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American Legion Blues
by
Harry Buschman
From The Westlake Village Collection.
From the bus stop at the top of the hill where Westwood Avenue and Hillside
Street intersect you can see most of our town. A commanding view, one that
Napoleon might have chosen to watch his troops retreat from Moscow.
A few benches have been set in the concrete sidewalk at the top of the hill
for the benefit of people waiting for buses. Old folks sit there in the summer
and air out their aches and pains, talk about Westlake Village, and how much
better yesterday was than today. Their areas of agreement are few, but all of
them accept the premise that the Village is not the town it used to be. It
would be strange if it were, for it has passed from wilderness and countryside
to
suburb and political gerrymandering. We really come up here to get away from
home and enjoy the pleasure of our own company. If our presence denies the
paying bus customers a seat, too bad -- They'll have to stand on the buss too,
that's the way it goes.
The view deludes some Westlake Villagers into thinking they are surrounded by
a distant range of low hills. It lulls them into a false sense of security;
as though by some Divine Intervention we have been chosen to be protected from
invaders. The bitter truth is that the entire village has sunk below the level
of the surrounding countryside, as though something vital had been snatched
out from under us. If such is the case, it proves the uncertain future of life
here in Westlake Village, for should our Maker choose to pull the rug out from
under us again we might well disappear entirely.
Enough of these dark thoughts. We occupy these benches today in the
expectation of the Memorial Day parade. The crowd has begun to gather in the
warm
spring sunshine, wives proudly push their cranky children in wicker strollers.
Chinese made American flags are everywhere. Husbands and fully charged
camcorders
are at the ready, prepared to photograph their little league sons and pompom
daughters when the parade passes by. The out-of-shape American Legionnaires in
steel bifocals are nattily attired in their double-knit American Legion Blues.
They carry highly polished World War I Springfield rifles. They do not look
the way survivors of a tragic war should look, they resemble the toy army in
Victor Herbert's "March of the Wooden Soldiers."
"Hey, buddy, what outfit wuz you in? You wuz? .... I wuz in the 54th. We come
over on the third day. Then we joined up widda 27th and spent the second
night in Le Havre." He purses his lips and shakes his hand as though he burned
it.
The alumni of battle haven't forgotten a moment of their greatest adventures.
Their wife's birthday .... yes, their children's names .... yes, but never
the brotherhood of war.
Old Dick, Seymour, and I got there early and we've got a bench all to
ourselves. Tony, however, is standing at the curb with his wife, Rita. He is
miserable -- Tony is not one for parades -- fireworks, maybe -- but not parades.
He
looks at us, then looks at Rita and turns to look at us again and shakes his
head in resignation.
"I walked past the firehouse," Dick remarks, "they were polishing up the new
ambulance .... guess we'll get a chance to see it today."
We shift over a bit to make room for Tony, whose legs have been bothering him
all week and he uses this as an excuse to Rita. The parade down the hill
hasn't started yet, and as he sits with us, Rita glares at him .... it is a
venomous stare that chills the four of us us to the bone.
"It starts later every year," he sighs. "I would'na come 'cept for the
dedication."
Yes, the dedication! Railroad Avenue forks out into a "Y" as it dead ends at
Westwood Avenue and in the trough of the "Y" we have created our new "Pocket
Park." This little triangular patch of dirt, barely wide enough for a squirrel
to sit on at one end, expands to sixty feet as it gently swoops into Westwood
Avenue. For years teenagers threw their empty beer bottles, MacDonald's bags
and condoms into it as they drove by on Saturday nights. It will now house a
flagpole and three bronze tablets in memory of those Westlake Villagers who have
given their last full measure of devotion for their town and country.
I checked out the tablets a week ago and strange as it seems, Korea took most
of us. Then Vietnam, and last of all World War II. You see there was no
Westlake Village until after World War II, so the brave names engraved there
were
the old ones. We call the "Toad Hollowers" the "Old Ones." They were the
aboriginal families who lived here before we war veterans moved in with our
families
and took over the place. Before that there was nothing .... it was a town
satisfied to grow potatoes and wave goodbye to Lindbergh when he took off for
France -- when this little depression in the ground was home to wild turkeys,
pheasants and a vast number of toads.
I try as best I can to convey these idle speculations to Tony, "Old" Dick,
and Seymour. "You see what time can do," I ramble on, "These kids lined up here
for the parade ....? Some day they'll look at those bronze tablets and wonder
what the hell this town was doing during World War II."
"Old" Dick said, "I don't see what'cha drivin' at."
Tony considered it from his point of view, "It might not be such a bad deal
.... if my name was on one I mean .... " his voice trailed off as he looked at
Rita. She was waving her Chinese-American flag as the Domino Pizza sponsored
little league baseball team straggled by.
Seymour, philosophical to the core, recounted the time he and Jessica went
back to Lodz. "It was to see the names of my grandparents on the ghetto wall
.... Lodz was their home. I was born there. Poverty drove my mother and father
from Lodz to America before the putsch. If they stayed, their names, and mine
too, would be on that wall."
The fire department vehicles were inching by, farting diesel fumes and
burping exhausts. The four of us decided to abandon our comfortable bench and
head
down the hill to the new park for the dedication. After a prayer or two from
Father Stanley and Rabbi Nachtigal, our Town Supervisor was scheduled to deliver
his annual Memorial Day oration .... his first from the new pie shaped park
on Westwood Avenue. The smiling Sal Marcharoni has been our part time
Supervisor since the job was invented. He is also a lawyer and a commercial
insurance
broker, but most of all he is a consummate windbag. He has developed an
inflexible smile, like that of a raptor. He smiles in church. He smiles at
funerals
.... it is a smile frozen in rictus and it will not be wiped off until the
County Executive appoints someone else as Supervisor.
Black and purple bunting has been draped over the three tablets. Just after
"taps" is played by Chris Sheldon on his battered bugle, the bunting will be
released and the newly carved names of those who died long ago will sparkle in
the warm spring sun. Accompanied by the tolling of a bell, Supervisor
Marcharoni will mispronounce each and every name with a firmly fixed smile and a
squad
of six riflemen will fire three Garand rifle volleys into the air. Pigeons
will fly up in indignation, children will cry and those who wish, will stay to
hear what the Supervisor has to say.
"Are you staying?" Seymour asks me.
"I don't know, how about you .... Tony?"
"I gotta stay, Rita'll kill me if I don't."
"I gotta get home," "Old" Dick says, "my son's comin' up from Jersey."
I think to myself. "It's just the names, isn't it? Only the names. Only God
knows where the men might be. If they were buried here I would want to stay,
but they are not. They are under small white crosses in France, or moldering in
the mud along the banks of the Mekong. Some lay unseen at the bottom of the
sea." I think our fire engines and the Cheshire grin of Supervisor Marcharoni,
well intentioned as they are, cannot not be worthy of the sacrifice these young
men made. They are condemned to spend eternity in alien ground .... they can
no longer hear us.
"Tell you what," I say, "I have to get home too. I've got a load of wash to
do. But why don't you all drop by this afternoon around four -- I'll fire up
the barbecue. Hamburgers will be on me." I look at Seymour slyly -- "they're
steak burgers actually Seymour. Somebody bring a salad."
"O.K. if I bring Rita?" Tony asks timidly.
"What the hell," I smile, "If she can stand us, we can stand her."
©Harry Buschman 1998
(1510)
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