Lucky Man

I recently discovered the text of a speech my dad gave at the Remembrance Day service in Tumbler Ridge BC in 2004.

Dad was a bomber pilot in World War II. He was a kid when he signed up. He said he "lucked out" by getting to fly. Lucky to be chosen to fly a Lancaster? The real "luck" was that he and his aircrew survived. Most didn't. But he was lucky. He believed he was lucky. Lucky to be born into a loving family. Lucky to find good, lifelong friends in his aircrew. Lucky to get an education and a job he he was good at. Lucky to find love ,lucky to have children and grandchildren, lucky to be Canadian.  And I know I was lucky to have him as my dad.

Dad didn't like to be called a hero. But he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. His citation reads that he "invariably displayed the utmost fortitude, courage, and devotion to duty".  He says he wasn't a hero. Not a hero then never was a hero. He was wrong about that too. He was my hero. 

Remembrance Day 2004 

My message is for anyone less than 80 years old. Those of you just a bit older listen and suggest corrections if you want.

Why are you here today? Your reasons are your own, but I thank you for being here and for permitting me to have your attention for a few minutes.

Just after the schools across Canada had reopened in 1939, this country declared war against Germany.

In 1914 Canada joined with other countries declaring war against Germany in was then called the War to end all wars. In 1939 that war was to be called the War to end all Wars again.

Think about it for a few seconds:

I was still in school in Vancouver at the time, but when I was still just seventeen years old I was given training to learn something about fixing planes so that, when I was eighteen I could join the airforce and start fixing them. In 1941 I did just that.

By then I found that I could be taught to fly aircraft and I was lucky enough to start training as a pilot so instead of fixing the planes I could fly them.

By 1945 I was returned to civilian life because that war was over. I was twenty two years old and had returned safely from what was, for my mother, an awful awful time for her to have been waiting for one son, in the Airforce, one in the Navy one in the Army to get out of uniform and return home.

One aunt had embarrassed me no end by introducing me to her friends as a hero! Never was one, and never ever wanted to be one, but what could I do to correct her viewpoint? I do believe there were people who could properly be called heroes, and there still are, but I was never one.

What we were told to do, we did, and I lucked out by getting to fly and to find really fine people to fly with. Yes we did have an enemy to fight, and when the invasion took place in Europe, we were in Bomber Command and flew to France just a few hours before the ground forces arrived from England to get the invasion underway.

However, this is 2004, not 1944, and you are here in this lively and exciting place we still call Canada. This is not the Canada recovering from a lengthy depression so long ago but we still have a neighbour country just South of us which still goes to war, so long after we went to war to end all wars, twice before.

If you are indeed Canadian, or believe in remembering your history, think about what is important to you and try to make wise decisions for yourselves.

Please, whether you are wearing a uniform, or not, our respect for you will be obtained by your actions as citizens in this ever increasing world of people of all faiths who genuinely are in love and charity to all.

Indeed, we need to remember the words of In Flanders Fields. Our cenotaph is a time for quiet reflection. Honour the dead and look to the future.

My Father's Letters

Our daughter Jordan was home last week. Recently engaged, she asked me what I knew about her grandparent's engagement since neither of them are around to tell her about it.

They were high school teachers in Dawson Creek when Dawson Creek was young. They were a bit older than most of their colleagues- Dad was a WW II pilot and an engineer before he became a teacher, Mom had a degree in Commerce and a Masters Degree from the U of A, but neither had found their "soulmate." As the only two single teachers at their school, they were frequently thrown together at staff events. Before long, they started going around together. Then they became an "item". Then they started wondering if they were just together because they were the only two single people they knew. Or maybe that the one thing they had in common was that they were both teachers. My dad got cold feet. He resigned his job, got a new one in Victoria, and went to Syracuse New York to take summer school courses in teaching special ed, which was for some reason the area he, as a decorated WW II pilot with an engineering degree, had been assigned. My mom stayed behind.  They wrote back and forth. My mom went on a cruise to Alaska to mend her broken heart. Out of the blue, my dad proposed.

"I know their story," I told Jordan.  "And I have his letter of proposal."

Stored away in a box of paper, my dad's love letters to my mom, in his perfect penmanship, written with a fountain pen in turquoise ink. Eleven letters I had never had the nerve to read. Eleven letters that went with her from Dawson Creek to Victoria to Trail, back to Dawson Creek, to Tumbler Ridge, and finally back to Victoria. Details both personal  and mundane. Why did she save them? Mementos of their early life together? A symbol of his love? Did she mean for anyone else to read them? I think she did. 

So I gave them to my daughter to read, and on a road trip to the airport from whence she would return to her adopted nation and her fiance, Jordan read them all with gasps and laughter and the occasional "Oh Granddad!"

 Here they are!

My mom and dad

HUMAN DIGNITY EXPIRES

(The Pedagogue?)

Within the icy clinic of his mind a tiny spark endures,
Encompassed by a wall of puerile trash.
He sees a child-and to his clinic comes a view envisioned by the wall.
The wall:So thickly cluttered with the garbage
Of a thousand empty verbal cans that jangle in his brain.
And round this pile the vile stench of jargon permeates and cloys.
The spark flickers, but still breathes.
The wall responds-and from this mess erupts the plaintive babble:
Evaluate, structure, socialize, ready, organize, label-and pass on.
The precious spark glows wanly in the gloom.
Louder now the cacophony of verbalism in his sterile world
Drowns out the faint sound of the pure breath of air.
He sees another child.-The spark quickens to evoke the paralyzing evolution of a thought.
But through the clanging fetid hole no fruit is born.
Once more the wall responds and does its hollow job.
The label pinned-the spark goes out.
The garbage heap will rot for years to come
And to this steaming pile will children come to learn.

Written by my father George Hartford in 1956 when he attended a post-secondary course on special education in Syracuse New York.  My dad hated educational jargon throughout his 38 year long career as high school math and physics teacher, special ed teacher, school and central office administrator.