Marshall Ramsey

1. The Visitor: A Memorial Day Story
2. A Day at the Beach: A Memorial Day Story
3. A memorable Memorial Day
4. The Final D-Day: An old soldier goes home.
5. Miracle at Panther Burn International Airport: A plane heals a family.
6. One Morning at Pearl Harbor
7. Up in the Delta Sky

The sun peeked its red eye over the hazy horizon.  It was 6:22 a.m and Fort Loudon Lake was like glass.  The fishing boat glided gently toward the dock; its engine making the only sound for miles around. A tall, blonde man eased the throttle of the Mercury outboard motor back, reversing the engine’s thrust. The boat slid slowly past the wooden planks of the dock.  He reached over and grabbed a rope and looped it over the metal clasp on the dock.

He quickly tied the front and the back of the boat up and put out the put out the boat’s bumpers.  He pocketed the key and took one more sip of coffee out of his travel cup.  Another sunrise. Another morning alone on the Tennessee River.

It’s the way he preferred it.  Alone. He wasn’t much for people anymore. Most of his friends were quiet like he was anyway.

He walked up the hill toward his cabin. He looked out at the sun rising over the Smoky Mountains.  Today was the day. Today was the day when he went and visited a friend.

He walked in the cabin and was greeted by his Yellow Labrador, Norman. Norman was named for General Norman Schwarzkopf the famed general from the first war with Iraq.  He liked dogs. They listened and didn’t say anything back. Life was too short for unnecessary chatter.

He had been married to the love of his life.  But she couldn’t be married to a man who had stopped talking.  And then there were his nightmares. The deep, terrifying nocturnal screams.  They were still friends — whatever that meant.  She had gotten the house and the kids. He had gotten the cabin and Norman.  Not a fair deal, but who said that life was fair.

He thought about her as he dried off from the shower. He could still smell her perfume.  “I miss her, Norman.” Norman wagged his tail in agreement.

He carefully picked out his shirt and ironed it. Old habits die hard.  He went in to the kitchen to fry an egg and bacon.  Norman appreciated this part of the morning routine. “Here you go boy.” The bacon was gone before it hit the kitchen floor.  “I’m going to visit a friend today. You hold down the fort. Your aunt Stacy will be over to let  you out.”

A box sat on the kitchen counter. It was small and covered with black velvet. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.  He then grabbed his Jeep’s keys, fired up the engine and drove it up the steep gravel driveway.  It was another gorgeous East Tennessee morning.  But he had a long drive ahead of him.  Time was precious.

I-75 to I-40 to I-81 to I-66. The trip to Washington, D.C. was about eight hours in length. But he did it in seven.  When he saw the Washington Monument, he knew he journey was about over.  His friend didn’t know he was coming.  But he knew he wouldn’t complain.  He crossed the Potomac and got off at the exit for the Pentagon, his old office.  He half-saluted and got off at the exit to where his friend was.

A three-year-old yellow Jeep turned left into the main gate of Arlington National Cemetery.

It was headed to the place he had seen so many times on the map. Like a homing pigeon on a mission, he guided his Jeep right to where he needed to go.

He took the box out of his pocket and walked up to one of the many numerous gravestones.

Sgt. Frank Johns. U.S. Army.

He started to speak, a rarity, but was interrupted by a MD-88 taking off from Washington Reagan Airport.  He then recollected his thoughts and said,

“Hey Sarge. Happy Memorial Day. I needed to talk and I knew you’d listen. The last few years have been tough — although I know I have nothing to complain about compared to what you went through.  I still have nightmares of the I.E.D. and the gun battle afterwards.  I still see you manning the machine gun on our Humvee.  I still see how you sacrificed yourself so I could live.  Just to let you know, I went to OCS after that day and rose to the rank of Major.  I moved on. But my soul is still in Iraq. It’s still with you.  Oh, this is really yours, Frank.  Just wanted to know how much I appreciate your sacrifice.”

He then opened the small box and pulled out his Silver Star medal. He placed it at the foot of the grave, saluted and turned on his heel.  “I was in the neighborhood.  Just wanted to say hello.”

And with that, the silent man headed back home.  Some people celebrate Memorial Day at the beach. Others behind the grill. Major Thomas Garrett celebrated the only way he knew how.  He visited an old friend and said thanks.

In the Spring of 1541, the Spanish explorer Hernado de Soto sat on a log by a roaring campfire. After a cold winter (near what is now known as Tupelo, Mississippi), the weather had turned syrupy warm.  Four hundred and sixty years later, people would know that violent weather was on the way.  But the expedition had no idea what hell the night would bring.  De Soto pulled out a smallish leather pouch and opened it up.  Inside was a small, glowing, golden idol he had taken from the natives in the Appalachians.  Crafted from gold (from the area that would eventually become Dahlonega, Georgia), the idol was both beautiful and magical.  And as far as De Soto was concerned, it was the prize of this expedition.  While he found no other gold, this one find had made the trip worth it.  After they had taken it (by force), wonderful things began to happen. Wounds healed. Sicknesses were cured.  Hunger and fear ceased.  de Soto stroked the gold and felt that much closer to God.  He knew he could conquer the world with such a prize in his possession.

Little did he know that the idol had other plans.

At about 10 that evening, strobe lightning began to flash from the southeast.  The expedition had tasted the violence of a Southern thunderstorm before.  But what was about to hit them was something that very few people have experienced even today.

A mile-wide EF-5 tornado was bearing down on them.

First there was the stillness. And then the hellish violence.  The roar (no one knew what a freight train sounded like back then) bore down on the group.  Most of the expedition escaped with their lives. The tornado erased any indication that their camp had ever been there.

De Soto rode his horse back into inspect the destruction.  The camp — the supplies, the extra horses, 15 of his men — was completely gone. He checked where his shelter was.  It, too, was obliterated.

De Soto’s idol was gone.  The tornado had picked it up and thrown it for miles. Hernado de Soto clutched his head with his hands. How could such a precious find be swept away from him? It was a fate that would haunt him until his untimely death a few months later.

The Native Americans in the area, the Chickasaw tribe, never found the idol either. But they discovered the area where it had landed had magical powers.  They built a small mound over the spot where the idol was.  But soon, another powerful tornado followed the same track as the first one and obliterated the village.  The Chickasaws abandoned the mound and vegetation quickly hid it for a few more centuries.  And no one lived there again. Until the year 2012.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Just sign the papers here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. And then sign them here.”  The banker smiled like a man who was about to make a lot of money.  The old paper company property had been for sale for over five years.  Finally,  suckers customers had decided to buy the worthless old timberland.

“How much longer until the land is ours?”  The couple was anxious to build their dream home.  He was 32, tall with a pock-marked face. She was 28, short, dark-headed and slightly overweight. She had Multiple Sclerosis and thanks to some benign tumors in the wrong place, was unable to have kids. Unknown to both of them, he wasn’t able to father children anyway.  Never had two finer people been denied the opportunity to bring a family into the world.

Three days after the closing, bulldozers cut a road through the land.  “Looky here, we found us a high spot.”  The foreman looked at the plot of the property and said, “This is where you should build.” The years had eroded the mound, but it still was the highest point on the 25 acres.  Within five months, a tidy little two-story farm house sat high on the hill.

The couple sat up housekeeping. And within four weeks, they noticed strange things beginning to happen.

First thing that they noticed was that their blind, 13-year-old dog suddenly could see.  His arthritis went away and the dog was running around the house like a puppy. Strange, they thought.

How strange.

Then one morning, he noticed his face was no longer acne-scarred. “Funny.” Three scars on his arm had begun to fade away, too.  “Hey honey, check this out.”

She came in the room crying. “What’s wrong?!?” he ran to her.

“Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  I just got the report from my neurologist.  My MS has disappeared.” Both held the paper, rereading it over and over.  “This has to be a joke.”  A quick phone call confirmed it wasn’t.

How strange.

“Let’s celebrate.” She ran to the store and he fired up the grill. A romantic dinner was called for.  And it was followed by the most passionate night of their lives.

A month later, the wife came into the bathroom. And once again, she was crying. In her hands was a pregnancy test.  Another miracle had happened.  “I’m pregnant.”  The next day, the OB-GYN had confirmed it. Scans showed that the tumors had totally faded away.  And a little less than nine-months later, healthy twins were born.

How strange.

Six months later, the family was sitting in the den of the small home and the weather radio went off.  It had been a warm, sticky evening and thunderstorms had been building over the Delta. Thanks to the winds blowing off the Gulf, you could smell New Orleans in Northeast Mississippi.   The husband flipped on the TV and the weatherman in Tupelo had confirmed the worst: A huge tornado was bearing down on their home.  They ran to the closet underneath the stairs with the dog and the babies. But this tornado was a monster. No one in its path would survive it. The small family held each other and prayed.

And right as the mile-wide EF-5 tornado approached the house, it pulled up into the sky.  The storm dissapated, leaving nothing but the stars twinkling in the springtime sky.

How strange.

In the whole history of the idol, it had never sensed such good people. And at that moment, it decided that they should continue to benefit from its power.  The young couple would live the rest of their lives in that farm house, passing it down through the generations. All lived happy and long lives.

Two months after the tornado, the dog went out to the backyard to bury a bone. As it dug, it hit something hard.  He pulled back and looked down into the hole. There was a golden head.  The dog quickly (and wisely) covered it back up with dirt and went back to the house.

And from that moment on, De Soto’s idol would remain hidden for the rest of time.