GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE NOVEMBER 11, 2025

I hope this is the very best Tuesday you have all week! Let us start this morning by recognizing the fact that it is Veterans Day, the day we especially honor the service of all Americans who have served our nation in peace and war, living or dead. For two-hundred and fifty years they that served are legion.

We must think of the individuals as well as the aggregate, the personal sacrifices made, from taking time from civilian life to do their best and return safely. right up to those who paid with their lives, or forever bore the scars of war. Some of those scars evident to all, while many wounds are not for the eyes to see.

To my mind, willingness to serve in peace-time is as honorable as serving in times of war or conflict. When I was a school boy we observed Veterans Day by holding an assembly, preparing a program meant to honor the veterans of our community, with veterans seated on the stage.

The fact that they were there, invoked an observance that touched the heart. Students were assigned in advance to ask a veteran they knew, to come and be part of the Veterans Day to allow us to show the esteem they were held in. There would be a representative that served in Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, and the Spanish-American war.

I got to be the one who contacted our last living veteran of the Spanish American War in our area, he was Major Whaley, and it was his last time to be part of the school's observance, as he was in declining health and passed away soon after. There were a large number of Vets living and active from the other wars, and we, in our callow minds, felt as if their numbers would guarantee that they would be around forever.

But the day came, and too quickly when the last WW I survivor was gone, and as unfathomable as it seems, we are coming all too quickly upon the dreaded day when the last WW II veteran ends an era, one we thought would never end. We were raised by those vets, they were the leaders of our families, of our schools, they served in political offices.

They were business owners, and were vast in number. When I think of their former numbers it brings to mind the Carolina Parakeet and Passenger Pigeons, that were so great in number as to be beyond our ken, and all who beheld them would think that only God could make anything in such vast numbers, and only God could ever take them away.

They left us long, long ago. I wish we could speak of it all for the entire day, but life dictates that we not do that. So, I leave the topic in you hands, hearts, and minds. It seems as if the weather is more reminiscent of our youthful years when cold came early and had to be given the "bum's rush," in the end so Spring could do its part.

Many years of late, we had little cold weather, perhaps we are moving back into a vintage weather pattern. But that is another thin that remains in God's hands, the climate and our weather, only God can change it, and when some say otherwise, I see it as hubris on a gargantuan scale.

My plans for today are nil, actually I have no plan for the day, I do go tomorrow for a cardiac stress test and other heart testing, but today I plan to hibernate a good bit. Oh, by the way, the first simmon (persimmon) tree you see with fruit on it, please pick one and cut the seed open to see what our winter will be like this year.

But, if you do, be very careful because the seeds are hard to slice open, and can make you slice yourself instead. As Judy's daddy, J.W. "Pa" Walden used to say, "go make a hundred!" Thank you.

..... NUMBERS 6: 24-26, KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me