Before my older-self marched for peace, my childhood-self marched in the Mineola Memorial Day parades of the 1960s. Our scout troop would assemble with all the other parade units, then we’d march up Mineola Boulevard, across Jericho Turnpike, and down Marcellus Avenue … ending at the park next to the public library where a large stone memorial bore the names of those who had died for us.

I remember wearing white gloves and stepping in time to the drums while impatiently waiting for my turn to carry the flag (and here I insert an image from another town on Long Island, but really, it could’ve been Anytown, USA) …

At the end of the parade route, we thrilled to hear the wailing fire engine sirens and the thundering gun salute. It was all so exciting, so why, I wondered, were the grownups always so somber?

Then we’d all walk home and have a cookout and that was that. Another year, another war, another plaque …

60 years on and nothing had changed as of 2019, only Covid having the power to to temporarily derail the march of time.

When I was 13 and no longer a scout, I wore a black armband and surely listened to Edwin Starr singing War on the radio … the original here … and later still, when rock videos became a thing, I must have watched this cover by Springsteen.

Seeing the graphic images at the beginning of the Springsteen video, I recall how my folks rarely watched the national news back in the day, saying they didn’t want to bring images of death into their home. These days, I can’t bear to stay in the room as the all-too-real images of death continue to spew off the screen, around the world and in the very streets of America.

There’s a lot of truth to Rachel Maddow’s saying, “watch what they do, not what they say.” I’ll believe this country is on the right track when we finally have true gun control, a national holiday celebrating the end of war, and a seat in the President’s cabinet dedicated to waging peace in the world.

Until then, I’ll mourn the war dead and honor the memory of those who believed in a cause greater than self.

And always I will wonder what might have been …

imagine if we the people had deployed armies of teachers and lawyers, doctors and nurses, construction workers and engineers, rather than soldiers …

imagine if we had fully funded the machinery of peace rather than the weapons of war …

imagine if we had vowed to be true builders of nations by killing the causes of terror with kindness rather than feeding the beast with terrors of our own making …

And then, I dare to imagine it’s still not too late to try …

Reading Jude’s blog post about leaving the stove on under the coffee brought to mind how I used to do that all the time … thereby ruining one Pyrex pot after another …

Thus it was that my mom bought me a yellow enamel pot at one of the many yard sales she went to …

I would still boil it dry at times, but at least it didn’t crack (until the day it actually melted down on an unattended burner, but that’s another story).

Anyway, in 1984, I was a semi-stay-at-home mom, having found a part-time job in the evenings at the William & Mary college library. Don would take our fire engine red Chevy Chevette to school to teach 6th grade during the day while I stayed home with Meg. When he got home, we’d eat a very early dinner and then I would head out to work from six to midnight.

One fateful morning, I once again turned on the burner under the coffee and forgot about it as I read a book to Meg. Well, maybe several books. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent I had turned on the wrong burner.

And here I have to back up to explain that we had a tabletop phone at the time …

which I used to keep on top of the microwave to keep toddler Meg from taking the receiver off the hook …

That, however, made it hard to dial, so I would put the phone down on the stove top when making a call.

That fateful morning, the burner I turned on to heat the coffee was actually the burner on which I had placed the phone. I discovered that fact after noticing the ash and smoke drifting into the living room from our one-and-only phone … which was in flames. With Meg on my hip, I ran across the street to use the neighbor’s phone and called 911.

Once the fire department got there, they did a great job of putting out the fire. But not before $2000 worth of smoke damage had occurred. What a mess.

You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson after that, but no, seeing as I did eventually melt down the enamel pot. At which point my mom got me a Mr Coffee. And all I’m gonna say about that is it’s a good thing they turn off automatically these days. Because, you know …