A Few Good Men

On Friday Kevin and I drove to Freeport to spend some time with his mom, and we also briefly met up with her friend Russ, Kev's aunt Jeannette, my dad, and two of his friends. Since my MIL is the youngest of them all at 78, we affectionately refer to this as the senior tour. The main reason we made the trip was to attend the concert given by the "President's Own", the Marine Corps Band. The music was just beautiful. Of course Sousa was heavily represented in the program, but they also played works by Stephen Sondheim, John Williams, and several composers whose names I don't remember. Very interesting and lovely music. The final Sousa number was Stars and Stripes Forever, which I cannot listen to without crying. Seriously, can anyone? Something about the piccolos, and then that final section where it slows down a bit and all the instruments come in...I'm getting teary now just thinking about it.

On Saturday, that sunny, unseasonably warm morning, Kevin, Betty and I visited the new Veterans Memorial Park in Freeport. Betty had done a sweet thing - she bought a brick honoring/memorializing Kevin and his dad. In addition, Frank E. is listed on the granite wall honoring WWII veterans. Frank went off to war when he was 19. I'm sure he was mature, having lost his own dad when he was twelve and being the "man" of the family since then, but...NINETEEN! We expect the most heroic kind of behavior from these young boys by sending them off to deal with life and death, but they can't even legally drink. Anyway...happily, he came back from Iwo Jima, met Betty at church, and the rest is history.

Here are a few pictures from the Veterans Park, showing a little slice of US history, and our story.