4th of July on the South End
We got our fair share of veterans down here, heroes of the wars, past and present, maybe too many wars, you ask me, but nothing anybody should voice too loudly any particular night at the VFW Hall. Patriotism means a lot of things to every person, but most of the veterans I know pretty much believe they got the patent on it. Maybe they do. After all, they marched into the fray and a lot of their buddies didn’t march back out. You don’t question the loyalty of these vets, not ever, and you don’t doubt their patriotism.
The other night some of the boyz were waxing nostalgic over a bottle of some privatized CostCo single malt Baghdad Bill had brought to the Marina and Bait Shop for the usual Friday night poker game. Two Toke was there, and Big Larry too after closing up the grill at the Diner, plus me and a few other draft dodging, student deferred, anti-war types, and what with the 4th rolling right up and the fireworks stands about to set up red white and blue bunting to sell incendiaries legally, we naturally gravitated to holiday talk and that led to Independence Day, not just here but for Iraqis and Egyptians and Afghan women, and that got us going on wars, good and bad, won and lost. Two Toke was about one toke — or at least one shot glass — over the line when he started musing about Viet Nam. Two Toke was there during the Tet Offensive. He lost most of his unit and a part of a knee there. He doesn’t have one good word to say about that war, and really, none about any since. I guess he earned the right. Bill was in Iraq. He argues with T.T., but it’s like arguing with a Stanwoodopolite whether they’d like to be annexed into Camano Island. You’re just asking for some vicious yelling.
Big Larry served in Korea, meaning, we got about all the wars covered since WWII. Except maybe Granada. Okay, Panama and Bosnia too. Some nights we even have Jimmy Z sit in for a hand or two and he was in on the tail end of the Big One, kind of the grand old soldier, and when Jimmy’s sitting in, not even Two Toke questions the point of the latest wars. Jimmy, though, doesn’t talk much about his two years in the Pacific theater, which took him through Iwo Jima and some nasty business on the beach and then back in the jungle.
Two Toke was wondering aloud if the Revolutionary War was fought so we could just march back over to some foreign country and make life hell for somebody else while Big Larry and Bill were starting to take swigs with every one of Tom’s verbal shots. I might’ve let them duke it out if it wasn’t for the fact that I had 3 kings over a couple of jacks and the pot was by far the fattest it had been all night.
Boyz boyz boyz, I said, trying to sound like the cool head I never am. Let’s agree to, you know, not agree. But hellfire, we’re all in this together, aren’t we? We got food to eat, a bottle to finish, we got friends and family, some of us got jobs, we got the great good luck to be born here and not in Smokey Point, let’s just be a little thankful, shall we? 4th of July is coming and we can all at least be glad we’re sitting here in the Land of the Brave Home of the Free.
Course, that set Larry off, fuming over mangled quotations, and before I could get my bets down, the Marina was its own 4th of July, fireworks ablaze. I don’t know who won the argument by the end. I know this: one of us lost a plump pot while he held a winning hand. Poker, I guess, is a little too much like war. But we’ll all be at the table next Friday night. Probably fight about privatizing liquor.
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Tags: Independence Day