Friday, October 08, 2004

Kristi Sees Dead People!

I had originally intended to put only stories about retirement life or about my work experiences on this blog but, what the heck, I am going to put some family stories on here now and again for your enjoyment.

My wife (Mrs. Ex-Fed) and I have a lovely daughter named Kristi and she is an absolute joy to us. She is a college student at a university that will remain anonymous.

Mrs. Ex-Fed's family lives in Iowa and we visited them a couple of years ago with Kristi so she could connect to her family roots. The family is in a tiny town in Northeast Iowa and there is absolutely nothing to do there except to visit with family - and that gets old after the first 24 hours. The in-laws are wonderful people and are always so gracious to us when we visit and we do things in the evening like play card games and board games. Sounds like Middle America, doesn't it?

I was looking in the area newspaper (the town is so small that they have a single newspaper for the surrounding communities) and noticed an auction was to take place on that morning at 11 a.m. I asked Mrs. Ex-Fed if she would like to get out of the house (escape was more of the proper term) and go with me to the auction. Kristi was in the den with her Nana. We told Grandpa that we were going to be gone for a couple of hours and we escaped the house without telling Kristi we were leaving. Hey, she was 17 and could suck it up for a while on her own.

The auction was typical of something small-town and household goods were being auctioned off at high prices for what you got. There were truly no bargains to be had - but it was fun to see and mingle with other bargain hunters. After a couple of hours at the auction, we stopped at a cafe for a Maid-rite and a bottle of "pop". For those of you that are not from Iowa, a Maid-rite is the local version of a Sloppy Joe and the "pop" is, of course, the Midwest term for soda. We then took a leisurely drive back to the in-law's house.

Kristi came up to us when we came in the door and whispered, "You owe me big time for deserting me!" It seems that her Nana entertained Kristi with all of her photo albums of funerals of her relatives. Now, to make this even better, Nana is Mrs. Ex-Fed's step-mother and the relatives were all hers and none of our families relatives. Kristi had spent around 2 hours looking at scrapbooks of funeral flower arrangements, wakes, and even of the dearly departed in their caskets. To me and to Mrs. Ex-Fed, this made our auction jaunt even more enjoyable. I am sure all parents of teenagers would agree that it is great fun to "zing" it to the kids once in a while.

I also enjoyed seeing the miles and miles of corn fields out in Iowa. Literally, you can see corn fields to the horizon. It was a lot of fun, while driving the roads in Iowa with Kristi, to exclaim every now and then, "Look, Kristi, it's corn!" She seemed to get annoyed at my saying that after about the 12th time - I don't know why.

As I said earlier, Kristi is a lot of fun to have around and she is a great daughter.

posted by Ex-Fed @ 11:41 AM 0 comments

Monday, October 04, 2004

Ben the Survivor

There are some fellow employees that I miss more than others. Ben is one of the people. Sadly, Ben passed away a few years ago and the world lost a great person but Heaven gained a very interesting soul.

Ben was a survivor. No, he was not on the Survivor television show but actually survived the Bataan Death March during World War II. Ben was an Army officer during World War II and was unfortunate enough to be stationed on the island of Bataan in the Pacific combat theater. The Allied soldiers (American, Brits,and Aussies) basically ran out of all provisions such as potable water, food, and ammunition. "Dug Out Doug" surrendered Bataan and the Allied forces to the Japanese forces. Now for all of you college kids, "Dug Out Doug" refers to General Douglas MacArthur. He surrendered the Allied forces as soon as he was safe and sound in Australia. The Japanese soldiers had no plans to treat the Allied soldiers in a humane manner as it is the Japanese mentality that surrender is cowardly and that all soldiers should fight to the death. The Allied forces were forced to march across Bataan to the prison camp. A huge percentage died due to thirst, their wounds, and being bayonetted by the Japanese. Ben survived the Death March and also survived two years of living hell in a Japanese prison camp.

Ben was a crusty old dude but was very likeable once you got to know him. We also had another supervisor in the section named Nancy. She, like Ben, was a WWII veteran but Nancy had been a Marine officer. Naturally, she was not a combat soldier but was an officer in charge of a women's basic training camp in South Carolina during the war. Nancy was not a person to mess around with! She and Ben had a mutual dislike for each other and it showed every day. Nancy retired from the Agency in 1976 and moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida. Ben wrote, "Good riddance and it is about time you left" on her retirement card. Ben retired from the Agency in 1977 and moved to ... Port St. Lucie, Florida. No one thought anything of it at the Agency.

About 4 years later, one of Ben's former staff members was in Port St. Lucie after completing a site audit in Miami. Karen knew Ben's address and decided to make a spur of the moment unannounced visit early one Sunday morning. According to Karen, it was hard to tell who was the most surprised when Nancy answered the door of Ben's house. Nancy was wearing only her bathrobe and then Ben came to the door in his robe. After all initial shocks wore off, they invited Karen in for coffee and explained the situation. Ben explained that his wife had passed away two years earlier and that Nancy had shown up at the funeral after seeing the death notice in the local paper. They began talking and one thing led to another and from companionship to friendship and now they were sharing ... everything.

Ben has passed on and Nancy followed a short time after that. They found friendship in retirement. Retirement brings wonderful things!

posted by Ex-Fed @ 11:40 PM 0 comments

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