Listening at the Fountain of Knowledge
The fountain of knowledge is all around us. It lies within the eyes and wrinkles of that old man wearing a WWII Veteran baseball cap, and the grandmother crossing the street with her cane and bag of groceries. Knowledge lies in the group of old codgers who meet every Thursday morning at the bakery to talk about the good old days.
I can usually be found sitting right among them, my black hair a shock among the among the sea of snow white. Each man has a different story, colorful and unique all his own. There’s Van, the most fair and just man I have ever met. Serving in a field artillery battalion in Europe during WWII. He raised 5 girls, loved his wife Pearl for setting him straight and saving his life after he came back from the war. He had this quiet manner, even when he received the Legion of Honor from France he was humbling. “Never stop, if you feel what you’re doing is right, just and you can live on it, be gung ho. Be Gung Ho.” These are the words from the last conversation we had before Van passed away in July of 2015.
Marty, the most gentle Brooklynite to ever get wounded three times in 12 days in Europe during World War II. A member of the Knothole Club, a man of such supreme propriety and piety he doesn’t need to speak, just a glance tells his story. His subtle joking manner and trademark sideways glance speaks to the playfulness that still exists behind those wizened blue eyes. “There will always be people in youwah life, no matter the facet, who will try to drag you down, who have absolutely nothin’ bettah to do than to make you feel bad about yourself. Never give intuh them.”
These pow-wows happen once a week, but throughout the week I volunteer a couple of hours here and there at a local retirement community. That, is like walking into a newsroom at the AP. The whirr of a an electric scooter whizzing by provides the perfect background music for the montage that is that 90 year old’s life.
Among the whiz-bang action is Viola, at age 94 she is the most demure and unassuming woman I have met. Always dressed her best and having the most matronly warm smile on her face. She usually sits in the hall, under the shadow box I made to honor her first husband Staff Sergeant Roy M. Saldin, who was lost when his B-17 bomber. went down over the Mediterranean Ocean on 20, January 1944. “ I remember sitting in that little house when I got the news, I stayed there for a year waiting to hear if they had recovered his remains. But in the end what choice did I have but to go on and live, if not for me but for my daughter. Life had to go on, no matter how I felt, because it had to get better.” Viola remarried and had 2 more girls, she is serenely happy.
One person who stands a head above the rest is Merrie, at 93 all 5 feet and 10 inches of her walking with a pride and swagger that even 25 year olds can’t muster. Merrie was born in Pittsburgh, PA, a foster child during the Great Depression, at her prom there were no boys present because they had all left to fight the war. During WWII she served as a hostess at the Stage Door Canteen in New York City serving in her own special kind of combat, fighting off servicemen with a stick! She also could belt out some songs on occasion. After the war she was a. “Powers Girl” for a few months, under the John Robert Powers Modeling Agency. She lived in the Barbizon Hotel for Women, during the mid 1940s through to the 1950s. In 1948, at the age of 26, she became Banquet. Manager of the Roosevelt Hotel, the Astor and finally the Shellborne “That girl is a positive whizz!” said one of her employers. “Look at me, a foster child, never went to college, and I managed to break into the hotel business, being only 1 of 3 girls in the entire city of New York to do so, at the time. I was notable, not only for my looks, but for my brains.”
Taken all together, these words of wisdom taken from hundreds of years of life, love and loss culminate into a pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel. For a lot of people this is hope, for me each and every one of them is who I want to be. All these people lived lives so different, and yet they all speak from the same vein, do not be a victim of circumstance, persevere. These people survived the worst economic depression of the 20th century only to fight and die in a war thousands of miles from home. They are a generation of strength, that as a young person, I find peace in knowing that these people had to endure the worst of humanity to exemplify the best of it. Ask Questions. Save History. Witness History.
