As promised...I'll bet you were checking every day since I mentioned they were coming....some pictures of the Red Hat Society parade in downtown
Englewood. Every year the parade gets bigger...this year I would guess that they numbered in the hundreds...they have a great time meeting and greeting each other. Then they spend part of the day wandering the shops here on
Dearborn Street and most stop for lunch at one of the local eateries. If your favorite thing is watching old ladies, or should I say "mature women"
(you have to be at least 50 to join), cavort, dance and sing and your favorite colors are red and purple this is your kind of parade. I'm still not sure what the purpose of the society is..but if its to have a good time...they have achieved it.
Here is a copy of the great article that Don Moore of the
Englewood Sun published in the Sun-Herald on Monday the 30
th...it's hard to be humble when someone compares your writing to O. Henry...Wow...Thanks Don...
'I felt a deep sense of loss having taken another man's life'
It's a paperback called "Monk's War, Volume 1 First Blood" containing nine little war stories written by a Marine grunt who served most of his 1966 tour in Vietnam before being sent stateside with a Purple Heart in his seabag.
The stories are three- and four-page vignettes of how it was serving as a teenage leatherneck on the frontlines in "the only war America has lost so far (history hasn't made its final judgment on Iraq)," Frank Beyea writes in the introduction to his 78-page book. The Englewood writer joined the Marines right out of high school, looking for adventure -- something more exciting than life around Canandaigua, N.Y., where he grew up.
Frank was in the last Marine battalion to go by ship to Vietnam. He went ashore as a member of the 5th Marine Division, but over there he became part of the 1st Marine Division.
"I spent most of my time around Da Nang and Chu Lai in the I-Corps Area," he explained. "We were the guys who went out to a village and did pacification. We'd spend a few weeks living with the locals and try and win them over and then move on.
"We'd do ambushes at night and search-and-destroy missions during the day. But part of our daytime stuff was going into a village and talking to people and try and help them out. We'd bring the corpsman in to work on anyone in the village that needed medical assistance," Frank said.
Chapter one begins: "I watched in horror as four friends and fellow Marines were blown to hell by an overhead air burst of our own artillery. Christ, for the last 10 minutes I had been scared ... during the first firefight our squad had fought since arriving in country. We were in a battle for our lives with a half dozen Viet Cong who had jumped us as we crossed a wide open rice paddy on our way to patrol a nearby village."
In the middle of his baptism by fire, he was ordered by his platoon leader to shoot an old man 100 yards in front of him who was running away from the firefight. Frank did as ordered, but not without a lot of split-second soul searching.
"...we moved forward to check out my 'kill' and look for weapons. As I examined the body one of the other guys yelled over to me that he had found an AK-47 (rifle) and some ammo hidden under some bushes and cardboard from where the old man had fled. He was a VC!
"Knowing he was the enemy did nothing to relieve the deep sense of loss I felt at having taken another man's life. I mourned for him, my dead friends and my lost innocence as I turned him over to see if we could find some ID that would help us find his family.
"Queasy for the last 20 minutes, I finally hurled the contents of my stomach onto the path as I discovered that the end result of the 7.62 mm, M-14 round in the back of his head was a man with no face."
Frank's stories have punchlines at the end. If he had been writing a century ago, his stories might have been likened to O. Henry, a prolific short-story writer known for his clever endings.
This book is the first of a trilogy of war books written by Frank Beyea, who spends eight months of each year in Englewood. "Monk's War" is published by Southfarm Press of Middletown, Conn. It's available at Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com for $9.95.
Contact me
If you're a vet with a story or you have a friend who has a tale to tell about his part in any war or veterans' activity, give Don Moore a call at (941) 681-3000, or 1 (877) 827-6204. You can also e-mail: moore@sun-herald.com, or fax: (941) 681-3008. To send a letter, write: Englewood Sun, 167 W. Dearborn St., Englewood, FL 34223.
Well Kyle has headed back to New York....His friend Galen had left just a few days ago to go to school in New York.....it was a bit of a surprise because Kyle had finally made up his mind to stay in Florida after some serious thoughts about moving to Wyoming to be with all his friends that he met while in the Air Force and stationed in Cheyenne...we thought that after careful consideration..his mind was made up on to stay on in sunny Florida...but wiser minds agreed that if he stayed here his education at the local community college would cost thousands of dollars more than it would in New York where he is a resident....His loving brother Ryan and Grandfather are seeing to it that he gets a proper education and a direction in life...they have taken him under their wing and hopefully will nudge or perhaps shove him in the right direction...of course if all else fails good old Dad may have to give him a kick in the ass...but we'll see....in the mean time he will be more than welcome to stay at my house on the lake with me this summer...while he figures out where life is going to take him.
I'll bet Galen and Kyle can't stay away long...they were talking about coming back down for a visit in August to see Lisa and of course Molly the dog he had to leave behind with Lisa....
Til next time...
Semper Fi..
Monk
I thought I would give you a treat and give you a tour of my mansion by the sea....Or I should say my cottage by the lake....its a mansion to me and that's all that matters....I was born and raised in Canandaigua and I always told any body that would listen that someday I would have a home on the lake....its not fancy but its mine and perfect for a bachelor fisherman...I thank God every day for my little house on the lake.....and I thank him for one more thing that people on the posher more upscale west side of the lake can't get....it can't be bought over there on the west side for any price....those fantastic sunsets........who the hell gets up early enough to see fantastic sun rises...give me those sunsets anytime....
My place still has knotty pine walls and a wood pegged floor and is full of things that fisherman accumulate...not to mention full of pleasant memories every time I look around at all the stuff I have collected over the years....things that help me remember the comings and goings of a busy life with six children and all the happy times that can bring.....after all you don't collect things that bring back bad memories....how can anyone remember bad times when there are so many good things to put a smile on your face...
