Monthly Archives: November 2013

Veteran’s Day, Remembering the Past

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Thanks to the Veterans.

Thanks to the Veterans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf -November 11, 2013

It is Veterans Day 2013.

Take a veteran to lunch. Buy a veteran coffee. Do an anonymous kind deed for a veteran. If you know someone who is serving and away from home, support their family any way you can. It might be a kind word; it might be helping with the kids or maybe helping with the house repair. Support our veterans.

I racked my brain trying to figure out what I could say about Veterans Day that I haven’t said before. I wondered whether there was a new way to bring light to those who serve our country.

I decided there doesn’t have to be a new way to spin a tale to highlight Veterans Day and those who sacrifice so much for our country so that we can live the way we live today. Every day should be Veterans Day. Every day we should be saying thank you to these brave men and women.

I had many relatives on my dad’s side of the family who served in the wars. I happened to be looking back at some family history and found this story about Cpl. Melvin Young.

This man was my dad’s nephew. He was a son, a husband, a father and, according to the article, he took part in engineer work in Italy with the Fifth Army in World War II. I am not sure what newspaper it was published in or the date. This is the article:

“Cpl. Melvin J. Young, whose wife, Ruby, lives here, is a heavy truck driver with the 316th Engineer Combat Battalion of the Fifth Army, which has been running into direct German resistance as it carves out a route of advance for Fifth Army troops fighting toward Italy’s Po Valley.

“Jerry machine gun fire was turned on the engineers as they filled a huge crater recently on Highway 65, leading into Bologna, to enable tanks to advance. The men of the 316th finished the job and fought their way out.

“They spent a night building a road in advance of infantry outposts near Futa Pass to enable doughboys to keep supplied with food and ammunition. The enemy concentrated artillery and mortar fire on them in a vain attempt to discourage this work. The engineers have often filled in or built bypasses around craters on Highway 65 under German observation. They poured 75 truckloads of filling in to one depression in the road north of Pietramala and went on ahead of the infantry at Monghidoro and Loiano to remove mines from the doughboys’ path. They were in the vanguard again in the bitter fights for Livergnano and more recently have been patrolling well in advance of the foremost infantry outposts.

“The 316th, a unit of the 91st Powder River’ Division, arrived in North Africa in April 1944 and later landed in Italy two months later. Company A went into action at Velletri to cut trails and develop river fords for doughboys moving on Rome. The rest of the outfit entered the line in July. Company C blazed the trail into Leghorn while the rest of the battalion cleared mines in the neighborhood of Pontedera along the Arno River.

“The entire outfit was busy brushing aside the widest variety of obstacles as the 91st pushed into the Gothic Line at Futa Pass.

“Lt. Col. William C. Holley, Klamath Falls, Ore., commands the 316th.

“Melvin Young lived in Freeborn with his wife, Ruby, and their two sons Gary and Robert.”

As we celebrate Veterans Day we need to remember those who fought in the past and those who are still fighting for our freedom. News stories are very different today than the story reported during World War II.

During World War II we didn’t have 24/7 news. It took weeks to get letters from those who served overseas. Communication was not like it is today. I suspect during that war people did not take what those soldiers were doing overseas for granted. It held the news and the headlines.

We have a tendency to take the news of what is happening with our soldiers today and put it to the background of whatever else is happening in the entertainment world, with technology and more frivolous things. The news of a soldier dying today occasionally gets lost in all the hoopla of the latest scandal of an athlete or famous person and the fighting going on in our own Congress.

For this day, let us pay attention to what is happening in the world of those who serve our country. Pay attention to the wounds that come home with these men and women and stay with them forever.

Be there for a soldier. And remember those whose names are on the veterans memorials throughout our country. They served so you can have the freedoms you have today.

Who Cleans The Toilets

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Toilet Master

Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf from November 4 Week of Albert Lea Tribune and Courier Sentinel

I recently did an unscientific poll on Facebook. This is what I asked: “OK, ladies fess up. How many of you are the toilet bowl cleaner in the family? What would happen if you didn’t clean it? Would it stay grubby forever?”

I got many answers, all from women, none from men, but to be fair, I didn’t ask the men. I expected a few needles from the men. Here are a few of the women’s comments:

• You got that right!

• Yes, yes it would.

• Yes, it would. I was gone for a week, came home and cleaned toilets.

• Yes, I am. If I’m gone long enough, it does get cleaned.

• Eventually some new life form would emerge from mine.

• Mmmm, grubby doesn’t even describe the algae forest I found in bachelor’s pre-husband toilet.

There were more comments, but because they named names I thought it best for those names not to be broadcast to the world for the sake of world peace.

I did the poll because I wondered if toilet cleaning at home always became what used to be called “women’s work.” There were many things that were deemed women’s work when I first got married many, many years ago.

I remember being baffled the first time we had a holiday with my new spouse’s family. The men sat down to be served and the women waited until they were done to eat. That wasn’t the way it was done in my family. I was rather crabby back then, so let me tell you, that particular tradition didn’t last much longer when I was around.

In those days the women were in charge of the household. That meant, even if they worked, they were in charge of the kids, the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning and whatever else came along with the house and, of course, toilet cleaning.

When a friend of mine died of cancer, her husband had no idea how to turn on the wash machine or the oven. That is when things started changing in my household. Because I was brought up to believe in women’s work, I hadn’t educated my husband and family in the workings of a household. My husband could fix anything. He could repair anything, and that was his job. I realized that if something happened to me, his job would change and he would be like my neighbor, lost, unless of course he could call his mother.

I became stubborn and he became a better house cleaner, laundry person and cook. Although one of the challenges wasn’t him, it was me. I always micro-managed what he did because he didn’t do it like I did. I cringed when my new Colorado T-shirt now fit my 4-year-old. It was also easier at times to do it myself because I didn’t like the results. “Were you wearing your glasses when you dusted that corner?”

Many years have passed, and he washes his own clothes (now I don’t do it good enough for him), he cooks much better than I do, he does floors, but in all these years he doesn’t do toilets. He could very well survive with me, and the house would be picked up better than the way I keep it. It would be a little dustier (must be the eyes) and the toilets? I don’t want to guess.

As I watch my sons and son-in-law help their wives and take care of their houses, I don’t see the mentality of women’s work anymore except maybe when it comes to toilets. They seem to share their duties and in all fairness to their wives; occasionally they need to be reminded of certain tasks if they are trying to do the man thing with the television remote.

It is a different time in 2013 than when I and my friends were first married. There is more negotiation between couples and the chores that are needed to be done in a family. That doesn’t mean the older generation of men were lazy or not caring. It means that they lived by what society was back then and what was expected of both men and women was different.

If you are a man in 2013 and you do toilets, make it known because in my poll, toilets still seem to be women’s work. I am not sure what message that is giving to us and to our children and does it matter?

Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/sprinklednotes.