Veteran's day speaker who remembers 1918
Nov 12, 2014 14:36:50 GMT -5
Marci, ride4fun, and 1 more like this
Post by Jenni on Nov 12, 2014 14:36:50 GMT -5
Our veteran's day program was delayed from yesterday to today because of weather. Our guest speaker was a local guy who grew up about 20 minutes from our school and was born in 1912 - he will be 103 in January and still drives a car and golfs regularly.
He spoke told the story of what happened in his little town on November 11, 1918. He was a 6 year old boy at the time. His dad's job was to collect the cream from the local farms and take it into town to be made into butter. On that morning he was part of the way through his route when a woman came running out of the house waving a flag and told him that World War I was over and the soldier's were coming home. His dad finished his route and came home and rounded up the family to go "uptown" to see what was going on. The could hear the church bells ringing and when they got to town a crowd had gathered and they had made a scarecrow to look like the kaiser. They hung the "kaiser" up in the town square and shot it full of holes and then dragged it up and down the road a few times. Then everybody celebrated well into the night. I am still in awe that we have someone in our midst who was actually there for the first "veterans day". He was also a WWII vet who spent 5 years in the armed forces at that time. I don't think the kids fully appreciated how amazing and special it was to listen to this guy recount his story but all of the adults in the room were amazed.
He spoke told the story of what happened in his little town on November 11, 1918. He was a 6 year old boy at the time. His dad's job was to collect the cream from the local farms and take it into town to be made into butter. On that morning he was part of the way through his route when a woman came running out of the house waving a flag and told him that World War I was over and the soldier's were coming home. His dad finished his route and came home and rounded up the family to go "uptown" to see what was going on. The could hear the church bells ringing and when they got to town a crowd had gathered and they had made a scarecrow to look like the kaiser. They hung the "kaiser" up in the town square and shot it full of holes and then dragged it up and down the road a few times. Then everybody celebrated well into the night. I am still in awe that we have someone in our midst who was actually there for the first "veterans day". He was also a WWII vet who spent 5 years in the armed forces at that time. I don't think the kids fully appreciated how amazing and special it was to listen to this guy recount his story but all of the adults in the room were amazed.
