Memorial Day

"Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it." Don Marques
As were the Potters and those around them that lived up the "hollars" at the head of the creeks. maybe because they are natural-born fighters or maybe because they were at times just to damn proud to have any sense.
"If I had world enough and time..." I could tell you of all the skirmishs the Potter's have been involved in and I will eventually. My dad used to say that Uncle Hubert would walk into a place, look around, and if anyone looked the least bit disagreeable, Hubert would try to fight them. Daddy said that it didn't matter to Hubert whether he was outnumbered or out sized, he would not only take them on but goad them until they beat him to a pulp. Daddy laughs when he talks about Hubert but at the end he always looked sad. I guess that is because Hubert and Dad signed up to go to war on the same day and Daddy was the only one that came home. Hubert was killed by friendly fire during the invasion of Normandy. Hubert was in the military police. He wrote my mother a letter not long after I was born. My dad was in Italy when he found out that his younger brother had been killed. He read it in the Stars and Stripes Newspaper. They published a list of the dead and there was Hubert's name. My dad would tear up and cry when he told that story. Sometimes it makes my throat hurt just thinking about it. Lord help me to remember that for a short time this firey young man who was flesh of my flesh, rose up from the hills to carry a torch into the dark watery night on Omaha beach only to be beaten down by others carrying the same torch. That night fire was was not friendly. That night changed a family.