Women and some random notes 180111

Women, under appreciated for all they do. Now at 72 years old and having to do all the things Joyce has done for me for the last 54 years as of today Jan.11, I finally realize after a week of doing what she did every day, how difficult it is to cook, clean, wash laundry, wash dishes and the myriad of tasks that married women do every day. I now truly appreciate all she has done.

I sure do need to get her back to perfect health so I can return to my life of leisure. I am just kidding here, because I am going to help out a lot more now and in the future.

I had cooked us some soup last night and we were talking as we ate when an old memory came back. I remembered 53 years ago when undergoing training for possible capture and being in a POW camp. We were all hungry, no food since the night before and did not know when or if we would have something to eat. Late in the evening the captors had fire pits and big cauldrons over them. They had us fill them with water and then lit the fires under them. An hour or so later someone came out with a sack of onions to feed the 57 of us. They dispensed a few onions to each 10 of us. We boiled them in the cauldrons and then ate the soup. At the time, that seemed like the best soup I ever ate.

Later that same night, our captors said we all needed to take an outdoor shower, but warned us that if American planes came overhead the air raid sirens would sound and we would all have to run into these tin covered bomb shelters in the compound. The shelters had a dusty dirt floor as did the whole compound. I sensed right away that someone was going to get caught in the shower when a siren went off. I waited as one after another shivered in the night air and the cold water shower. The siren never went off, so I was the last to go into the shower. I stood there naked in the cold night air and pulled the handle, felt the icy rush of the water on my skin and then the air raid siren went off. There I was running naked across the compound through the clouds of dust raised by all the others as they crossed the compound. Down into the shelter I went holding my clothes in my now filthy nakedness. There were no more showers after that, so I was muddy and dirty for another day until we were released and taken back to the barracks on the navy base. Now as I think about it, maybe the rest of those guys weren’t running because of the siren, maybe they were running to get away from the skinny, naked guy running toward them from across the compound.