No Matter What

I sniffed the little bundle of blankets and sheets gingerly, wondering what it could be. A tiny fist appeared, and whacked me on the nose. "No, Anna, no! That's Kitty, she's a baby just like you!" the mother said, patting me on the head. I realized that this Anna was a baby human, just like I was a baby cat, and I wanted to be this baby human's friend. My rough, sandpaper tongue licked little Anna's cheek, and the small girl let out a happy gurgle. The mother laughed, "I think this is going to be a wonderful friendship!"

And it was. I slept with baby Anna at night, cuddling up with her whenever she cried. She couldn't talk yet, but we communicated in our own way, . . .

«I hope you've enjoyed this snippet of the story. As I'm not the copyright holder, that's all I'm going to show you, under fair use provisions of copyright law. To read the rest of the story, google {"I sniffed the little bundle of blankets and sheets gingerly, wondering what it could be."} and read it at one of the sites that turns up.»

Visit Anna's website and join the fun.

Say Farewell to the Giants of the 20th Century

Ed's Goodbye to Cliff

Cliff Roberts was my grandfather, not by birth, but in the way that really counts--he was there for me. My grandfather was part of that generation which learned the facts of life in the hard school of the Great Depression, and which grew up fast in the Second World War. His generation, and he himself, was there for all of us.

You should pause, and pray, and shed a tear my friends, because the giants of this century are passing from the earth. For fifty years, Cliff Roberts and his generation have been there for all of us. They stood "between their loved homes and Wild War's desolation." They built the United States you see today--it was Cliff Roberts, and millions like him, who made the roads, laid the pipe, and strung the wire, who poured the steel and brought forth the skyscrapers. These are the people who got men to the moon. For fifty years, these men and women have been the motor that propelled this nation to greatness. Today, we still look to them for leadership, but they are passing from the earth. We ought to weep for their departure. We are much poorer for their passing.

Cliff Roberts was a giant. He was in the U. S. Army, an infantryman from April of 1939 to August of 1945. He served in the Asian-Pacific theatre, and was a staff sergeant when he was discharged from Camp Maxey, Texas, where he was an infantry advanced training instructor. He worked for thirty years to help make the world we know and retired from the Tulsa Electric Company. My grandfather was a giant to a boy of fourteen. I watched him lift a Coca Cola vending maching out of a car's trunk by himself. That machine sits in my house today, and I've never moved it alone. I got to know my grandfather from that instance, from our visits to western and gun museums, going to see the Will Rogers Memorial, and from breakfast talks over eggs, biscuits, and coffee. We talked some about sports, some about the Army, and mostly about life and the things he'd seen and done.

My grandfather was a simple man--even now as I think of him telling some Army story, I see him with Willy and Joe. Yet, if he was simple, talked a little slow--he was also sly and wise, and truly one of God's gentle men. There was always a twinkle in grandpa's eyes as he told his stories. Not every old soldier gets his very own West Point shavetail to buffalo; and besides, the "truth" isn't what's important about a war story.

Knowing Cliff Roberts, and some other fellows like him, helped me choose the kind of man I wanted to be, and among whom I want to be counted. Grandfathers are great--they can bring the past to life, and mine was a window into the world before jet planes, interstates, and shopping malls. How privileged was his vantage point in history, to see so much of this world he helped make come into being. And how sad to see so much of what was good about the old days disappear. He filled in the details of what life used to be like, and those details make rich the books and films, they add color to the record of the past better than any computer trick of colorization. My grandfather helped me to see the present through wiser eyes than my own years could allow.

I'm here today to give my last respects to my grandfather, but I'm also here as a soldier, a representative of the men and women who are today the United States Army. I am here as an infantryman--the same as he was. I'm here as an officer to help this nation give its respects and many thanks to this soldier who served in peace and war, and to this man whose hard work over thirty years helped make this country great.

My grandfather made his finest contribution in the years after his retirement: as "poppy," grandfather to Carl, Cheryl, Diane, and me. Death comes, in its time, to each of us, but what counts is how we live our lives against that day. Cliff Roberts knew this.

For myself, for all of us, for the United States and for its Army, I can say, "Well done, be thou at peace."

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My son wrote this eulogy on the ride from Tulsa to Sallisaw for his grandfather's graveside service. Except that the names have been changed, not one other word has ever been altered, this being a first draft transcribed from his handwritten text. I couldn't write such a eulogy given a year.

To attend Cliff's funeral Ed and Mary had driven to Tulsa from Killeen, TX (Ft. Hood). We met in a motel on the Skelly Bypass just long enough for Mary to change clothes, then we drove to Sallisaw for the graveside service and burial.

Ed managed to get enough time off to fly home, then pack up his family and drive to Tulsa to visit late Friday night and most of Saturday before returning to base Sunday. While he was here, our friends Anne and Charlie (First Assembly of God minister & wife -- she's my wife's lifelong best friend) also came to visit. I asked Charlie to send me a copy of the eulogy Ed had written for my father-in-law Cliff's funeral. My copy is packed in storage, but I knew Charlie had one--Charlie says he's used it several times over the years when WWII veterans have died.

My wife had a heart attack August 17 (2003); that's why she was in St. Francis Hospital. Yes, she had been very ill last fall and earlier this year--she's been ill for almost five years. She got out of the hospital on the 21st after having angioplasty performed on her left major heart artery. Took her back in on the 24th with congestive heart failure, and they installed a second stent on her right major artery. She came home the 28th and seems to be doing a bit better now. Further angioplasty may still be required on other arteries, but her doctors want to see how these first ones go. Thank goodness the Cipher stent was approved for use by the FDA in May of this year. Otherwise, she would have required open heart surgery. The difference between angioplasty and open heart surgery is the difference between a beebee and a basketball.

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There's no special grace in being smart.™

Except as noted, Copyright 1976 - 2010 Machiavellean™
Machiavellean™ Erle W Machiavellean. . . & Company

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"I'm sorry, he can write. I can do punctuation marks." Me to my wife when she asked what I was doing. Note: Turns out I can't even do punctuation marks. Trying to convert all the double hyphens to em dashes just didn't work. Nor will typographer's trademark and copyright symbols.

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Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Samuel Johnson. Some via Boswell's biography of Johnson.
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