Wilbur

Wilbur
I was down on the river shore at the benches near the spring that trickled into the salmon pool. The pool was filled with fishermen as usual. I was very young and I was listening to several of the old fellers that were on the bench.
Among these men was old Wilbur. He was a world war two veteran and he was usually quiet, but on this day, he took particular interest in me. Well, not so much me as my new baseball glove. He said “what-cha got there young feller…lets have a look.” I passed him my glove and my baseball that was tucked in the pocket of the mitt.
I have since heard many times that Wilbur was a great ball player in his younger day. The gleam in his eye when he held my ball and glove was that of a much younger man. Yet at the same time, his eyes always looked sad. Even when he was smiling, which was rare. But he was smiling as he gave me instruction on how to break my new glove in. I listened carefully and did exactly as he told me. That was many years ago and I still have the glove.
My Grandmothers house, when I was kid, was among the first as you came into town. I spent more time there than I did at my own house. Her back porch overlooked the world famous salmon pool on the Saint John River at Hartland. I can remember watching the fishermen from her porch. As many as one hundred or more fishermen lined the pool by times. The rule was take a couple of casts and then a step or two down river. Thus the line was always moving as the fishermen rotated through the pool. I can remember seeing three or four people with fish on at the same time.
Wilbur loved to fish salmon. I can still see him walking up the railroad tracks to the mouth of the Becaguimac Stream; that was usually where you would get in line to fish down through the pool. He always wore the same outfit, red and black chequered wool coat; hip waders always up and never rolled down like some folks wore them. His hat was rimmed all the way around and it was tan in color. Just above the rim, also all the way around, there was various salmon flies struck in the wool fluff that was made to hold hooks.
Wilbur was tall and thin and he never seemed to be in a hurry, yet his long strides would carry him along quickly. He never usually spoke of the war, most of the veterans didn’t, but what they did do was talk about the other feller when he wasn’t there, what they had gone through, where they had been and so on. So I got to learn a lot about each of these men in an indirect way. The other fellers always talked about the hell that Wilbur had gone through. As I got older, I often thought that’s why he always looked so sad and smiled very seldom. But then I also got to thinking, it might well be the memories that caused him a lot of pain, but it might have a lot to do with the way some people treated him too.
Wilbur lived alone and he liked to drink. Now some people didn’t like that. But I don’t guess they understood either. See to me, we all handle things differently. One feller might drink and another feller might not. It might depend on the fact that the feller that drinks might have seen more hell than the other feller. But I think it is just that we all handle things different.
Anyway, a lot of the high falutin folks in our town didn’t have many good things to say about Wilbur. I know he knew what they were saying. There are some that would say he didn’t care. But I think he did. I think from listening to him talk to some other old veterans, he couldn’t understand how come folks were so quick to forget what he and many others had done and sacrificed for them that now were so quick to judge. I think the only thing that Wilbur and many like him wanted, was a little bit of respect and thankfulness. Unless they were around their own kind, they seldom got the respect they deserved.
It often strikes me that we are very good at remembering one day of the year. After Remembrance Day is over, it is often not thought of again until the next year. But I think these men and women deserve much more than one day a year.
Often I have tried to imagine what these brave men and women felt like. I know no matter what I imagine, it can never even scratch the surface as to the real thing. Yet, by trying to imagine, I feel as though I am closer to understanding. Watching so many of your young friends die. Seeing some others become handicapped. Hearing the constant sound of bombs and gun fire for hours at a time. Helping to carry dead bodies and wounded from the field. Freezing cold and being soaked to the hide with not only water but mud too, for days on end. Seeing the country side first hand and the people first hand after their homes had been blown to bits or burned.
What it must be like to walk among the dead and perhaps crawl among the bodies or lay there for hours. To see the children left on their own and some dead or maimed. Just one horror after another. All the time wondering if you are going to make it through or not, and if you do, why you and not some of your buddies. Being taught from day one to take lives and be very aggressive about it, then going out and doing it. Then when it is over, just stop.
The only thing I have for these folks is respect. And if they drink, well…to me…that means nothing. So many men and women gave their lives for people that soon forget. So many like Wilbur made it through to live with the horror the rest of their life for so many that took and take them for granted.
All one has to do is read a bit of the history and you soon learn that this world could have been much different today than it is. It was close, very close. I say that we owe these people a lot more and lot better than ridicule for having a drink.
So many that are so quick to label another a bum or a drunk; I wonder if they had to look into the eyes of another person as they died, knowing it was their bayonet that caused the person to die, would they then be so quick to judge?
Wilbur had heard all the comments and he knew what folks thought. And it hurt him, deeper than we will ever know.
I can tell you he was a proud man, as well he should have been. He once taped a nickel to the corner of a picture of the Queen; he said to pay for the person who set beneath her. When Wilbur set down to play cards he always set under the Queen, and he shuffled his feet the entire time he set there. In fact when I first started going to the Legion, Wilbur was gone by then. But where he sat the floor was wore thin from his feet shuffling back and forth.
I wonder how many people will remember him or know of him in the future? I wonder how many will remember or know of any of the veterans in the future?
I think it needs to be taught in the schools more than ever. I think we should never ever let their memories die and fade away.
There are so many folks out there that could write so much more about folks like Wilbur. Why I wonder, does no one ever do it? They have no trouble writing about some well to do veteran, some one they say is worth writing about. To me they are all worth writing about. Every single one of them has a story and it should be told and retold. Their sacrifice was for us and we need to pay better attention to their memory and to those that are still with us.
I think of an innocent young man one day playing baseball and having his entire life in front of him, and the next day his innocence is lost to the horror of war. What a sacrifice.
To so some Wilbur might have been an old bum and a drunk. To me he was a true hero, a man I will never forget. A man I will do my best to honour by remembering him.
Monday, July 26, 2010
RL Tex Smith