong.  It is a bowl filled with salad, cold rice noodles and grilled chicken.  It is served with warm spring rolls on the top. Nuoc Cham, a clear sauce made by pressing fish between plates of steel in the sun and collecting the liquid that drips out is served on the side.  As disgusting as that sounds to a westerner, the flavor is mild and not unlike a very high quality light soy sauce of the type that we never see in the U.S.  You mix that sauce with ground chilis to taste and use it as a salad dressing over everything.  It is a fabulous light summer meal and no one does it better than the folks at Viet Huong.

When we arrived at our daughter's house, we found Little Ben Bob in a great mood.  He was all smiles and giggles all evening.  My son in law is an engineer who enjoys his technology.  Their television system is fed by a state of the art media server with a larger hard drive than I used to sell to run national companies.  I don't even try to to figure it out.  It's not worth the learning curve.  But, I did manage to find his stash of recorded movies on the server hard drive.  Sheila literally danced much of the evening away with Little Ben Bob in her arms was we watched an uncut
version of the Blues Brothers.  It was funny, touching little scene.  I was in awe, wondering where in the world she got all of that energy at her age after working all day. Saturday, we shopped, bummed around and just enjoyed a day without an agenda.

Sunday evening, The Rat Pack met at the Queen's for dinner.  Roger Harmon smoked chicken, ribs, bologna and hot links.  He also brought home brewed beer.  Maddy Harmon brought fresh strawberries from their garden and homemade shortcake.  The Salas brought potato salad and an oriental ramen noodle salad.  We brought the beans and cornbread.   Roger's beer was unbelievable.  I broke my usual rule and had a bottle.  It was pleasantly fruity with a nice hops aftertaste.  And as usual, the alcohol content was a little higher than I am accustomed to.  Roger's meats were superb.  He gave himself an expensive Hasty Bake grill for a retirement present and has devoted much of his retirement time to learning how to brew gourmet beer and barbecue like a pro.  Roger was always well liked but now he is now a very popular man indeed with the Pack.

The Queens have a beautiful home set in a park like atmosphere.  As a matter of fact, the grounds at the rear of the house look a lot like Swan Lake.  Their place was made for evenings like this.  After dinner, Dennis's youngest son, his lovely wife and their rambunctious grandchild came by.  Their touch of youth was just the right thing to liven up a bunch of near senior citizens sitting around the deck. After dinner the men went for a walk around the lake.  They somehow wound up on the golf course that abuts the rear of their property.  After scouting the rough for a few minutes, Dennis came back with twenty bucks or more worth of high dollar golf balls filling both of his hands.

There were three veterans present at our private little Memorial Day celebration, one who had very recently served in Afghanistan. And, in the way of most veterans households, the subject never came up.  I told the only tale even close to a war story and that was about the amazing quality of life in in Latin America in the early 1970's, about two dollar filet mignon and superb Argentine vino tinto for a buck a bottle, about the lusty beauty of Cartegna before the drug wars and the charm of dusty little Caribbean ports.

I have noticed that, like my father, when I talk about my service, I usually tell McHale's Navy type tales of good times and funny incidents.  I don't talk about the loneliness, the separation, the loss of youth and innocence.  And, I certainly don't talk about the fear and the stress.  Those scars have healed.  They don't need to be revisited, especially on a pleasant summer evening with friends.  Next weekend,  I will visit my father's grave.  That will be my Memorial Day.