Wrinkled Old Man

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He was a wrinkled old man, bent slightly forward at the waist, his face wearing years of trying experiences. I guessed him to be in his eighties. His face, narrow and long, carried upon it a nose broken and twisted by life’s challenges. That his weary eyes had seen much sorrow was readily apparent by the look of their downward squint. It was a kind face, windowing a heart full of caring and burden.

With the knobbed head of his crooked wooden cane held firmly in his hand, he meandered slowly through the Millcreek Mall, stopping here and there to ponder the contents of a store window, or to rest, or both. Every movement of the man’s gait was slow and deliberate, as if to make certain that each step he took was upon firm ground, and his stooped shoulders held his arms close to his side, as though passing through a narrow doorway. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

The sound of hasty footsteps approaching from his rear brought him to a stop. As I moved in his direction to help in case of a collision, the young man rushed by and the old man was safe. As he raised his gaze to continue, his steel gray eyes, the one feature that bespoke of a handsome youth, caught mine. I had been watching him, wondering if I would live as long as he, and if so, whether I would have the courage to be walking alone in a busy mall. He smiled, knowingly, and nodded his head, as he continued his stroll. I had never seen him before, but when I noticed a screaming eagle pin on his lapel representing the shoulder patch of the storied 101^st Airborne Division, the Heroes of Bastogne, I felt a bond with him. I was never a member of the 101^st, but I was a paratrooper and I wanted to speak with him about … well about anything; I just wanted to talk with him.

On one hand I was hesitant to interrupt the old gentleman’s labored saunter, but on the other hand his smile invited conversation.

“Excuse me, sir,” I finally said, “Are you from Erie?”

“No,” he said, “I’m from Pittsburgh. I’m up here visiting my daughter and grandsons.”

“Are you alone here?” I asked.

“No, my daughter and the kids are around somewhere shopping. I’m not a shopper so I told her I’d be out here somewhere.”

“If I’m interrupting sir, I apologize, but I noticed your lapel pin and …” I hesitated to say more.

“Not at all young man,” he said to me, a man of 59. “In fact I could use a rest,” he said, pointing to mid-mall benches. He led me to them and we sat side-by-side.

“Were you in the 101?” he asked.

“No sir, but I was a paratrooper.” When I asked him if he was in World War II he replied in the affirmative. My heart was in my mouth.

 I asked, “Were you in on the D-Day Jump into Normandy?” He nodded his head and said that he was. But he said it in a way that conveyed he had done nothing special; he was just doing his job.

“Were you involved in the Battle of the Bulge?” I asked, my chest heaving with every word.

“Yes,” was his simple answer. I wanted to ask about his combat awards, but I decided not to risk embarrassing the man with that question, but neither was I going to let this conversation pass without asking him if he had been at the Siege of Bastogne. He said he was there the whole time. “In fact, if I’m still alive six years from now,” he said, with a hopeful glint in his eye, “I’ll be going back to Bastogne for our 50^th reunion.”

There were so many questions I wanted to ask him about those experiences; oddly enough, one of them was how it felt to march down Broadway in a tickertape parade; to feel the pride of being an American, to hold one’s head high, to have fought and given everything and receive such a glorious reception.

All too soon his daughter and grandsons came by to pick up grandpa. I didn’t get to ask those questions, but I wish I had. He gave me his name, but I didn’t write it down and I have long since forgotten it.

I have met a number of outstanding people in my life, but I have always held a special respect for my dad and all of the veterans of World War II; the boys who became men when they parachuted into hell in Europe; the Army Infantry and US Marines who signed blank checks on their lives when they stormed the beaches of Europe and the Pacific; the sailors and airmen who swept the seas and skies of the enemy; the tank drivers who slugged their way through Europe in metal boxes.

There were a million men and women like the wrinkled old man who put their lives on the line for us; you and me, and were humble enough to say that they were just doing their job. They were the ones who SAVED THE WORLD.

God Bless them all. I always thank every WWII veteran I meet. Soon they will all be gone. Honor them with a simple, “Thank you.”

I’m a writer of mystery novels now; no longer the lean mean fighting machine I once was, but I will always treasure the honor and inspiration it was for me to meet someone as brave and patriotic as was the wrinkled old man, and I will never forget him. I hope he made it to his reunion and I hope he’s still alive and making more old vets feel good.

If this blog made you feel good please pass it on to your friends. It’s a true story.

donlewis@sccoast.net                                                                        www.etlewis.com

Let Freedom Ring!

donlewis@sccoast.net                                       www.etlewis.com

Let Freedom Ring

Our great nation was born through the Declaration of Independence, to be governed by Constitutional guarantees that the freedoms listed therein would endure forever.

In the 230 plus years since then it was the exercise of those freedoms that molded our country into the greatest on earth. It’s true that “Freedom isn’t Free,” and from the time of America’s beginnings until the present day, it’s citizens have been called upon to make sacrifices, and in many cases, to risk their lives so that those freedoms could be preserved. Over those centuries thousands of American men and women have given their lives for our liberty. Today our freedom is endangered; not so much from the wars we fight, but from concerted efforts to destroy America from within.

Since the early 20^th Century there have been those who would radically change our way of life. Seldom have they identified their plans as an attempt to subvert our Constitution. Nor have they identified themselves with their revolutionary scheme. They work privately and anonymously in a most insidious manner.

Over the years we have paid little attention to those who embraced the weakening and eventual destruction of American ideals, either misunderstanding their intentions or believing that eventually they would simply go away. They haven’t. They are in fact growing in numbers and in boldness.

Those of us who grew up in the 40s and 50s find the country very different from the one we knew in our youth. Almost everything has changed; many believe for the worse. We are being converted from a society dominated by doers and givers, to one of watchers and takers.

As a child growing up in Pittsburgh I learned from my mother about how to confront and deal with problems and about the difference between right and wrong. My mom was my strength and the person I turned to every day for answers to life’s problems. She sacrificed her teaching career to spend her days tending to the needs of her children and always took the time to guide us along the road to maturity. She taught us that there are no free rides, and that we must earn our way through life.

As a youth I took it all for granted. I didn’t realize the extent of her sacrifice and wisdom until I was grown and raising my own family. It was from her and my dad that I learned to cling to traditional values, and how important they were to our freedom. Bless her heart, mom lived for 99 years. I miss her a lot, and think of her every day. In all of my novels I highlight the values I learned from both of my parents.

There are those who say that to draw attention to the growing attacks on our liberties is an attempt to instill false panic. They say America is too intelligent a nation to fall into that kind of trap. That’s what the German people thought in the early 1930s and who would argue that they were not intelligent? Here in America the decline into disastrous social change has been taking its toll. While each generation’s opportunity to grow academically has increased, our educational standards have decreased. To disagree with a “politically correct” idea labels one a trouble-maker, a Nazi, a sexist or a racist. The growing inclination of the public to accept these standards is like a cancer; eventually we will simply go and do, where and what we’re told.

We are “progressively” turning from a nation of leaders to one of followers; from an independent society into one dependent upon the government. In the end the goal of the “progressives” is that we be governed without our input or consent.

We’re told now that our nation’s flag, the proud symbol of our country is something that shouldn’t be worn on our lapels, or displayed publicly. In schools we no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance, because it might offend someone. Might offend someone? Who the hell would have dared to spew such a shameful lack of respect for our flag and our values fifty, or even twenty years ago?

Our government was created to guarantee checks and balances, so that no one political group could force their agenda on society, yet today that is exactly what is happening. What used to matter was the will of the people; now it seems that the only thing that counts is the will of the government and now their agenda seems to be to “fundamentally transform America.” The question many now ask is “Into what?”

Our strength as a nation is our Constitution and the freedoms set forth in that document. It is the foundation of this great country. Tear the pages from the Constitution, lose the freedoms it guarantees, and we will lose our Republic.

donlewis@sccoast.net                                                     www.etlewis.com

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Amazon Kindle Books – Dark Covenant, Satan’s Boots Don’t Creak, Kalup’s Crossroads – Don Lewis, author – $2.99

The Day That Changed My Life

          At some time or another, most of us have faced and overcome obstacles through tenacity and patience. This blog is meant to encourage those of you who have not yet faced the fire-spewing dragon to do so with determination, courage, hard work and the resilience to bounce back from disappointment and fight on. Though it’s my story it’s not meant to be about me, but about facing our fears and setbacks.I enjoyed a very successful career as a criminal trial lawyer and now as a published author of mystery/crime novels, and I owe much of that success to the day that changed my life.

       It was early in the fall semester of my sophomore year in high school. My friend Gary and I were working our way through the crowded hall near the trophy case when I was stopped by a classmate; we’ll just call him Bob. He was a football player, somewhat bigger than I and known as a pretty tough guy who felt a need to remind everyone of that from time to time. He made a comment about the hat I was wearing, grabbed it off my head, went to the water cooler, filled the hat, came back and dumped it over my head. I raised my hands to fight and he hit me on the jaw. I went down and slid across the wet floor to the water cooler. It felt like every kid in school was standing there watching. Bob merely turned and walked away. Gary helped me up and stopped me from going after him. I wasn’t a fighter; not nearly big enough for that, but neither was I a coward. It was a good thing that Gary stopped me; otherwise I might have been badly hurt.

          Something changed in me that day. I had never been humiliated like that before. I wanted to do something about it. With encouragement from my mom and help from my dad, I decided to take up boxing. My dad had a friend named Fritzie Zivic who had been a World Welterweight Boxing Champion. He spent the next seven months training me for the spring boxing tournament. I gained weight and learned how to fight.

When tournament time came in the spring of 1955, I was a middleweight at a little over 160 pounds. As it happened, Bob was in the same weight division but in the other bracket, so the only way we would fight each other was if we both won our three preliminary bouts. We both did and were scheduled to face off for the championship. Everyone in school knew about the incident in the hall, and the auditorium was packed.

I had watched Bob’s preliminary fights and he was a bulldog. He didn’t have very good skills but he was fearless and kept charging his opponents, pressuring and simply overpowering them. Most of Bob’s weight was in his upper body and he was strong. His shoulders were thick and his arms powerful.

Before the fight Fritzie told me to stay away from him and let him tire himself out; he wouldn’t be in as good a shape as I. When he tired, I would take control of the fight and begin inflicting punishment.

That’s exactly how it went. Bob pushed and I backed up. He kept coming and throwing punches; I kept withdrawing and dodging punches. He tired quickly and after two minutes of the first round I saw my opportunity and took it. Bob went down, got back up and a moment later the referee called it a TKO. I had won! I was the Middleweight Champion. What a feeling!
In retrospect, I wasn’t as tough as Bob, but I was patient and used what I had and that’s what won the fight.

So many things changed that day. Up until then I had always been kind of a background figure in school without any real athletic success, but from the day I beat Bob everything changed. All of a sudden I was very popular at school. Even the football players treated me differently. In my junior year I was elected my home-room president and in my last year I was elected as one of the top four officers of the senior class.

All of the changes in me that my parents encouraged; my confidence, my motivation to make something of myself, and my improved social skills, all began that day. I give a lot of the credit for that to Bob for popping me in the jaw right in front of the trophy case on that fall day of my sophomore year in high school. Bob transferred to another school at the end of the year.

Almost thirty years later I ran into him in Meadville, PA. He looked at me and said, “Don Lewis.” I glanced at him and then he said, “Bob,” and his last name. Immediately the incident in the hall flashed into my mind and I said, “The last time I saw you I was looking up.” Through a tight smile he replied, “Huh uh, counselor, the last time you saw me I was looking up.” We both laughed. He’s a totally different guy now, and even though I’ve only seen him a couple of times since, it was a pleasant reunion.

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The Day I Met John Wayne

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Other than my father, I’ve had only one hero in my life, and that was John Wayne. When I was about nine or ten, my dad took me to see my first John Wayne movie, The Sands of Iwo Jima. I loved the movie and John Wayne. He epitomized rugged masculinity and honesty and everything good in a man. To this day, 32 years after his death, he remains an American Icon. He was the guy every boy of my generation wanted to be when they grew up.

Not many ever get the chance to meet their heroes. I actually met John Wayne in the spring of 1966 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and I remember it like it was yesterday.

I had just gotten back from Vietnam after a year as a radio operator on Special Forces A-Team 214. Upon my return I was assigned as part of a demonstration team that was put together to showcase the capabilities of the Green Berets. The locations of these demonstrations were on sites along a trail that wound through the woods. At my site, two of us were performing our jobs in a foxhole.

As I watched for the next group to come into view, my gaze froze. Is that John Wayne I see there? I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m sure I blinked before taking a second look. It was him; it was the Duke. There was no mistaking the well-known gait of the 6’5” John Wayne. With him was an entourage of people, including Col. Hale.

The Duke had purchased the rights to Robin Moore’s book, The Green Berets, and was planning to make a movie based on it. He watched us while getting an explanation of what we were doing from one of the officers with him and even now, 45 years later, I can close my eyes and still see him standing there.

After a couple of minutes, the Colonel began leading the group away. My hero was leaving and I hadn’t said a word to him. That wasn’t going to happen. I climbed out of the hole, and as I walked toward Mr. Wayne I felt like I was moving in slow motion. It was like an out-of-body experience; as though I was watching myself from a distance; like the feeling you had the first time you jumped off the 10 foot diving board. It was both surreal and too late to turn back.

I walked over to Mr. Wayne, offered my hand and said, “Put 'er there, Duke.” Immediately I asked myself, “Did I really say that? Do I go to jail now without passing Go?” Even though I knew there would be a penalty to pay, I didn’t stop to consider any of that before I did it. I’m not sure what my dad, a Captain in the Naval Reserves, would have said, but I think Mom, a wonderfully supportive and strong-willed woman, would have shaken her head and said, “What are you going to do, that’s my son.”

John Wayne not only shook my hand but took it with both of his and smiled broadly. Then, his tone turned to one of serious sincerity when he said, “Thanks for what you’re doing, Sergeant.” It’s difficult to describe how much that meant to me. I was stunned. Not since I had arrived back in the United States had anyone said that to me. I don’t remember what my response was; hell, I don’t even remember if I made one. Then, he walked over to the hole, reached down and pulled my friend up and out, then shook his hand and said something to him. All the while Col. Hale was giving me the evil-eye.

When it was all over and the group had left, I expected my punishment would come later that day; maybe being strung up by my thumbs, something like that. I never heard another word about it from anyone, except from the guys in the barracks when the word got around. I believe I would have been in serious trouble had it not been for the gracious way in which John Wayne responded to my impulsiveness. I was impressed by his subtle sense of humor and a degree of humility that doesn’t normally come out in his on-screen, kick-ass persona. But, somehow I'd like to think that after they left, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and said to Colonel Hale, “Ya better leave that kid alone, Pilgrim.”

I’m a writer of crime/ mystery novels now and I try to put a little John Wayne into every main character I create, especially the John Wayne I met back in the spring of 1966. 

www.etlewis.com