Hear Jim’s 3-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/URNWMVjmn78

or read his transcript below…

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Life, actually…

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SALUTES AND SALUTATIONS TO A NEW OLD WORLD

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It is suddenly a new year. This is something that keeps happening. New years emerge, blanket the earth for a time, are later replaced with yet other new years.

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Deja damn vu all over again.

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Pushing aside all wisecracks and cutesy remarks, I occasionally drift back into a trove of childhood memories.

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When I was less than a handful of years on Earth my sister Barbara and I had the habit of gazing upwards and saluting each time an aircraft passed over our Down South neighborhood.

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Saluting flyovers was our way of paying tribute to World War II and the people we knew who lived through it and the people we knew about who did not live through it.

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Barbara and I were mere inklings while the war raged on, but we witnessed all familial things that were effected by this global battle.

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Our parents and relatives did what they could to do the right things. And they did something else remarkable. They allowed us to be children as if there were no atrocities outside our village. Like millions of other adults they wanted us to be as normal and healthy as possible if and when the war ended.

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So our generation of wartime and post-wartime kids grew up with visual memories of the results of war, with permanent images of collateral damage, with indelible ideas of how wars are waged and how wars are later glossed over while at the same time being carefully documented.

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If we wanted the relief of humor we responded to the laughter and goodwill that resulted from just getting on with life, just brushing aside the sadnesses if only for moments.

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If we wanted to show our respect for all the damage that people experienced, we delved into the anecdotes and documentation that journalists and historians recorded.

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We learned to laugh with our uncles who fought and gifted us with jokes and souvenirs, telling us only the ironies, holding back from us the terrors.

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When we grew up, we slowly learned the rest of the stories these veterans had to tell. By then we were informed enough to be able to absorb the downside of all the camaraderie and sacrifice and grimness that was wartime.

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So, back to Barbara and me. We stand in the front yard of our bungalow on Eastwood Avenue and salute the planes. We feel proud to let witnesses know that we are well-meaning kids who still remember. It is kind of like praying in public.

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Today, right now, I feel like saluting the new year as if my wishes for peace and kindness might actually be acknowledged.

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In reality, I know that the good and the flawed in us humans will alternate and rise and fall as time slips by. During the bad I salute ahead the goodness that might unexpectedly arise, if only in my dreams

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 (c) 2026 A.D. by Jim Reed