by R.F. Fuddy Daddy
Bulletin Board
St. Paul Pioneer Press (7/22/2015)
////////// ~~~~~ //////////
////////// ~~~~~ //////////
I grew up in a small town in western Wisconsin in the 1940s and 1950s. For our baseball games, we needed almost every kid in town.
One of them was Eddie. Eddie was tall, very thin and had poor eyesight. He couldn't run or jump because he had what seemed to be a frozen spine. Nothing went his way. The song lyrics 'If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all' fit Eddie to a T.
In his teens, he got into a lot of fights. We nicknamed him The Donator because he lost blood as well as fights.
Even when he bought a car, things went wrong. To celebrate his purchase, he bought a 16-gallon keg of beer and put it in the back seat. He and a couple of his friends then drove around the area all afternoon and part of the evening. After dark, they decided to tap the keg, which was still in the back seat. The result was about 14 gallons of foam, which filled the car. After they 'defoamed' the car, they drove around again, got into an accident and totaled the vehicle. He had forgotten to insure the car, so he ended the day with no beer and no car.
About this time, the Vietnam war was heating up, and Eddie was drafted. We could never figure out how he passed the physical. He was 6-foot-3, 125 pounds, no muscle, couldn't run or jump and was half-blind.
I still remember the day my brother called me and said Eddie was being sent to Vietnam. I also remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
My brother and I went to D.C. to see him some years ago.
He's on the wall at the Vietnam Memorial, along with about 58,000 other young men killed in another useless war.
=======================
One of them was Eddie. Eddie was tall, very thin and had poor eyesight. He couldn't run or jump because he had what seemed to be a frozen spine. Nothing went his way. The song lyrics 'If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all' fit Eddie to a T.
In his teens, he got into a lot of fights. We nicknamed him The Donator because he lost blood as well as fights.
Even when he bought a car, things went wrong. To celebrate his purchase, he bought a 16-gallon keg of beer and put it in the back seat. He and a couple of his friends then drove around the area all afternoon and part of the evening. After dark, they decided to tap the keg, which was still in the back seat. The result was about 14 gallons of foam, which filled the car. After they 'defoamed' the car, they drove around again, got into an accident and totaled the vehicle. He had forgotten to insure the car, so he ended the day with no beer and no car.
About this time, the Vietnam war was heating up, and Eddie was drafted. We could never figure out how he passed the physical. He was 6-foot-3, 125 pounds, no muscle, couldn't run or jump and was half-blind.
I still remember the day my brother called me and said Eddie was being sent to Vietnam. I also remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
My brother and I went to D.C. to see him some years ago.
He's on the wall at the Vietnam Memorial, along with about 58,000 other young men killed in another useless war.
=======================
///////////////////////////////////////////////
No comments:
Post a Comment