Bud Grossmann's Words of the Week Week of April 3, 2005
	Family Portrait, 1951 (Photographer Unidentified) © 2005 by Bud Grossmann

Tuesday, April 8, 1997

Dear Gramma,

     Two American soldiers met by chance and were soon friends-for-life.

     One had enlisted in 1943, when he was seventeen years old. By the time he was twenty, he had participated in the Occupation of Japan and had advanced to the rank of master sergeant. When he returned to the States, he took what he had saved from his Army pay and made the down payment on two hundred acres of Wisconsin farmland. He received a half-interest in the place but didn't plan to farm it himself. The co-owners—his partners in the purchase—were his parents. They would do the farming while their son the soldier continued to serve his Uncle Sam.

     In October of 1946, the sergeant reported to a new duty station, a post in Virginia. There he was ordered to have a picture taken for a security clearance badge. That was when he met the other soldier I mentioned—a photographer who happened also to be a sergeant (I hope I have my facts straight, here). Shortly after that meeting of happenstance, the two soldiers began to pursue social activities together. Their backgrounds were not especially similar—the two had grown up in different parts of the country and were four years apart in age—but they seemed to share plenty of common interests. As I said at the beginning of this letter, their friendship blossomed. It endures to this very day.

     Only last month my father told me, in slightly different form, the story I just told you. As you heard the story in this letter, Gramma, perhaps you recognized my dad—your son Gordon—as the young man who purchased the Wisconsin farm with you and Grampa.

     I asked my father a question about the other sergeant in his story. "Dad," I said, "did Mom make a big impression on you when she first took your picture for that I.D. badge?"

    "Well, yes, I suppose she did!" he replied. "She was the cutest gal on the post!"

     So! They met in October, promptly began courting, and by April they were wed! I have trouble imagining it. Of all the many adjectives I've heard people use in describing my mother and father, I am pretty certain the word impulsive was never mentioned.

     On the other hand, Strike while the iron is hot might have been one of the proverbs Mom and Dad recited as I was growing up. Make hay while the sun shines —I heard them say that, a time or two, as well as He who hesitates is lost.

     On April 6, 1947, Sgt. Gordon Grossmann and Sgt. Marjorie Whitmore became husband and wife. The woman destined to become my mother wore a pretty dress with no chevrons on her sleeve.

     And now, fifty years have gone by. Fifty good years, seasons of sweet hay, and the sun still is shining. I am sure you join me, Gramma, in giving thanks to the Lord, and in offering congratulations to my parents on their Golden Anniversary.

                      Love,
                      Buddy