Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, October 22
A tuff day, no two ways about it.
We sent Wayne to his grave today with a first-class funeral…Actually, we were part of – a big part of – the funeral service his pastor put on…At least I think it was his pastor…I don’t really know…The Wife and I have gone to his church once or twice over the years…It’s one of those non-denominational churches where everyone wears their pajamas to services…If your jeans are clean your overdressed.
Anyway, Tony, who commands the VFW post, and I marched in carrying his urn and our nation’s colors and we shared a reading…I ended my portion by saying Wayne was a veteran’s veteran and I admired him…Then Tony gave commands for the firing squad and flag squad to render appropriate honors and we presented the flag to Wayne’s mother of all things, still hale and hearty at 95.
That’s gotta blow, outliving your kids…Actually, I know it blows seeing what mom went thru when my brother died.
Anyway, it was a beautiful day and there was a nice crowd, probably couple hundred or so and at the end we stood in line and filed thru and we each tossed a small amount of dirt on the urn…Two of his kids had placed it in the ground and if you don’t think that’s moving you’ve got another thing coming.
Afterward, a lot of us gathered at the VFW post/bar…Wayne was an officer of the VFW post and Tony and I led the toast…The Wife came by after her shift at the retailer, too, and we spent no small amount of time talking to Ron and Sharon…Ron and Sharon grow hay just outside of our small town and Ron is a member of the small town post, tho he has cut down his involvement somewhat the past year or so…Sharon is trying to get The Wife to sign up for the small town post’s auxiliary and Ron grilled me on some issues.
Also happened to run into Dave and his wife Candy…Dave is a post member, he wasn’t at the funeral but I was out back getting some air and he and Candy happened to drive by…We talked about our post baseball team, which didn’t have much of a season…In fact, there wasn’t even a Commander’s Award for me to pass out…I am not entirely sure what the deal is, except some parents aren’t happy with Coach Rusty because boy, he sure works the kids awfully hard…They parents were so up in arms Coach Rusty said screw it and sat the year out, preferring to be in his native Texas watching a granddaughter play softball…Evidently, a lot of kids weren’t happy with the replacement coach, either.
Well, I’ve said this before, Rusty has my full support…I don’t know what in the hell is going to happen…Dave and Candy are heading south for the winter here in a bit, but I think I will call Rusty and see what the deal is here in the next couple of weeks…A lot of it has to do with drama with the high school baseball team, which I tend to ignore…I don’t understand this…It’s ski country up here and baseball is the 30th most popular sport, right behind snowboard cribbage…There should be zero drama, but there appears to be a lot.
Got quite a bit of feedback from some of the guys about my candidacy, too…They had read my Op-Ed and Q&A in the local paper…Most, but not all, said I had earned their vote…A couple of malcontents were honest enough to say they were staunch Republicans so I made a mental note to have the IRS mess with them after I’m elected.
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th century British novel of the same name.
