Mr. Euell “Buzz” Griggs was alone manning a table on Memorial day. I guess the heat or the lateness of the day had driven the others home or perhaps there just aren’t a lot of the older vets left who care about doing these things. He was at a table taking donations for the VFW handing out the red plastic poppy flowers With the green wire stem that will wrap in your button hole. Made for a time when shirts had buttons. Never mind the poppy, On Flanders Field, reference is completely unknown to most. We talk. He tells me he has been doing this alone for a long time, several years, but he has been promised some help from the state VFW office soon. There should have been a large influx of new blood in the last decade. A new generation of men who have been there. But the VFW suffers from the reputation of being your fathers or grandfathers club. The young vets are busy with life now. Wife, kids, work, but in a few years when they need to talk about it with some one who has been there and can understand the VFW rolls will swell again.
Until then Mr. Griggs stands his post alone and waits for reinforcements to arrive.
Mr. Euell “Buzz” Griggs was alone manning a table on Memorial day. I guess the heat or the lateness of the day had driven the others home or perhaps there just aren’t a lot of the older vets left who care about doing these things.
ReplyDeleteHe was at a table taking donations for the VFW handing out the red plastic poppy flowers
With the green wire stem that will wrap in your button hole. Made for a time when shirts had buttons. Never mind the poppy, On Flanders Field, reference is completely unknown to most.
We talk. He tells me he has been doing this alone for a long time, several years, but he has been promised some help from the state VFW office soon. There should have been a large influx of new blood in the last decade. A new generation of men who have been there. But the VFW suffers from the reputation of being your fathers or grandfathers club.
The young vets are busy with life now. Wife, kids, work, but in a few years when they need to talk about it with some one who has been there and can understand the VFW rolls will swell again.
Until then Mr. Griggs stands his post alone and waits for reinforcements to arrive.