Hello in There

 Week Twenty: Hello in There

You know that old trees just grow stronger

And old rivers grow wilder every day

Old people just grow lonesome

Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello.”

So if you’re walking down the street sometime

And spot some hollow ancient eyes

Please don’t just pass them by and stare

As if you didn’t care, say, “Hello in there, hello.”

—John Prine, Hello in There, from the album John Prine

I have often said that you never really know to whom you are speaking. I mean that on several levels, but mostly I mean that until you bother to find out, you can’t be sure. It doesn’t really matter who either. From your favorite teacher to the guy who held the door for you, until you find out, you can’t know where that person has been, what that person has done, and why that person operates as he or she does. Here’s an example:

On a certain day not unlike many others, we decided to travel around town with the purpose of returning a number of things we bought in the past few weeks. We stopped at Kohl’s then moved on to Party City. Afterward we went to Hobby Lobby before making our last stop at Stein Mart. I didn’t exactly plan it this way, but I am so glad it worked out the way it did.

Deb walked from the hobby store while I found a parking space closer to the last stop of the day. By the time I got in the store she was in line to complete her return, so I stood near the door and waited. Seated near me was a gentleman who spoke briefly to his wife before she left him. I noticed that his ball cap indicated that he was a WWII veteran, so I leaned in from slightly behind him and said, “Sir, you don’t look old enough to have served in WWII.” He smiled and raised his hand indicating that I should shake it, which I did.

“How old do you think I am?” he asked. I guessed low several times before he told me his age. Some simple math and the knowledge that he landed on Omaha Beach on D Day, and I quickly realized that he was describing the 20 year-old version of the man in front of me.

He didn’t look at me as he talked, and for that I was thankful because he no sooner began describing the events of 7 June 1944 I felt a wave of emotion consuming me. He spoke slowly, as you might expect a 94 year-old to do. He recalled that “the Canadians were supposed to take out those bunkers, but they didn’t.” As if reconsidering what he had said, he added, “They couldn’t.”

He told me that his landing craft was hit and he estimated that 300 men were instantly killed. “I went into the water,” he said. “I only had my carbine. When I made it to the shore I got behind one of them iron things (aka Hedgehogs) they had all over the beach. I got up behind that thing, and do you know what I did?” he asked as he turned his head to look at me.

I managed to reply, “No sir, what did you do?”

“I cried.”

Again staring straight ahead he continued his story. “They murdered us with 90 calibers. I laid there, and I cried.” He repeated the details about the hedgehogs which were designed to impede landing crafts that made it that far, and he said, “I looked up to the sky and I said, ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ and I told Him, ‘I will never believe in you again.” 

I was silent. 

He continued, “I left the church that day, and I never went back.”

He told me that eventually he and the other fortunate ones took the beach and that he was directed to search what remained of the pillbox that had caused so much destruction. “They were all dead in there,” he told me. The details of his living memory included a story about his buddy starting to pull the boots off one of a dead German, and the sergeant ordering him to stop and cautioning them all about booby traps. Amidst this part of the story he recalled turning a dead man over. He asked, “Do you know what I found?” I shook my head. “He had a picture of his wife and two little children.” 

I could sense in him the anguish of what he had experienced. I sensed then and I’m convinced now that he lives with these horrific memories as constant companions, ones so easily shared with a perfect stranger.

At about that time Deb finished her transaction, and his wife returned to tell him that she would get the car. I thanked him for his service and shook his hand before Deb and I left. On the way to the car, I asked his wife if I might help him to the car. She declined the offer, but I insisted. “Thank you,” she said, that would be very nice.” I went back. By the time I got to the front door he was pushing it open. At 94 the door was a bit too heavy, and when I pulled it open he seemed surprised to see me.

“I’m going to walk you to the car. Would that be all right?” I asked. 

“So many of you young fellows want to help me,” he said.

“They ought to,” I said. “I hope you let them.” He took my arm and we moved very slowly toward the curb. “Was that your girlfriend?” I asked.

“That’s my wife,” he said adamantly.

“You go my man,” I said. “She’s not 94!”

“She’s 60,” he told me with a certain smile of accomplishment.

When we got to the car I told her I had asked him if she was his girlfriend. “What did he say?” she asked while smiling at me.

He interrupted, “I should of said, ‘One of them.’”

I closed the car door after I shook his hand and told him what a privilege it had been to meet him. He smiled and told me goodbye.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=VKoYHFVBpEA