Do you know your Neighbor

[danny76]

removed for being inflammatory

[texasmom]

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[Scherf]

There's an old dude lives a few doors away, used to fly Halifax bombers.

He's mid-90s now, still swims 30 minutes every morning, sharp as a tack.

[Someguy63]

I remember one time at an Old Country Buffet, after getting there with my family, we had not been there for 10 minutes, when a bus load of WW2, Korea, and Vietnam vets entered. It was amazing just seeing all of them walk past us, aware of all that they've been through. They were wearing those war veteran baseball caps, some had 'Mustang Pilot' 'Korean War-F86' 'Navy Veteran' and 'Marines, Pacific Theater' written all over them. We were actually sitting in their reserved area of the buffet, but it was fine with them. There was even a few that sat at our table. This was about 5 years ago, and I was too shy to try and talk with one of them, they were rather quiet, some friendly giving cheery "hello's" and such, some others just giving a nod in acknowledgement.

I wished I had talked to one of the P51 pilots that sat at our table, but sadly, I passed up the opportunity. It was probably the only chance I will get to speak to one of them, if only I had....

[danny76]

Sometimes you really don't know who your neighbours are. When I was a kid my friends Granddad was ex British army Sergeant Major, the Ox and Bucks regiment and served in both world wars. Shot down a plane once according to my friend. Across the road lived another friend's granddad who, whilst running violent protection rackets, killed civilians, including women and children, and shot unarmed guys in their cars on the way home from work in the name of fighting against the British army as part of the IRA in 1921. One of my Father's friends was an ex British paratrooper.

One day I was in the school playground playing with my model Spitfire. A middle aged man passed by outside the fence. He stopped and looked. 'That's a Spitfire' he said. 'Yes' I said backing off conscious that I shouldn't be talking to strangers. 'I used to fly those.' he said with a wistful look in his eyes as he walked away. Young as I was I realised the authenticity in his comments and wished I could think of something else to say to him. But the moment passed. A similar thing happened to my brother when he brought his Airfix model Mosquito to church. He told me later that a man saw it and told him he was a Mosquito navigator once.

They are mostly dead now. That is so sad. I wish I knew them better.


Fixed