Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, April 10
Presided over my penultimate meeting of my Legion post tonight…I decided that four terms are enough and announced at the last meeting that ol’ Sparrow will not be running for yet another term as commander…When I was first elected commander pretty much anyone who wanted to be commander had been commander and the joke I was signing on for a life term, but I am pleased to report that is no longer the case…Our post has done a very good job of getting new members and Senior Vice Commander Natalie is ready to take over and while I could probably have the job as long as I wanted it, there is no reason to stifle future leaders.
About 4pm or so Adjutant Jim gives me a call…I had just woken up and was sitting at my desk, with coffee, farting around online and Jim asks if I could get the post an hour or so early because he was having what he termed a “cow incident” at the ranch…While I preside over meetings Jim is responsible for the agenda and usually does most of the talking and he had some things for me in case he couldn’t make it…He said he was heading to the Post to drop them off while he waited for the vet to come out to the ranch…As it turned out, Jim made it right as the meeting started…Later he would say one of his cows was giving birth and the calf was coming out backwards…I know some pig farmers here and when that happens to them they reported they just reach right on up, grab some groceries, turn it around and wheel the little piggie out but evidently, you can’t do that with cows.
It was a fairly short meeting but we did get some work in on our Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery…We do this very well – if you listen closely you can always here some weeping – and we are pretty well set on what we are going to do.
Some might recall that a couple of years ago we passed out flags to widows of veterans who died the previous year…I still remember me and VFW Commander Tony passing these out in a very moving ceremony…It was as useful a thing as I’ve ever done and I well remember it…Everything was in sharp focus, commonplace objects were significantly refined, a sensation that doesn’t come around all that often…Last year we had a riderless horse that more or less behaved and boy, that was moving, too.
This year we could find no reason not to do both…There are five veterans who have died recently and the riderless horse is available and we are even throwing in a drummer to drum out cadence for us.
I so enjoyed distributing flags I announced that because this will be my last Memorial Day as commander I will be part of the flag distribution regardless of whatever other duties I may have…Last year I was a sentry in the changing of the guard ceremony, mainly because I can still fit into my uniform and I also announced if I do that again provisions must be made to accommodate me issuing flags…I don’t normally treat the post to raw displays of my power like this, but I feel strongly about this.
My final meeting as commander will be next month when I preside over elections…Our installation ceremony will be in June, so I guess I will preside over that, too, at least until the new commander is sworn in.
I know I declared winter over last week, but I am still wearing my quilted pants…It’s still below freezing at night and they’re pretty comfortable pants and I’ve seen no reason to change them yet…For things like this you gotta trust your instincts…Last week I wore a pair of the Dickies I wear when it warms up and while it’s not that cold it still felt funny so I only wore them that once…The quilted pants will let me know when it’s time to put them away for the season.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 8:30 Tuesday morning until 3:30 Tuesday afternoon…Seven hours, not too bad and it might even be a little more than that because I was home well before 8am and crawled right into bed and did a little reading but not too much so the exact total might be seven hours and 15 minutes but the official tally in the Sparrow Sleep Log Book (SSLB) is still going to be seven hours.
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was, and remains, inspired by the 18th century British novel of the same name.
