Billie Noakes

The directions were simple last year: Write a blog a day, every day in May.

I’m a writer. I thought participating in the 2011 WordCount Blogathon would be a piece of cake. A free-associative letter to friends, both new and known. A quick couple of minutes every morning and I’d be penned, proofed and posted, and on to my writing-for-hire.

Oh, no. Nothing nearly so simple. By Day 2, I was worried that I’d taken on more than my reservoir of imagination could handle. By Day 3, I was casting about frantically for anything in my life that I could write up that would NOT send people to sleep in six seconds flat.

Remembering that people LOVE it when you tell embarrassing tales on yourself, I bit the bullet. In my 57 (when the heck did THAT happen?) years, I’ve racked up an impressive store of “Embarrassing Me” memories, so I dragged them out.

There was fishicide.

There was wild miscommunication with a prospective date.

There was consternation over pest control.

Yep, I had embarrassment and then some, and I got into the habit of writing odd snippets of my life and posting them in front of complete strangers, some of whom became friends, and some whose blogs I follow to this day.

I have to admit, though–I was kinda glad when it was over, so I could sleep late and not worry about telling tales on myself for another whole year.

WHAT?! Yesterday, I got a note from Michelle saying I have to start blogging TODAY, April 1!

A whole month early! Jeez.

So I followed the links to register, I set my username and entered my blog URL (didn’t she have it from last year? oh, well…) and I started wondering WHY the event turned up a whole month  early.  Then I set the alarm so I’d get up early on April 1 and get started (and yes, it occurred to me that Michelle was playing an April Fool’s Day prank, but I let that go).

And then, through sleep-deprived eyes at 6:02 this morning, I found the TRUTH:

I’d just registered for Michelle SHAEFFER’s Ultimate Blog Challenge, April 1 – April 30, 2012.

NOT Michelle RAFTER’s 2012 WordCount Blogathon, May 1 – May 31, 2012.

A BLOG A DAY, EVERY DAY. FOR SIXTY-ONE DAYS in April and May.

Just shoot me.

I remember when I was a little girl, and my grandma and grandpa would take me downtown to see the Veterans’ Day parade.

Grandpa would wear his old, stiff Army uniform, and stand on the curb with Grandma and me ’til it was time for him to join the other veterans, young and old, all lining up to march. It made me proud to watch my Grandpa marching shoulder to shoulder with men who may not have served in his war, but nevertheless served the same ideals.

As I grew up, my family’s dinner table discussions gave me a fuller understanding of the meaning of this day, and our duty – no: our privilege – to honor those who lost their lives in her service.

Maybe that’s why I was so taken with Tommy, a boy who always stood up tall and covered his heart when our flag was carried by. He was so proud whenever a soldier glanced his way and acknowledged his earnest salute.

Tommy was what you’d call “true blue,” a boy who was always ready to stand up for the little kid on the playground, even if it meant taking on the schoolyard bully. He was a skinny kid, but he was strong enough to admit when he did something wrong and make it right. When he got older, if anybody in town needed a hand, well, Tommy’s was always the first one offered.

By the time we were in high school, I was sweet on Tommy, and we started keeping company. We were a good match and it wasn’t long before we were talking about the future, our future.

Tommy wanted to go to college and study business, then work in his dad’s hardware store. We’d get married, and have kids of our own.

But in our senior year in high school, there was a war on. I wasn’t surprised, after graduation, when Tommy put our plans on hold to join the service. His country needed him, and that’s all Tommy needed to know.

I tried not to cry as Tommy kissed me at the bus station. Tried not to worry. After all, he’d be surrounded by young men much like himself, who would protect his life like it was their own, and somehow they’d bring each other back to their sweethearts and their wives.

Well, they brought Tommy back, all right, but transport ships, airplanes, and buses can only take you so far. When I saw the look in his eyes as he stepped off that old Greyhound, I knew Tommy would never be coming all the way home. The shrapnel and the scars left Tommy disabled, but they didn’t cripple him the way his memories did.

He never talked about those memories, and I didn’t want to make things worse by forcing the issue.
I sometimes wonder, now, if I was right.

I waited for Tommy to call me, to pick up where we’d left off, but he never did. I tried calling him, but he never returned my calls. He didn’t go to college, either. He was on meds that made it hard for him to concentrate, to study, or even to have a good conversation.

He didn’t go into his dad’s hardware business. He didn’t marry me.

Instead, Tommy became part of our town’s landscape, doing odd jobs to keep busy, staying close to his folks’ home, and getting by on his disability pay.

I finally quit waiting for Tommy, and when I did, I met Jeff. He’s a good man, but he was never in the service; his dad was gone, so he went to college while he helped out at home, then started his own accounting business. Jeff and I got married after a few years, and we raised a nice family. Our kids are grown, and I love to babysit for my grandkids, now.

Tommy? He never did marry. His dad died, and Tommy lives with his mom, the two of them alone in that big old house on Main Street. Tommy stops in for a beer every couple of nights at the VFW hall. He listens to the friendly banter about drill instructors from Hell, reckless nights on leave, and the zany antics of comrades-in-arms, but he grows silent when the talk turns to battle, and he leaves his beer on the bar and goes back home.

To this day he doesn’t complain. Not about the pain, or the medications, not even about the way people stop and stare, sometimes, when he shambles by. Never about being changed forever by the war, and the things he’s seen … things he’s done … things he’s endured.

Today, it’s another Veterans’ Day, and I’m getting my grandkids ready for the downtown parade. My husband and I made sure they learned to stand tall when they meet a man or woman in uniform, and we’re helping teach them the meaning of this day, and why it’s important to remember those fallen in battle, how precious our way of life is, and how dearly it’s been bought.

The three of us hold hands as the honor guard marches past. Bella’s eyes are wide as she takes in the flags and the uniformed soldiers, and she bounces on her tippy-toes to get her first glimpse of the colorful floats. Mikey stands very still and straight, with his hand over his heart, and my mind drifts back through the years to another little boy I used to know.

My eyes wander over the crowd, and I’m surprised to see Tommy looking at me with his never-coming-home gaze. With a start, I realize it’s not Tommy. This veteran isn’t close to his age, doesn’t look a thing like him. I look around, and I see more than a dozen pairs of eyes with that million-mile stare, forgotten soldiers gazing out on the neighbors they protect, even now, by keeping their private hell inside.

I look around more carefully and suddenly I see him, standing on the other side of the street. For the time it takes the honor guard to march past him, Tommy is standing tall again, unmindful of the metal embedded in his back and the door he keeps locked tight against his memories. Then Tommy looks right at me, as though he’s always known just where to find me, and his eyes are quickly drawn to the little boy and girl clutching my hands. I know we’re both thinking of the family Tommy and I might have had, and I see him take a deep, slow breath before his eyes meet mine again.

We nod to each other across the Miss Hometown Pageant float and the Shriner’s Club mini-cars, and as Tommy turns away, I see the weight of pain and loss push his eyes, then his shoulders, back down toward the pavement.

I watch as he makes his way down the block, and I think about all of the men and women who have lost their lives in service to our country.

Just like Tommy … not all of them died.

Dad had driven down from North Florida to visit, and I pulled out all the stops making him a nice roast with browned potatoes, a really rich gravy, my gets-me-invited-places veggie casserole, a crisp Bob salad (BFF Bob makes a salad worthy of a name, so I picked his …), and a pineapple upside-down cake.

How could two people finish all that food? Ha! We couldn’t, so I invited Barry to come to dinner.

I’d met Barry years earlier, when I ran my coffeehouse. He’d come in to play guitar as part of my open mic. Nicest man you’d ever want to meet. Ran the window treatment/installation biz that his dad started back in 1950.

After the coffeehouse closed, we stayed in touch. I thought Barry and Dad would get a kick out of each other, and I knew that never-married Barry would enjoy a full-on home-cooked dinner.

Dad was on a roll that night, regaling us with stories of his misspent youth,  when he rubbed elbows with businessmen who were best known by their underworld nicknames.

He tossed in stories of his most recent crop of friends down in the Keys: Bill the Cop, Paul the Hat, Larry the Loon (I’m making that one up for my sister’s amusement …).

Barry’s a good listener, so Dad was really eating up the attention.

Fast forward about 14 hours.

I’m at work, concentrating on putting an article together on deadline.

Another friend from the coffeehouse days, Paul, works in the office next to mine. We keep our doors open in case one of the dogs in our pet-friendly office decides to come visiting.

The place is pretty quiet—four writers, all writing away at our desks.

I have “Oh, look! Bright Shiny Thing” Syndrome, and I have my desk turned away from the door so all I can see is my computer monitor and the drab, grey corner. No eye candy.

Didn’t keep my ears from working, though. I heard the phone ring on our receptionist’s desk, was vaguely aware that she’d answered it.

“Billie? Yes, she’s here.” Ah, that got my attention. I was expecting someone to call in for his interview. “Who may I say is calling?

“You want …what?” Pause.

“You want me to say that?” Pause.

“You’re sure?”

This did not bode well. God, had I offended a doctor or patient, who was now calling to say what a jerk I was? I heard the office overhead pager click on, and wondered for the life of me why Michele was going to go public with whatever this message was.

“Um … Billie. Barry the Drill is on Line One.”

Oh, Jesus. I knew Barry well enough to know that his brain parts sometimes go on vacation and forget to tell the rest of him. But this?

I could hear everybody in the building laughing as I reached toward the phone. I could hear them all shuffling in my general direction, too. Nobody except Paul knew who Barry was, but they rest of them knew a story in the making when they heard one.

I pushed the button on my phone, heard the call as it connected with my headset, and through clenched teeth pushed my words into the microphone.

“Barry. The. DRILL?” I said. “You called my office to say ‘Barry the DRILL’?” I could sense the crowd gathering at my office door. The door I’d left open in case the dogs wanted to visit. The door that was too far away from me to push it closed.

“Yeah,” said Barry, with what sounded like the world’s most self-congratulatory smile. “What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think you’ve lost your mind! Whatever possessed you to call me at work and say something like that?”

My coworkers—all of them, not just the writers, the whole damn office—were crowded into the space that belonged to my door. Hanging on my every word. Loving every minute of it.

Barry sounded puzzled that I sounded upset.

“Don’t you remember?” he asked. “Last night your Dad was telling stories about all those guys with nicknames that went with their jobs or their hobbies! Bill the Cop used to be a cop, and Paul the Hat collects hats … so I’m Barry the Drill, because when I do window installations, I’m always using my power drill. Isn’t that clever?”

By now I was massaging my temple with my left hand, thrumming my fingers on my desk with the right.

I took a deep breath.

“Barry, do you have any idea what everyone in this office is thinking right now? Any idea at all?”

He was thinking. I could hear him.

Ah! Comes the dawn!

“Oh! Oh! I’ll bet they thought … but wait! Who would think that? We’re not … you know.”

Yeah. I did know. The trick was going to be explaining where that nickname came from to my coworkers.

Diane really wanted to read this before it needed to be used, and here I am dealing her my first disappointment.

It’s my tribute to her life and our friendship.

Diane loved to know how much she meant to her friends. I’m so sorry that she won’t see this with mortal eyes, but I lean on the comfort that she always knew how completely I valued her. This postscript to her life barely does her justice.

My friendship with Diane Curtis Marcou goes back nearly 20 years, to the days when I was a stringer for the Pinellas NEWS and she was its de facto editor.

Diane had an incredibly adept red pen: she is one of only two editors I’ve ever written for who could make her changes so seamlessly that I actually had to look at my original text to figure out where she trimmed my excesses and wove the edges of my reportorial fabric back together.

I was always a little in awe of Diane, so when I called her one day after we no longer worked together, I was amazed when she sounded as excited as I about getting together for lunch.

I didn’t realize it at that time, but I was making my first steps toward seeking her out as a mentor, and I couldn’t have chosen anyone better.

Diane had a breadth and depth of life experiences that gave her an incredible advantage in dealing with difficult people and touchy situations. She had been a mediator, she embraced four or five different religions with equal enthusiasm and faith, she was an exceptional editor and writer, and she had ghost-written about five books back then (now it’s closer to 17).

Despite all these accomplishments, Diane hated to promote herself. She didn’t even have business cards, for heaven’s sake!

“I don’t want to tell people how good I am,” she used to tell me. “I want other people to tell people how good I am.”

It worked.

Although Diane was never flush, she never lacked for writing/editing gigs. She was crummy at budgeting, so she lived on the ragged edge of financial ruin throughout most of our friendship. She never wanted to compromise her own life choices for the sake of financial security. “Whatever I really need shows up whenever I really need it,” she observed more than once, and it seemed she was right.

Diane was one of the least pretentious people I ever met, but she was proud of her family’s heritage and even more proud of her daughter and grandkids—all of whom are independent thinkers with many skills to be admired.

Oh, you should have heard her talk about strong-willed Octavine (named for one of Diane’s grandmothers) who, quite by accident, drew Diane into her first political protest. Grandson Alex (about 17 now) has been running his own (profitable!) blog about the NBA since he was 9 years old! And granddaughter Veronika is already a world traveler, putting her college years to good use for herself and others.

Diane was at once humble and proud. She didn’t put a lot of stock in physical appearances, and she laughed at me once when I asked what “appropriate attire” was for a business meeting she’d invited me to attend.

“Billie,” she said. “Our clothes don’t matter. We’re writers, and most people expect us to be a little … off beat. We get to do something every day, for a living, that many people wish they could do. Revel in it!”

When we got together at Panera Bread down near Tyrone Mall for our occasional Tuesday morning breakfast gabfests, our conversations ranged far and wide, from the estate she was managing after her ex-husband died, to the magazines she wanted to publish in cyberspace, to the various writing groups she enjoyed (some she founded, some she confounded), to our Mutual Admiration Society.

She left me speechless the first time she allowed me to read her poetry: she wanted to know if it was any good, because she didn’t consider herself a poet. She wanted my opinion because I was the ringleader of a poetry troupe that included three of her favorite poets: Bob McCann, Paul Watkins, and … me.

I read her poetry and couldn’t believe that Diane was unaware of how good it was. She flew the language the way an ace fighter pilot guides his craft: with deadly precision. Was it any good. Jeez.

Nearly every time we got together, there was someone who stopped to say hello, rave (Really. They raved.) about something she’d written or a presentation she’d made, or thank her for a connection she’d helped them make to a new friend, colleague, or business.

Diane loved to help people realize their dreams, and one of her special skills was in helping people write their memoirs.

Not for her clients the stuffy, full-of-themselves recitations of days gone by. Oh, no.

Diane helped bring people’s memoirs to life, casting their experiences almost as novels—and rollicking ones, at that!

“Once Upon an Evil Time” is the story of a little boy who grew up in Hitler’s Germany, became part of the Hitler Youth, and only late in life learned what that dark time meant outside his Fatherland.

“Pitched From the Past” is a story for baseball fans of all ages.

And her most recent book, “The Smuggler’s Ghost,” written with/for Steve Lamb, tells the story of an infamous teen-aged pot smuggler who was a key member of the Steinhachee Seven, caught with the then-largest haul of marijuana ever confiscated.

The signing party at Haslam’s Books in St. Petersburg was the largest signing in the store’s history–the line of autograph-seekers snaked through the rows of bookshelves, and people waited well past the announced authors’ hours to buy the book and have it signed.

Diane also felt drawn to recognize the heroic efforts of our service men and women, first co-editing the patriotic magazine Proud Hailer, and more recently leading a writing class for the residents at Bay Pines Veterans’ Administration.

She had plans to publish a magazine featuring these heroes’ stories, and to publish other magazines telling the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.

I never thought much about the difference in our ages: Diane was born in the same year as my mom, but she seemed more like a contemporary who embraced change and wanted to try as many new experiences as possible.

It came as no surprise to me when I learned that she often dated men many years her junior, men who appreciated her youthful spark and who had dimensions to their lives that complemented the tangents her own life touched upon.

Diane was so full of life, so excited by that fullness, that it always came as a surprise when our conversations sometimes turned to our own mortality.

I commented to her, once, that when it was time for me to leave the planet, I hoped it would be with little fuss and bother. “Not me,” Diane said. “I want my friends to miss me a LOT. There should be weeping and gnashing of teeth! And my friends should go on and on about how wonderful I was!”

Don’t you worry, Diane. We will.

My town, Pinellas Park, Florida, is home to the Pinellas PepperFest, a week-end long celebration of everything peppery.

We had hot sauces of every description!

It’s not just the hot sauces, contained in smallish bottles that look … cute … with their bright labels and cartoon characterizations of smiling, steaming, smoking, and exploding peppers.

Oh, no. There’s salsa, ranging from the mild-enough-for-Norwegians stuff that I like, to the cut-through-your-tongue-and-the-Earth’s-crust varieties that Barry-sweetie and my sister Tracie enjoy.

There’s pepper jelly. Just what a kid wants after school. Peanut butter and scorched mouth sandwich, honey? Gee, thanks, Mom!

And pepper vinegar.

Catch-a-Fire had products galore.

What amazed me was pepper ice cream.

Let me wrap my mind around the idea of eating a freezing bowl of … heat. I live in Florida. Our ice cream needs to be … icy.

But you wouldn’t know it at the PepperFest. From 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday (11 to 4 on Sunday), people hot-footed it to Pinellas Park, traveling as much as three HOURS to join in this pepper party, sample the samples, and buy the bottles of peppery concoctions.

We had vendors from all edges of the state, converging with their heat-packing products on this central Pinellas County community, and they found plenty of customers for everything from larval peppers (the plants, guys; the plants) to the aged, processed, and packaged foods guaranteed to give a kick to any dish.

I took Barry-sweetie along to be my roadie as I interviewed vendors and tasters, using my digital video cam to record their comments for posterity (and my Chamber of Commerce’s website) and we ran into an old pal from our coffeehouse days.

Ah, those days. Even then, I was aware that Barry followed the fiery fruit … er … veggie.

My idea of eating on the wild side was making a meal of a stuffed green bell pepper. I’d use sweet yellow bells to flavor a salad, and chop red bells for my spaghetti sauce. Barry? He sought the ultimate heat-dealing pepper sauces to spice up everything.

So the year we discovered in each other an amorous intent, I decided to make his Christmas present something that spoke to his inner hottie: I went searching for the ultimate hot sauce to stuff in his stocking.

FOUND IT! There was a Dave’s Pepper (Palace? Place? I don’t remember) at the St. Petersburg Pier, and in the cramped confines of this spicy specialty shop I found … Dave’s Insanity Hot Sauce, a guaranteed to beat the heat of any other pepper, to sear the palate of even the most seasoned of pepper fans.

I bought two. The guy behind the counter rang up the order in shocked appreciation.

“You know,” he instructed, “you can’t use more than a drop or two for every two quarts of whatever you’re putting it in.”

Even my Norwegian palate thought he was pulling my leg, but he was insistent. “Try it after you add one drop,” he urged. “Don’t just go right for two.” Uh-huh.

I was so determined to keep Barry’s gift a surprise that I stopped on the way home to wrap it up. And it was only August! No mean feat to find Christmas wrap in August in Florida, but we have shops for just about everything. Hey: we play sports year ‘round around here; we shop for Christmas in July, too!

I took the festively garbed hot sauce home and hid it away. Almost forgot about it. Almost.

Came Christmas morning, and I was rummaging in my “everything” drawer, frantically looking for The Gift. FOUND IT! Just in time for Barry’s early-morning visit.

Oh, man, talk about a gift that hits it out of the park! Barry couldn’t believe I’d found a pepper sauce he didn’t know about. Didn’t believe me when I told him the one-drop-before-two-drops rule. Couldn’t wait to go home and whip up a batch of his pilaf.

The pilaf is another story. I tried it once. Thought my insides were going to fall out when… nevermind.

Well. He ignored my emphatic one-drop advice on purpose. All macho-pepper-user, he shook maybe six drops out of the bottle and into his gallon-sized pressure cooker. Cooked his pilaf to completion. Stirred it up and looked into its depths and saw that it was good.

Took a whiff and cleared his sinuses for six weeks.

And he still scooped out a bowlful and took a big mouthful in.

And spit a big mouthful out into his sink, reaching for the tomato juice that happened to be not there.

I think he found some lemon juice to kill the spicy heat that lingered on his taste buds for a day or two.

When he could talk without his eyes and nose leaking profusely, he called to thank me.

Let me say that again: he called to THANK me. Barry was actually impressed that I, a non-pepper-sauce kinda gal, had found one hot as hell bottle of pepper sauce. And I’d bought TWO!

My place in his heart was sealed.

Michele Northrup from Intensity Academy (Tampa), 2-time winner of the Customers' Choice Award at Pinellas PepperFest.

Flush from an exhilarating month participating in Michelle Rafter‘s 2011 WORDCOUNT Blogathon (a blog a day, every day in May), I announced on May 31 that I would begin a NEW challenge, one designed to improve my life, and the lives of those around me.

It was this:

I would make one positive change on Day One, two positive changes on Day Two, three positive — you get the idea.

WELL. I’m here to tell you that being a surly, negative curmudgeon is MUCH easier, especially if you’re getting panicky about being able to find the time to change that many things for the better, no matter how low your starting point.

SO, the first positive change (dub it PC1) I made was in favor of my mental health, and I’ve revised the parameters of this challenge (I know, it seems almost too easy).

See, I’ve just landed a new paying gig (ah! this counts as a Positive Change! PC2) that is going to take up a lot of time. I need to make sure all this positivity doesn’t get in my way.

So at the end of Day 1, with nary a positive change in sight, I came up with this: Revise the challenge to encourage (not “require”) at least 3 positive changes per week. None of this cumulative nonsense. I mean, really. Anybody can come up with 1 or 2 things to improve a day, but FIVE? TEN? If I seriously tried to do that, I wouldn’t have time to tinkle. Not good.

For those of you who like lists, my tally for the first few days looks like this:

PC1–Revise the challenge to something even I might succeed with!

PC2–Accept the paying gig.

PC3–Participate in one community event each week and take pix to post on the Chamber of Commerce website (my first event is a Pet Fair [it's a FB link] at a local apartment complex TODAY–can’t get much more positive than petting animals, large or small, looking for loving homes; and an adoption is on the boards for later in the month–I miss having a pet to cuddle).

PC4–Get the cement pond in serious shape and spend one hour/day walking as part of physical fitness goals (this one’s gonna be rough–I rarely make time for myself like this).

And yes, that means that I’ll average one Positive Change (PC) a day for my first four days. I probably can’t keep up that pace, but I’m gonna look for cool stuff to write about.

Right now, I’m off to that Pet Fair. I have my camera (video/audio capable, too!). I have some spare funds to grab a Coke and make a donation. I have sunshine (and no cloudy day). If I don’t screw up the video, you may even see some cute animal action here tomorrow!

WHOOSH! And she’s off …

Now that the 2011 WORDCOUNT Blogathon challenge (a blog a day, every day in May) is coming to a close, you’d think that maybe I’d contemplate what I gave up in order to do all that blogging (just some sleep), or put that new-found daily habit to good use in my biz as a working writer (I have!), or work on crafting even more original stories to post on the website that feeds my inner storyteller (I will!).

Well, that’s all well and good, but I have “Bright, Shiny Thing Syndrome,” so when my very first editor in the world, Lauren, mentioned on one of her Facebook posts that she had embarked on a challenge of her own, I went chasing her sparkle of enthusiasm with wild abandon.

Seems Lauren has committed to something that will either make her life an awesome example to all, or send her straight into therapy.

Lauren is well into a 30-day makeover of her daily choices, starting with a single positive act on Day One, two positive acts on Day Two, three positive acts on Day Three … all the way to Day Thirty.

Can you even imagine adding five positive acts to your daily regimen, much less 30?

I thought maybe I could count getting out of bed, brushing my teeth, bathing, and eating my vegetables among my positive acts but, as I understand it, the idea is to do something new and positive.

And before my brain cells could raise their little hands in warning, my mouth cells had already said, “I can do that!” and, worse, added, “I will do that!”

The good news is that I’ll have plenty of new material for The BillieGram. Maybe even some grist for my story mill!

The bad news is that I may end up looking like an idiot. Fortunately, I’ve done that before, so I won’t need any special directions.

And this poses a great opportunity for all my friends and acquaintances: I need positive things to do, so if you have advice or—even better—favorite projects, send ‘em in!

I particularly like things that involve air conditioning and drinking Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper, and playing with baby dogs and/or cats, or even grown-up dogs and/or cats, but I have a feeling that I need to stretch a bit outside my comfort zone.

Starting an exercise regimen is probably a good idea. Swinging a hammer to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity. Starting that garden that I keep avoiding.

Beyond that, I’m not sure what I can put on the agenda. No matter: the adventure starts June 1.

If you want to be sure to share in the excitement, please consider following The BillieGram. I’ve activated Networked Blogs, Google Friend Connect, and the RSS feed.

I’m hoping for great things from this Positivity Challenge. I hope it works!

The fearless leader of the 2011 WORDCOUNT Blogathon, Michelle Rafter, has given us a break for the holiday: we get to use a graphic-generating program called Wordle, “a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide.”

All we had to do was go to the Wordle site, enter the URL of our blogs, and voila! the site would create a word cloud from the most common words found on our blogs.

I’m no fool: after 29 straight days of preparing unique content, I was ready to let some software take the reins for a day. Here’s what happened in several random attempts:

All we can offer their families is our respect and honor, and the courage to keep the flame of freedom alive.

(c) 2006 and 2011 by Billie S. Noakes. All rights reserved.

I remember when I was a little girl, and my grandma and grandpa would take me downtown to see the Memorial Day parade.

Grandpa would wear his old, stiff Army uniform, and stand on the curb with Grandma and me ’til it was time for him to join the other veterans, young and old, all lining up to march. It made me proud to watch my Grandpa marching shoulder to shoulder with men who may not have served in his war, but nevertheless served the same ideals.

As I grew up, my family’s dinner table discussions gave me a fuller understanding of the meaning of our soldiers’ sacrifices and our duty – no: our privilege – to honor those who lost their lives in service to our country.

Maybe that’s why I was so taken with Tommy, a boy who always stood up tall and covered his heart when our flag was carried by. He was so proud whenever a soldier glanced his way and acknowledged his earnest salute.

Tommy was what you’d call “true blue,” a boy who was always ready to stand up for the little kid on the playground, even if it meant taking on the schoolyard bully.

He was a skinny kid, but he was strong enough to admit when he did something wrong and make it right. When he got older, if anybody in town needed a hand, well, Tommy’s was always the first one offered.

By the time we were in high school, I was sweet on Tommy, and we started keeping company. We were a good match and it wasn’t long before we were talking
about the future. Our future.

Tommy wanted to go to college and study business, then work in his dad’s hardware store. We’d get married, and have kids of our own.

But in our senior year in high school, there was a war on. I wasn’t surprised, after graduation, when Tommy put our plans on hold to join the service. His country needed him, and that’s all Tommy needed to know.

I tried not to cry as Tommy kissed me at the bus station. Tried not to worry. After all, he’d be surrounded by young men much like himself, who would protect his life like it was their own, and somehow they’d bring each other back to their sweethearts and their wives.

Well, they brought Tommy back, all right, but transport ships, airplanes, and buses can only take you so far. When I saw the look in his eyes as he stepped off that old Greyhound, I knew Tommy would never be coming all the way home. The shrapnel and the scars left Tommy disabled, but they didn’t cripple him the way his memories did.

He never talked about those memories, and I didn’t want to make things worse by forcing the issue.

I sometimes wonder, now, if I was right.

I waited for Tommy to call me, to pick up where we’d left off, but he never did. I tried calling him, but he never returned my calls. He didn’t go to college, either. He was on meds that made it hard for him to concentrate, to study, or even to have a good conversation.

He didn’t go into his dad’s hardware business. He didn’t marry me.

Instead, Tommy became part of our town’s landscape, doing odd jobs to keep busy, staying close to his folks’ home, and getting by on his disability pay.

I finally quit waiting for Tommy, and when I did, I met Jeff.

Jeff is a good man, but he was never in the service; his dad was gone, so he went to college while he helped out at home, then started his own accounting business. Jeff and I got married after a few years, and we raised a nice family. Our kids are grown, and I love to babysit for my grandkids, now.

Tommy? He never did marry. His dad died, and Tommy lives with his mom, the two of them alone in that big old house on Main Street.

Tommy stops in for a beer every couple of nights at the VFW hall. He listens to the friendly banter about drill instructors from Hell, reckless nights on leave, and the zany antics of comrades-in-arms, but he grows silent when the talk turns to battle, and he leaves his beer on the bar and goes back home.

To this day he doesn’t complain. Not about the pain, or the medications, not even about the way people stop and stare, sometimes, when he shambles by. Never about being changed forever by the war, and the things he’s seen … things he’s done … things he’s endured.

Today, it’s another Memorial Day, and my husband is off helping the parade organizers and setting up for the Honor Our Heroes ceremony that follows at the pavilion. Our daughter’s children are visiting this weekend, and they’re going with me to watch the parade.

I’m so proud that our grandkids were taught to understand the meaning of this day, and why it’s important to remember those fallen in battle, how precious our way of life is, and how dearly it’s been bought.

They’ve been taught to stand tall and show respect when they meet a man or woman in uniform.

Mikey, Isabella, and I hold hands on the sidewalk as the honor guard marches past. Bella’s eyes are wide as she takes in the flags and the uniformed soldiers, and she bounces on her tippy-toes to get her first glimpse of the company of mounted soldiers. Mikey stands very still and straight, with his hand over his heart, and my mind drifts back through the years to another little boy I used to know.

My eyes wander over the crowd, and I’m surprised to see Tommy looking at me with his never-coming-home gaze. With a start, I realize it’s not Tommy. This veteran isn’t close to his age, doesn’t look a thing like him.

I look around, and I see more than a dozen pairs of eyes with that million-mile stare, forgotten soldiers gazing out on the neighbors they protect, even now, by keeping their private hell inside.

I look around more carefully and suddenly I see him, standing on the other side of the street.

For the time it takes the honor guard to march past him, Tommy is standing tall again, unmindful of the metal embedded in his back and the door he keeps locked tight against his memories.

Then Tommy looks right at me, as though he’s always known just where to find me, and his eyes are quickly drawn to the little boy and girl clutching my hands. I know we’re both thinking of the family Tommy and I might have had, and I see him take a deep, slow breath before his eyes meet mine again.

We nod to each other across the heads of the young Cub Scouts proudly marching by, and as Tommy turns away, I see the weight of pain and loss pull his eyes, then his shoulders, back down toward the pavement.

I watch as he makes his way down the block, and I think about all of the men and women who have lost their lives in service to our country.

Just like Tommy … not all of them died.

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This story was inspired by the late Peter A. Jacobsen, a fine blues musician and a Viet Nam era vet. Miss you, Pete, and appreciate the company on “The Long, Hungry Road.”