The World War II History is not Old, After All.

I figure about 30-40 percent of myself died with Carl Ralph Bonde, Jr. when the SS Leopoldville was sunk by the torpedo in the English Channel near Cherbourg, France. What remains? A hodgepodge of Kodak folding cameras, shotgun shell collection, old radio sets, army overcoats, old photographs, a few guns, memories of my grandparents’ home in Kalispell, his buddies in Sarasota, Florida. I’m thinking about a childhood chasing imaginary Germans to shoot them dead. We knew that a neighbor was German, so we taunted her whenever we thought about it. Also whenever she came outdoors. Once she came out and I thought she said something against my mother, so I proudly attacked. True. I remember the redness of some blood as the crying person fled. On the other hand, maybe it never happened.