I give to you a true story in eleventy-one words...
After bologna sandwiches, I’d retrieve the cribbage board, a
not so subtle hint to my grandfather. We’d start in silence. A couple hands.
Until the conversation began.
One day, I asked where he learned cribbage.
In the Pacific; on the carrier USS Antietam. A catapult
operator; he helped launch the aircraft. He’d never seen action; they’d arrived
too late. Traveled to Guam, Okinawa, Shanghai; on ‘occupation support duty.’ His
captain was Japanese American; they’d have been in Tokyo Harbor for V-J Day were
it not for a malfunction. There were no clouds at sea; just blue sea and sky.
He was my last personal link to the Greatest Generation.
Goodbye Grandpa.
