On Veteran's Day

Her name was Mrs. Graves and she was my third grade teacher. That is why I know about Armistice Day, now called Veteran's Day.

Mrs. Graves was a widow and given to tears when she spoke of her husband. Perhaps this wasn't appropriate in front of 30 8-year-olds, but we accepted it. She could write an Olde English script and taught us some of the letters. I can still do her 'M'. She was a very nice lady and I adored her and my mother was quite upset when my sister, two years later, ended up in the classroom of a teacher more given to make her students cry than cry herself.

But in my third grade class, which would have been in the late '50s, we were patriotic. The pledge to the flag, maybe even singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" or "Texas, Our Texas." My memory is distant on the singing detail but I do know that at 11 in the morning on November 11, (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month), Mrs. Graves had us stand. We stood in silence to honor the dead of our grandfathers' generation, men who died on a continent our own fathers had returned from less than 15 years earlier.

Nearly half a century later, I still remember. Thank you, Mrs. Graves.