Remarkable Morning Memories

I was up this morning before the sun came up. I needed to clear the driveway because I had a doctor’s appointment. It was six degrees out and it was cold. The one blessing was, there was little wind. As I began shoveling, I was looking at the sky. The horizon was a soft coral ant the sky over head went from a pale blue to a darker blue gray.

Cross-crossed were the eighteen or so contrails of jet airplanes. Their water vapor trails ranged from the customary white to a banana yellow, reflecting back the still hidden sun’s rays. To the west, the full moon still lingered with its rich creamy white face giving a last smile before going to bed.

The contrails reminded me of a story that a fellow fireman once told me about his stint in the air force. One day he’d been talking to a pilot and the air jockey asked, “Where are you from?”

My friend Richard said, “Oh, it’s a small town in southwestern Pennsylvania. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

The pilot said, “Go ahead and try me.”

“It’s a little place called Indian Head.” Dick replied.

“I know where that is.” The pilot said. “That’s where several main air routes cross over.” He also said and warned, “If you’ve never had an air accident, someday you will. You need to be prepared for a crash. It will happen.”

This was many years before the crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

***

Another G I told another story to me about how everybody had a double somewhere in the world. When he was stationed in another country a man approached him. He was in the Army as well and asked, “How are your parents?”

The man who told me the story had the last name of Eutsey. He told the other G I, “They’re fine.”

The G I asked, “How is your brother?”

Eutsey said, “He’s fine.”

“How’s your sister?”

“I don‘t have a sister.”

“Yes you do. I know you and your family.”

“It’s my family. I should know my brothers and sisters.”

When they sat and talked, they both came from similar small villages with a crossroad that had a church on one corner, a grocery store on another, a community center and a house on the others. Both villages had Eutseys living near them and there must have been a strong physical resemblance, but one town was located in Pennsylvania and the other was in Iowa.