Over the weekend the hubster and I went to Muncie to visit with the widow of a good friend of his fathers. The hubsters father and this man had served in WWII together and had been on two ships together that sunk. They were in most of the famous Naval battles in the South Pacific. Their stories are fascinating and we can’t get enough. Sadly both men are long gone but we are determined that their sacrifice will not be forgotten. I digress once again though. When we were making plans to drive up to Muncie Charlotte (the widow) told not to ruin our appetites because she was making snacks. Now I’m Johnny on the spot when you mention snacks, so that was great by me. Diet be damned. I should have known better. The “snacks” turned out to be a small cereal bowl of stale popcorn that Charlotte had, which she stuck in the microwave for several minutes to warm up. It burnt to a crisp but she didn’t seem to notice the black chunks of charcoaled popcorn and served it anyway. She spilt a midget can of coke between the hubster and I so once it was spilt between the two glasses we had a whopping 3 tablespoons of liquid each. We needed every drop of that liquid to wash down the charcoal bits of popcorn. I’m just glad she didn’t cook dinner for us!

Charlotte showed us some poems her dearly departed husband had written. Who would have thought that this WWII sailor would be a poet? And after WWII when he came home and started farming he continued his poetry. One of the poems was sent in lieu of a letter to his son who was in the Army at the time and stationed in Germany in 1969. He put all of the news from home in poetry. It was so cool. He referenced the song Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds several times. Apparently that was one of his favorite songs at the time. These WWII Navy guys really surprise me. Every time you thing you have them pegged you find out something else remarkable about them. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing the stories about them, and every time I hear the song Turn, Turn, Turn I will think of John Penrod now. I wish I could have known him.