Memorial Day has passed but I still think of my father. Alfred B. Smith Sargent U.S. Army Air Corps decorated WW2 vet in the then segregated forces. I’ve posted before of what he endured here and overseas due to ‘Jim Crow’. That and his experiences in the war. Despite it all he loved his country and always said he’d serve again if called. He loved it for what it was striving to be. As I do. The legality of the Jim Crow race laws have passed away. However, it’s spirit still lives by other names in our republic. We still strive for that “...More perfect union”.

However, I want to share another memory of him.

My father taught me to love words and their meanings. My last memories of him are of his sitting at our kitchen table. There paging through the Websters Dictioary he gave us when children. It was as big as a Gutenberg Bible and just as precious. It took us from first grade through university.  So there he sat, my father. Paging reading through that great book. Searching and learning immersed in the wonder of words.