The Sentinel, Your News Source 200413

The Sentinel All the news that's fit to print and some that's not.
World War Two I often think about that time and follow any documentary I can find about it. I was not born until days before the war ended, but there is something that I feel maybe I was in a past life. My dad and uncle Kenny did serve along with Joyce's father and her uncle William. I think about that time and realize I may not have been a good army soldier or a marine infantryman, but Where I would have been great was as a navy air crewman. If I was there in a previous life I was perhaps a navy air crewman as I was in the early part of Vietnam. I imagine myself in an old Catalina flying boat, roaming the seas in the Pacific, hunting submarines and attacking them from the air. It could be nothing but a dream or it could be where I died in a previous lifetime. I will never know.	DNA Think about this for a moment. The same DNA that is in you today goes back hundreds if not thousands of years from distant ancestors that you never knew about or ever will know about. I believe doctor's know this and that is why they always want to know about recent ancestors so they can use that information for their possible treatments today. I know the first time I was in Japan I had this odd feeling like I was home again. I have always had an affinity for the Japanese people from when I was a young child shortly after the war. And while I was there as far back as 1965 and they didn't care for Americans 20 years after the war, I still felt at home. I remember being on the train from Tokyo to Atsugi when everyone but me in the train car had masks on their faces. I always carried a handkerchief, but a sneeze came over me before I could cover my mouth with the handkerchief and if stares were daggers my body would have been covered with them. I thought for a brief moment they might rise up and throw me from the train.	Grandma I never knew the one grandma I had when she wasn't an invalid sitting in a chair and drooling. She had countless strokes before I was born. Mom always took care of her in our home. What I know about grandma is from stories my mother told me. Grandma was Irish, right off the boat. She was a stubborn, feisty woman who always fought with her neighbors and caused grandpa to move nearly every year. After the strokes began bringing her closer to death, with every one she had, mom would call the local priest and he would come to the home to give her the last rites. Once she realized what was happening, she would pop up like a cork. She wasn't yet ready to die. One cold, snowy night, grandma had another stroke and when mom called the parish priest to come over for the last rites, his reply was, "it's late and the snow is too deep for me to drive over there." Mom in her Irish fashion said, "put yourself together, my husband will be there in five minutes to pick you up!" Dad went and got the priest and grandma once again did not die. The sad thing that happened was grandma did finally die on a night when the whole family was gathered together on a visit away from home. Grandma died when she and grandpa were there in the house all alone.