It’s Memorial day weekend. The first long weekend in good weather. Parks and picnics. Lots of fun. A day off from work. It’s also a day of remembrance for all those who fought for our country. Those who were killed; those who were maimed; those who were wounded.

I had nine uncles or older cousins serving in WWII. All nine made it home alive. My Uncle John was shot but survived. I had two brothers and a couple of cousins in Vietnam. My older brother served two tours and made it back. My younger brother was on a PBR in the Mekong Delta and made it back. My cousin Joe, who was also my best friend, was killed.

I think of all them and all the others who gave a part of their lives for our country. I appreciate all of them and do honor them. I save a special moment for Joe. I still miss him after all these years. I also remember all the fun; all the pranks; all the lectures from his mom.

“Let’s start with how many cherry pies there were”, she started.

“A few, not too many”, I told her.

She knew I was dancing around the truth. She could get the truth with a little effort. She could get the truth from Joe with no effort.

“Umm, a dozen..each”.

“That’s 24 cherry pies. Twenty-four! You lured the other paper boys out into the alley and ambushed them with twenty-four cherry pies. Yes, you cleaned up the mess but I had to clean up the mess with the police”.

Joe got grounded for a week. She couldn’t ground me; my own parents couldn’t do that. So, I wasn’t allowed over for a week- unless I needed to come over. The next day, Joe and I decided it was worth it. We also thought our brothers shouldn’t have counted. We always did things to them.

We got permission at 16 to go to the special Halloween movie triple feature. Our brothers, age 14, wanted to run with the big dogs. At first we said no. Then they told us they couldn’t learn from us if we didn’t teach them. Well, that’s different.

Joe’s mom agreed after a lot of begging as long as we took “full responsibility” for the boys. Heck yea, we weren’t planning anything. If we did something , it would be dark in the theater, so who’d know?

Joe and I were walking ahead of the boys up Main Street. We heard a shout of “Hey, stop!”. As we turned around the boys went past us- fast. Then we saw all the no parking bags on the side walk. We took off and caught the boys as they turned the corner.

“Hey, since when do we run from cops?”, I asked my brother.

“Hey, we don’t run, numbskull”, Joe told his brother.

“Hey, let’s go to the station”, said Black Bart, one of the local cops.

Joe’s mom came and got them. My parents said they’d be by in the morning for us. Joe’s mom, after a discussion with the desk sergeant, which included her saying she’d call the mayor and wake him up, we got released to her.

Staying the night in jail would have been better for me. She chewed Joe up for a while and then ragged me for a while. She was totally pissed. It wasn’t until weeks later that the boys owned up to the fact that we didn’t even know what they were doing.

Joe and I figured, we said we’d be responsible, so we took the responsibility. Another fact was that, to our 16 year-old minds, we were sort of proud of the boys. They showed promise.

I think of these and other adventures we had and I still laugh about them. But, I always end up remembering that Joe didn’t come home.

God bless them all.