Grrrrrr.....

So our sick match the other day, the one where we won 5-4? Ya. Didn't count. Our newbie coach played Andreas, who was and is still currently ineligible according to the NCAA. Neat. And we play again Saturday and will probably be down two players for various reasons. Andreas will still be barred from playing and Kyle has decided that he has better things to do that day, more or less.

I haven't been doing much homework later. Been doing a lot of other stuff lately, like taking a few pics and playing a shit ton of tennis. Classes aren't even taking up that much time. I spend more time each week at work and tennis than I do at class, and I'd bet it's not even close if you actually figured it all out. But last night was very thought provoking for reasons that have nothing to do with any of that stuff.

My name is, as you know, not Jamison Parker. It is James Albert MacIndoe, and ya, it's a sick name. The James came from James Herriot, who is actually Alf Wight, the Yorkshire country veterinarian. The Albert came from my great great uncle named Albert McCoy, who died in WWI. And you know where my last name came from. But anyhow, I never knew much about Albert except that he moved to America with his parents and lived in Baxter Springs, Kansas, was drafted at the end of 1917 or so, and was shot and killed the day the Armistice was signed, November 11, 1918. I found out a lot more last night. And I know, I know, this is a sports/whatever blog, but this has been on my mind all day, so I'm leaning heavily on the whatever part.
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My sister is teaching history at a local high school, and she is doing a WWI unit, so my dad dug up all of these old documents and letters that we have had buried somewhere downstairs. I'm gonna try to scan some of them, because they are amazing. Just the fact that we even own them is cool to me. I like history, historical things, whatever...not to sound generalized and cliche, but I like stuff like that. So having a 90-year old letter that was written from a trench in France is mind boggling. Albert literally started off one of his letters, "Somewhere in France..."

But anyhow, after reading just a few of those letters, and one of the letters that his family had sent him (not sure how we have that one...), I feel like I know a bit about him. He was not very literate, and I wonder how much education he had. His letters are really hard to read because he was a terrible speller. "Been fine" was "bin fine," and he never really used much punctuation. Most of his sentences just ran into each other, and he never capitalized his I's. His handwriting looks a lot like my little brother's actually, which is funny. And at the end of his letters he always signed "by by," which I assumed (and found out correctly) was supposed to be "bye bye." That's because in that letter that his sister wrote him (that we somehow have), at the end it says, "Pearl says 'bye bye.'" Pearl was my dad's mom. So that's evidently how that started. All of the letters were very sweet, and it was really sad to read them.

But the saddest letter of all was the letter that another soldier sent home along with a letter that Albert had written his parents, telling them that he had been killed. I didn't find that letter, but the other soldier...man, what a job that must have been. He took the time to write this letter to Albert's parents, letting them know what really happend. I guess the Army had wired home that Albert had been killed in an explosion near the Meuse River in France about 1 pm on Nov. 11. This marine who wrote home told, very simply and eloquently, that he found Albert on the afternoon of the 11th and that he had been shot in the leg and bled out. He said he covered him in blankets, reported him to his officer, and made sure his letter and his money got sent to his family. Then the soldier said something I don't think I'll ever forget. At the end of his letter he said that he was just trying to do his duty, and hoped that it would bring some comfort to the family. He closed the letter and said, "Been here over 18 months. Expect to be here most a year. I remain a homesick soldier. Your's, Sgt. Leonard Pruitt"

That really touched me. It was the saddest letter I've ever read, and all of those documents brought such a strange sense of emotion to me that I'm still grappling with it. Plus, that letter could have been written yesterday!! It never changes!! People my age were in trenches in France, fighting people they'd never seen, never had anything against...they were just told to keep their heads down now and then and charge from time to time. But I digress.........

The letters. Those are 90 year old letters that were written from a trench in France! And now I have them and can read them and feel some of the same things that Albert's parents felt. It's amazing that just reading a letter like that can help me picture the man so much better. But somehow knowing that he was on kitchen patrol for a week while he was doing his basic training makes him suddenly very real. He's no longer just a name or a person. He's more than my middle name now too. And I'm going to try to honor that. I'm not sure how, but I want to. And I want to travel some more too. I found out through those documents that my dad's grandparents were both born in Scotland: he was born in Airdrie and she was born in Bathgate. I'm going there someday. I don't really even know why, but I want to.

Anyhow, I think that I am so drawn to Albert and that period in history because the first book that I ever had an emotional reaction to was about WWI. It was called War Game, by Michael Foreman. It is an amazing book, and completely describes my feelings on WWI and all wars. You should try to find the book and read it. It won't take long, but it will leave you feeling something, I'm sure of it. And the first poem that I ever had an emotional reaction to was also about WWI. "Dulce et Decorum est," and it was written by Wilfred Owen, who also died in the war. Just read it.

I guess I'm done spouting. Feel free to ignore anything I say.