I Loved a World War I Doughboy 20091111

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I was reflecting this Veterans’ Day, and thought about John.  He was a good man, and I realized that I actually on very close personal terms with a World War I veteran.  By the way, there is, from what I have been able to find, only ONE American World War I veteran still breathing, and he is 108 years old.

John did not live that long.  He had a hard life.  He was also the most kind, most tender, and most loving man for kids that I have even known.  Please follow me on a very emotional track here.

John Mackey was a saint of a man.  He was gentle, and also a gentleman.  When I was just little, and I mean really little, four years old, he would come and visit my grandmum (he had a fancy for her, and she was a widow) and would play with me, too.  I was just four, but John would swing me in the swingset, and always watched out to make sure that he did not swing me too hard.  “Swing me, Johnnie!”, I would shout.  “I am, Buddy!”, (he always called me Buddy) but never put enough energy into the swing to injure me.  But it was still fun, because he paid attention to me.

John did not have any teeth.  It is amazing what folks with just gums can eat, and he could eat a fresh, firm apple, but he had to cut it up with a knife.  The same was for corn on the cob, with we grew.  He would cut it off with a knife and eat it then.

John was deaf in one ear, because of explosives in France those many decades, almost a century now, in the past.  The percussion dislodged his eardrum, and the butchers that passed as surgeons in that era were not of much help.  I suspect that the had an infection, surgically or weapon induced, because he would often have infections in the deaf ear.  Since he died in the 1960s, not many studies were done.

John was so gentle and so wonderful.  After World War I he opened a little store in my home town of Hackett, Arkansas.  He sold mostly canned goods, candy, and pencils, but he had a cooler for cold cuts, and an ice house for block ice.  Yes, I am so old that I remember when block ice was still sold.

One Halloween the big kids spray painted the ice house with the logo, “CITY HALL”.

John was a veteran, but he NEVER told me anything about being in the service.  I asked him sometimes, and he would always say, “Buddy, you are just little.  You don’t need to know about that.”

Before the store, John mined coal and, with absolutely no personal protection gear at the time, got what was at the time called “Black Lung Disease”, and to a pittance of a pension for it.  We now know that it is caused by long term exposure to the carbon particles from the coal, plus the silica particles from the matrix.  The result is a very pernicious form of emphysema, and it was part of his demise.

Well, his hard drinking was as well.  I remember him opening a can (at those times, the cans were steel, and you had to use a “church key” opener for them.  He would drink about four ounces, then stop up the holes in the can with cheddar cheese.  He would do this two or three times a month, so I figure that he would consume a six pack in half a year.  His  brand was Busch Bavarian Beer.

The blacklung and his cigar smoking took its toll.  I remember the day that he walked to the house with his face looking funny.  I was not very old, but it looked bad.  He had had a stroke, and he was partially paralyzed on one side.  Interstingly enough, he got over it and regained all of his faculties after many months.

Then he had a descending aortic aneurysm to dissect.  He lasted only a few days after that, because his brain was deprived of oxygen.

Johnny was my friend, my grandmums’ husband, and a true World War I veteran.  I pay my respects to him now.

Warmest regards,

Doc