This United States flag. When Sean was in Iraq in 2003, he had all of the people in his unit sign this flag. I secretly sent it to my parents and they made a frame and placed the flag inside. That flag has hung on a wall in our house in Colorado, Georgia and here in New York. So, when we moved out of our apartment on Grand Island into our purchased flipper upper, we did not have room in our last load for that flag. Jim and Ruth MacDonald lived downstairs and we asked if they could store it in their garage until we could come back and get it. That was 3 years ago...
Jim is a Veteran. You will never see him without his Korea cap or an American flag pin on the lapel of his sports coat. If you give him more than 10 seconds he will tell you that he is still kicking at age 82, that he survived war and he is more than willing to lift his shirt and show the 4 bullet holes in his torso from when he was shot a few years ago working in an auto parts store. He is a survivor and proud of it!
On Friday I was running errands and thought I would stop by to see if I could get the flag since we are moving to Iowa in a few short weeks. There was no answer to my knock at the door but as I was about to leave, Jim pulled into his parking spot. It probably took him a minute to place me but as soon as I walked around to his window he was typical Jim. "Can you believe it! Someone stole my handicapped placard and the cane that was in my back seat. They also took a small DVD player. Who would do something like that"? We had some small talk and I let him know why I came by. As we headed to the garage across the parking lot, he was limping. He said he had gout in his ankle and now that his cane is gone he is much slower. I thanked him and apologized that we never came to get the flag sooner. We said our goodbyes and I drove off. As I was leaving the island I took a detour to the local pharmacy. I ran in and purchased a nice wooden cane, drove back over to the apartment and hung it on his doorknob. I did not want to have the conversation of "you did not need to do that.... can I pay you for it..." etc. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when he opened his door and found a cane hanging there. See ya Jim!
