By Harold Rodenberger
I’m writing this update from the east coast of our amazing country, where my wife, Ikuko, and I are visiting our younger son and his wife in North Carolina.
For those of you who travel, it’s no secret, but it always reassures me to travel to widely separated parts of our country and our world and observe yet again that people are pretty much the same wherever they live.
Here in Durham, there are friendly faces, distracted faces and faces racked by some private pain. There are young people, and those not so young, walking along oblivious to their surroundings while absorbed in private communication on their handheld device. As we approached a store yesterday, a gentleman smiled and held the door for my wife and me. He didn’t ask our political party, religion or economic status, he was simply one human being courteous to others.
Sometimes in our world of instant news, alarmist headlines and finger pointing journalism where people are put into buckets labeled “Democrat, Republican; Jew, Gentile; rich, poor; Northerner, Southerner; good, bad,” I need to be reminded that people are people no matter external conditions.
All of this reminds me that the people in our own post and auxiliary are great people. We come from different walks of life, have different occupations, ages and beliefs and we have fought in or supported loved ones who have fought in different wars, yet we all have joined in the goals of the VFW to support our troops, help those who have served and to further patriotism and community service.
Just as when I travel, I’m reassured by people right here in our post who, despite surface differences, are uniformly friendly and willing to help. This month I’d like to choose two out of the many and thank Kay and Russ Seelig for all they do to help our post.
Five or six years ago we were introduced to Kay’s famous spaghetti at a fund raiser put on for service dogs. Russ beat the bushes for supporters and Kay cooked. It was very successful and with the help of other post members, raised over five thousand dollars for a worthy cause. Since then they have been instrumental in putting on more fund raisers and for the past few months have been putting on the dinners at our post socials.
For those of you who are not regular attendees at our socials, the menus are enticing and the camaraderie embracing so plan to attend and enjoy a night out with friends right here at our post social. Speaking of socials and spaghetti, again this month, by popular request, we’ll have Kay’s spaghetti.
Flag Day is June 14. Remember to fly your flag. We’ll have a flag retirement ceremony in the post parking lot at noon.
We’ll be leaving NC soon to head back home. I will remember the storefront gentleman for his courtesy and thank the rest of the NC people we’ve met for their reminder that down deep we are all the same.
Thanks to each one of you for being in our post. With your help our post is making good headway in our mission to help members, veterans, their families and our community.
