“Have you ever heard of D-Day, boy?”

Saturday, Jody Barr and I will pack up our gear (and our winter coats) and head to Washington, D.C. with a airplane load full of Grand Strand World War II veterans.
I am very excited, because I think we will find those wonderful, special stories that can come out of an experience just like this one.
But I am also excited, because of my interest in World War II history, and that comes from one place: Mr. Simpson.
I first went to work at Mr. Simpson's house when I was 12.
It was the summer of 1992, and Mr. Simpsson's house on the north end of my hometown, Mt. Airy, Maryland, was a place where young boys had worked their summers for a very long time.
Mr. and Mrs. Simpson had three daughters, and he was a retired assistant high school principal and a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army.
His usual yard boy had come down with mononucleosis that summer of '92, and after a few calls through the church directory, he called me.
My first day, it took me 5 hours to cut his entire lawn. He paid me $10.00, and I enjoyed a nice lunch with the couple.
My second day, we got down to the dirty work: weeds.
But it was that first day of weeding that Mr. Simpson said to me: "You ever heard of D-Day, boy?" (He talked a little bit like Foghorn Leghorn, but not with the accent.)
I honestly had not, and so he launched into a very long, very elaborate description of the invasion at Normandy, a battle that he, in fact, had been a part of.
Mrs. Simpson's brother had died in The Battle Of The Bulge, and Mr. Simpson spent the rest of the war with a tank destroyer unit, and dealt directly with German P.O.W.s.
Over the course of the next eight years, I learned an awful lot about World War II from the Simpsons, and, even though I occasionally heard the same story more than once, I didn't mind.
The Simpsons truly and fully embodied the "Greatest Generation" concept, and provided a tremendous role model in my young life.
Some of my other friends, and our brothers, slowly filled the yard at the Simpsons' house, and Mr. Simpson would sometimes lean back, put both hands on top of his rake handle, smile, and say, "One boy's a boy, two boys a half a boy, and three boys aint no boy at all!"
This is so true!
This weekend has all the makings of some of the most remarkable stories I've had the good fortune to share with you here on News13 and scnow.com, and I hope you can join us on Monday night.
I bet Mr. Simpson is watching from his big easy chair in the sky.

Log In | Register as a new member