Ever get something from a particular person and it means more just because of who you got it from?
A cookie from your grandmother, better because it is from her?
A joke from your neighbor, funnier because you just like him and you are glad he is your neighbor?
A paperback book that, normally, you wouldn’t read, but because it comes from that quirky co-worker who seems genuinely interesting, you might give it a tumble at the beach?
That is how I feel about this time of year—July, patriotic celebrations and picnics, baseball games, parades, etc. etc.
Fourth of July was not quite the same this year without Ken Dolloff around to remind us that it was guys like him, flesh and blood citizens who now actually live in our towns, who fought for our independence overseas in World War II, and who, because of them, we can spend our days cooking hamburgers, or flying flags, or listening to loud Aerosmith music—or doing whatever we damn well please because we are free to do it.
You have your cookies and your grandmother.
I had Ken Dolloff and his compatriots at the Libby-Mitchell American Legion Post and my father and others of their generation to equate with freedom, to make it live and breathe. Just like you might read “To Kill a Mockingbird” because Larry in Purchasing loaned it to you last week, I always go to vote because of Ken Dolloff.
See, on June 6, 1944, Ken Dolloff and tens and tens of thousands of Allied forces, teenaged boys, mostly, waded ashore the beaches of Normandy, France, shooting small rifles at big tanks and machine gun nests up on the cliffs. They did this because they assumed that the right to vote, etc., in a free society was, and would be, important to people like me one day. Therefore, Ken and Sonny Noel and others should put their lives on the line in WWII to prevail.
Ken died this past December.
This was the first Fourth of July he has not been around for many of us in Scarborough.
Corny, I know. But the more I learned about WWII and what Ken and others sacrificed in my father’s generation, the less I had the gall to skip voting.
I don’t care if it is the presidential election, or for governor, or for local dog catcher, I vote.
Same is true for baseball.
For close to 70 years, Ken Dolloff was on the Baseball Committee at the American Legion Hall. The committee, now staffed by torch carriers Duane Jutting and Ken’s son, David Dolloff, collects bottles and cans to buy uniforms, catcher’s gear, and baseballs. These guys who gave all in the jungles of Viet Nam or the freezing mountains in Korea came back here and thought I need to do more. Wow.
Every time I watch boys in Maine play Legion baseball in brilliant July sunshine, I look at the equipment, the baseballs, the umpires being paid to play a big role, the green grass that got mowed in part through Legion field fees—and I say, hey, I know who started this league 70 years ago, and helped the sport grow.
Now?
Part of the spark is gone.
Part of the connection.
Kind of like thinking about electricity and the key and the kite and Ben Franklin, and mourning his death, and the thought that the inventor was no more.
They say when one door closes, another one opens.
I will take their word for it.
Seems empty right now without the source of inspiration here to remind us that somebody once fought to have what you are now enjoying.
I wonder if it is the same way when somebody eats an oatmeal raisin cookie with coconut sprinkles after Grandma dies. Do they still taste good?
Dan Warren lives in Scarborough. He can be reached at jonesandwarren@gmail.com.
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