The Oldies 1705

Listening to the oldies today brought back a flood of memories of the forties (which I don’t have a lot of memories) the fifties, the sixties and beyond. Joyce and I have had such a wonderful life together. I love the songs from those years mentioned.

One was “Thanks for the memories” from a Bob Hope movie in the thirties. It became his theme song for the rest of his life.

All the while I have been re-watching the Ken Burns series “The War” on Netflix at night about World War Two. The series is spectacular and it shows the horror about war and yet the entire country was involved, Boy Scouts, young men who were barely older than scouts and the families at home who worked on scrap drives and spent the entire war worrying about all their boys in the war. I think about the mail carriers who had to deliver telegrams from the war department  to families who changed from blue stars (sons in the war) to gold stars (sons lost in the war).

I remember the Bob Hope Christmas shows during the Vietnam War, but he was in combat zones since the forties, giving the boys a taste of home. He never spent a Christmas at home for thirty or forty years at home. If he could, he would still be entertaining the troops far away from home.

I suppose wars will never end, but why? The wars seem to be started by old men in governments, but never have to fight them and experience the horror of war. What happened to leaders like King Richard of England and Alexander the Great who led their armies into battle and were there on the front lines with their troops?

I have been through so many memories today, tears of joy and tears of sadness combined. God bless those on the front lines who are fighting on the battlefield while I had beer and song today. They deserve better than they get.