Captain

Born in a small town in New York’s Catskill Mountains,  my father remembered dancing around a bonfire as a six-year-old to celebrate the 1918 armistice.

Two decades later when the US entered WWII he enlisted in the Army as a newly minted physician.   Assigned to the Charleston,  SC  Port of Embarkation,  he was entitled to officer housing and allowed to bring his wife, and there in an Army hospital I was born.

My dad made many trans-Atlantic crossings on troop ships taking soldiers to the European and African theaters of war,  and returning with the wounded and the dead.   On the home front my mother worked in an Army office handling supply orders.   Every time my father sailed she feared she might never see him again,  their generation facing  a danger I hope I’ll never know.

I have no memory of the war and was just a toddler when my father returned,  and over the years he seldom spoke about his service.  But unlike veterans returning from more recent,  unpopular,  and unnecessary wars,  it was with pride and joy my dad was welcomed home from a war he believed was worth fighting.

– Dana Susan Lehrman

Lost Child

For many summers when our son was young we rented a beach house in the Hamptons.   (See Skinny Dipping and The Great Hampton Babysitter Heist)

One summer day when he was three or four we were on the beach when the kid went missing,   We may have thought the other one had eyes on him,  or maybe we were just horribly irresponsible parents,  but in any case at one point we realized he was gone!

We were confident we’d taught him never to go in the water without us  – we weren’t THAT irresponsible,  but where was he!   Frantically we told the lifeguard we had a lost child and were asked for a description.

“A boy, brown hair, blue eyes, a yellow bathing suit,  and a white sunhat – or maybe he’s not wearing his hat – and maybe he’s carrying his pail and shovel.”  I answered,  my panic growing by the minute.   And then my husband and I went running down the beach in opposite directions calling his name.

Soon the lifeguard came hurrying toward me.   “A lifeguard on the next beach has a lost boy but he has blond hair and a red bathing suit so I guess he’s not yours.”  he said

Desperately trying to convince myself this was my child,  and that I’d simply forgotten what he looked like,  I almost told the lifeguard,  “I’m not sure,  but we’ll take him!”

Postscript

Thankfully my husband found him in the dunes happily playing with his pail and shovel.   What an irresponsible kid!

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

After my mother was pronounced dead, my sister-in-law handed me the diamond necklace Mom always wore.
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