SUMMER OF FORTY-FOUR

SUMMER OF FORTY-FOUR

The men sat on packing crates in the old barn. They were slowly going through boxes and steamer trunks stacked in a corner of the barn. The younger of the two was in his mid-thirties with still jet-black hair, blue eyes and a strong chin. The other man was stooped over from age and his thinning hair was snow white. He had the same strong chin.

They’d just finished going through a steamer trunk that contained old quilts and bedding, placing it in box marked “Goodwill.”

The younger man asked, “Gramps, you sure you wanna leave the farm and go into the retirement home?”

The old man sat up straighter, “Tommy, since your grandma went into the memory care facility, it’s just not the same. I used to always feel alive with her here. Now it’s just lonely.” He paused and looked up toward the dust motes floating in a sunbeam that came through a slat in the barn wall. “Besides, I shouldn’t be driving no more. Tough as it is to admit, I ain’t safe out there. Wouldn’t wanna hurt no one.”

Tom nodded, “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from. And a huge side benefit is you’d be nearer Grams.”

“That too,” Grandpa Stanley smiled.

The next box looked like an old wooden crate. Tom manhandled it out into better light while his grandfather watched. The crate was an old dusty green Army footlocker.

Tom looked up at his grandfather with raised eyebrows. His grandfather just looked him in the eye with a shrug and half-smile.

Tom opened the footlocker while his grandfather dragged his packing box closer so he could view inside.

Tom pulled out a heavy object wrapped in a hand towel. With the towel removed he recognized the Colt .45. Tom had been raised around firearms, and after making sure the weapon was safe, he began to examine it closely.

“Gramps weren’t you supposed to turn this in?” he asked.

“Well there were the regulations, and then there were the regulations, if you get my drift.” Grandpa Stanley looked down for a second and then met his grandson’s eyes again. Mischief was in the old man’s eyes, “They wouldn’t let me keep my Garand M-1 rifle.” They both chuckled, while Tom shook his head.

Tom set the .45 aside. That wasn’t going to any charity. No sir. He then pulled out a couple of nicely folded shirts and pairs of trousers. He raised his eyebrows again. “Goodwill?”

“Goodwill.”

He then pulled out a field jacket. “Mind if I try it on?”

“Sure. Be my guest.”

Tom pulled the old jacket on. It was a little snug in the shoulders, but otherwise a pretty good fit. He raised his arm so he could admire the sergeant’s chevron.

His grandfather said, “I’d probably be swimming in the old thing now, but there was a time…” He left the sentence uncompleted but stared off toward the barn door. Tom didn’t say anything to interrupt his grandfather’s reminiscing.

A minute or two passed until the old man shook his head as if forcing himself to come back to the moment. Tom sat back down on his crate and returned his attention to a cigar box that contained several ribbons and buttons and other items.

“Sorry about spacing out there. I was just rememberin’. I seem to be doing that more and more here lately.”

“No problem gramps. You’ve got a lot of memories to go over.”

Tom set the cigar box next to the .45. He had no intention of parting with those items either.

Next in the locker was a cardboard shirt box with a faded Montgomery Ward’s logo on the outside. Inside there were numerous scalloped-edged black and white photographs.

Tom lifted the first one and held it up to where he could see it more clearly. It depicted a group of eager young soldiers looking into the camera with bright smiles. They were all in their uniforms with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders. Tom held it up so his grandfather could see it.

“Yeah, we was all so eager to go show Hitler who was boss.” He paused, then whispered, “Didn’t take’em long to wipe those grins off our faces once we hit the beaches.”

Tom moved onto another picture where a group of men in dirty combat fatigues were sitting. They were leaning up against a pockmarked wall eating from mess kits. Only a couple were looking at the camera, and they sure weren’t smiling. He recognized his grandfather as one of the guys who was staring vacantly into the distance.

The next picture was of a young corporal holding the hand of young pretty woman while they walked along a country lane. The woman was carrying a picnic basket. Their smiles spoke volumes without words.

Tom held this picture up for his grandfather to see. A smile that could light up a city was his reaction.

“Want to hear the story behind that one?”

“You better tell me the story,” Tom said with a mock threatening tone.

“Let’s go up to the house for some lemonade.”

Sitting on the front porch of the farmhouse, lemonades in hand, A gentle breeze blew, and the only sound came from the locusts in the nearby cottonwoods.

Grandpa Stanley began: “That picture,” he nodded toward the photo, “was taken in France way back from the lines away from the fighting. It was Summertime in ’44.

“My company had been in some of the goddamnedest heavy fighting from D-day and on through the weeks following. You can’t even imagine it. It was whatever you think it could possibly have been, only worse.”

His voice dropped a little, “We was shot up pretty good. A lot of good men gone, just like that.” He tried to snap his fingers, but his arthritis wouldn’t let him. He looked at his hand as if it had betrayed him.

“Well, our company was so chewed up and shell shocked that even the dumbass generals knew we needed to be pulled out of the line. Don’t get me wrong, we’d a kept fightin’ so long as they kept telling us to, but at some point, well…” he pulled his thin shoulders up and let them drop.

Tom just listened, hardly breathing. His lemonade long forgotten.

“They finally pulled us out of the line while there was a few of us left to pull out. They trucked us back about 50 kilometers back from the front. They put us in one a them little towns which dot the area around there.” Grandpa Stanley had been staring off in the distance, seeing the past. He stopped and looked at his grandson. “You know Tommy, that’s some beautiful country once you get away from the goddamn war.”

“Yeah, Mary and I went over on a tour to France and Italy a few years back.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot you been there.”

“Well, I don’t know that we’ve been exactly where this photo was taken, but yes, we were in the general area. It is still beautiful, but I suspect the towns are larger.”

“’Spect you’re right.

“Anyways, like I said, we’d been pulled back from the lines. It was Summertime. The few of us that made it was put up with some locals that had volunteered to take us in. Come to find out the brass was trying to figure out what to do with us.

“I was put up in the home of a nice old couple that treated me real good. They was younger than I am now, but they seemed pretty old to me back then,” he smiled.

“After I was able to get a couple good meals in me, plus a bath, shave and new uniform, I was starting to feel like I was a human bein’ again. So’s I decided to go for a walk into the little main part of town.”

Grandpa Stanley paused to drink. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and continued. “I was walkin’ into town hopin’ to meet up with some of my buddies, when I was struck by lightening.”

Tom reared back with a gasp.

“No, not real lighting.” He looked at his grandson and gave a little shake of his head.

“Sorry.”

“Like I was sayin’, I was struck by what felt like lightening. I saw what had to be the prettiest girl God had ever put on earth since he put Eve in the garden.”

He paused, looking in the past at the beauty he remembered.

“She was thin, but curvy in all the right places. She was walkin’ in the opposite direction comin’ back from the market square. I remember she had one of them long loafs of French bread. And let me tell you, that bread is delicious.”

Tom nodded. It’d been sometime since breakfast and his stomach growled.

“Well, I know she had other groceries, but I don’t remember none of them. Just that loaf of bread sticking up outta her wicker basket. That’s the same basket you see in that photo.

“I stopped in my tracks. Just stood there. Couldn’t form no words. Couldn’t even smile. Just stared.” He made eye contact again with Tom. Tom gave a slight smile and nod.

“You’ve probably felt like that before at least once in your life. At least if you’ve been lucky.”

“Yeah, I felt something like that in college. Mary had come into the classroom, and I saw her for the first time.”

They nodded toward each other. A shared understanding.

“This pretty gal was walkin’ by me, not making no eye contact, then as she drew up close she looked up at me and smiled and said, ‘Monsieur.’

“I felt like I wanted to catch that word and hold it in my hand forever.”

The men said nothing for a minute or two. Nothing needed to be said.

Then Grandpa Stanley resumed, “After she walked by, I stood there like a statue. Finally, I regained some sense, and I turned and started to follow’er. Didn’t even occur to me that she might think I was some sort of creep or somethin’. I just had to know more about her.

“We walked along, and after a few steps she slowed down a tad. I caught up with her, and somehow or other through sign language I let her know I’d walk her home.”

Tom nodded again.

“As we was walkin’ along I said pointin’ to myself, ‘Wally.’ She smiled and I thought I heard birds singin’. Anyways, she smiled and pointed to herself and said, ‘Yvette.’

Tom leaned back in semi-shock. “You mean that girl is gramms?”

“You bet your bottom dollar. And she was a looker. Hell, to me she still is.”

Tom implored, “Please finish the story. Tell me more about the picture.”

“I’m getting’ there. Hold your horses.

“We was walkin’ along, and went about five houses past the one I was bivouacked in. She turned to me and said, ‘Merci.’ So that was when I first met your grandma.”

They both took long drinks.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Okay, I could hardly think of anything else but her pretty smile that brought out her dimples.” He pointed at Tom, “Where’d you think you got them dimples from?”

“I never knew. Guess I never gave it too much thought. Who’d of thought…?”

“Yeah, well, now you know.” He cleared his throat. “The next day I made sure my boots was spit shined and I went up the street and after a couple a false starts, I finally knocked on her door. Imagine that, I’d been in hand-to-hand combat and faced down machine gun nests, but there I was ascared of knockin’ on a girl’s door.”

Tom gave a sympathetic smile.

Grandpa Stanley resumed, “This old man with a pipe stuck between his teeth opened the door and said, ‘Oui?’ I felt like a rabbit caught out in an open field with a hawk a circlin’ overhead. I coughed and squeaked out ‘Yvette?’

“He gave me a thorough once over, boots to garrison hat. He stared in my eyes for a long moment, then said, ‘qui es-tu?’ Now let me pause here, I’d never spoke French and the only French I’d heard up to that point was always mixed in with some cuss words. But I figured he was askin’ who I was. I pointed to myself and said, ‘Wally.’

“The feller with the pipe stood there for a few more moments as if making some decision. He finally took his pipe out of his mouth and signaled for me to stay where I was. He shut the door and, in a minute, this lovely sight opened the door. Yvette was standing there with this shy smile that just melted my heart. I wanted to sweep her up into one a them Gone With the Wind type kisses.

“I swiped off my hat and tried to indicate that I wanted to take her out for lunch or dinner or whatever she wanted.” He looked to Tom and said, “I don’t know what you call that kind a signaling.”

“Pantomiming, gramps?”

“Yeah that’s it. Well we did a lot of that over the next few days. ‘Cuz I finally got my meanin’ across, and she pointed to the big clock in the church steeple that we could see from where we was standing. She said, ‘midi?’ I held my shoulders up like I didn’t understand ‘cuz I didn’t. Then I held up my wristwatch and she pointed at the twelve and said again, ‘midi.’ I nodded like one a them bobble head dolls. She gave a little wave and went back into the house and slowly shut the door.

“Damn if I didn’t fairly skip back to where I was staying. I tried to get information from the old couple, Jacque and Marie was their names. They spoke a little English and they let me know that the man with the pipe was her uncle and her mother worked at one of the market shops. I later found out the uncle was a farmer but hadn’t been able to plant that season on account of all the fightin’.”

Tom went inside to get them both more lemonade. When he came back out Grandpa Stanley was staring off seeing things that he hadn’t thought of for years.

“Thank you, Tommy. “

“Get back to the story, gramps.”

“Okay, so straight up noon I went back to her house and Yvette came out with that wicker basket she’d had the day before. She’d made us up a little lunch, best as she could put together considerin’ how short food stocks were everywhere.”

He looked at Tom, “Everybody was scrounging and doin’ what they could, but food was in short supply all over the country. Only thing that didn’t seem to be in short supply was wine. So, there was that.” He winked.

“We walked outta town for a few kilometers and came up to the most beautiful scene I think I’d ever seen, not includin’ seein’ your grandma of course. There was this field of beautiful golden sunflowers just wavin’ back and forth in the gentle breeze. We spread out this blanket and set out our few provisions and uncorked a bottle of wine. And sat there eatin’ and starin’ into each other’s eyes. It’s amazing what people can say to each other without words or even touching. But of course, we did some of that too.” Grandpa Stanley actually started to blush.

Tom nudged him with an elbow and gave him a wink.

“When we packed up our things. I went out into that field and gathered up this big bunch of them flowers and carried ‘em back to her house like they was a grand prize or somethin’.” He pantomimed carrying a bunch of flowers.

Tom’s face showed he could see the non-existent flowers.

“That was our first of many dates right up until they sent us back to the line. I got all her details and vowed I’d come back after the war. I swore to myself that I’d make it through the damn mess so I could be with her forever after.” Tears started to well up in his eyes.

Tom reached over and put an arm around his grandpa’s thin shoulders.

Late that afternoon, after they’d gone through most of the boxes in the barn and were washed up from the dust, his Grandpa Stanley asked, “Tommy, you think you could drive me in to town to see your grandma?” Hope was in his voice.

“You bet, sure thing. That sounds like a great idea.” Tom wanted to get home to his wife and family but hadn’t the heart to deny his grandpa such a small request.

On the way through town on the way to the memory care facility Wally Stanley asked, “Mind if we stop at the florist?” He pointed out where it was.

Coming out of the florist, Wally Stanley was carrying a dozen long-stemmed sunflowers.