Part II – The CCCs
https://vidacolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/StanleyCCCFInal.mp4The morning fog hung on the fields and the frost still remained on the stalks of corn from last fall. Stan’s boots crunched over them in the Indiana morning. There was a road that led from Stoops farm where the boys were on their way out to do their days work past Grandpa Charlie’s and […]
A New Reckoning
When I set out to write about the story of my grandfather’s tour in World War II and his life leading up to it, in a way I knew the story that I wanted to tell: A man devoted to his country, his family, his men; a man who served honorably from the beginning to […]
#25: French Polynesia.
If there ever was a paradise on this earth, it is Polynesia. These islands, formed slowly over millions of years in a violent but invisible storm which still continues to this day; the inner crust of the earth heaving innumerable tons of liquid rock from the ocean floor, building undersea mountains which over these millenea […]
Part I – A Fireside Chat
Pendleton County, Kentucky In the summer of 1934, Stanley Grimes was just past his 13th birthday. An energetic and slim young man with penetrating eyes, he had a sharp nose and thick dark hair that he wore slicked back which gave him the look of one of those Italian boys you heard about in […]
Prolouge
Mostagenem, Algeria. February 1943. 0150 Hours The recently promoted Sergeant of Dog Battery, Stanley Grimes knew it his duty to stay back and man the 50 calibre while his young recruits enjoyed their first days overseas at the bars in downtown Mostagenem, an area where a soldier with a few whiskeys in him could find his night going […]
Introduction
My hope from this series is that we would be able to remember a journey. It’s a journey which colored a man’s life. Which I knew from his stories as a child lit up his eyes, but in a way which expressed caution. This journey he was careful not to relate as ‘fun’, because it […]
Vida Colorado: State of the Union
Don’t worry folks, this isn’t a political post. I am not going to weigh in on the ripping up of speech transcripts, a refused handshake or any other shenanigans which you see tuning into the news these days. This State of the Union is about the small and obscure corner of the internet I have […]
#24b: Belgium. Bastogne.
A Walk in the Woods Pulling off of the road, I was not sure what to expect. As ‘war memorials’ go, usually there is some sort of informational signage or plaque to help guide you around. Here I was in what was maybe the most anticipated historical place of my entire life and I wasn’t […]
#24a: Belgium. In Flanders Fields
I’d have to imagine that they thought we were insane. The birds. With their tiny brains, flying overhead and looking to make a nest or forage for food over the once peaceful fields of Flanders, Belgium; but finding this an untenable task given that we had blown to hell every tree or useful remnant of […]
A Letter to Scott
The high arches at Union Station remind me of your time. Those high sweeping cement pilasters a monument to a different era. A time when it seemed people weren’t so uptight and bickering about everything there was to bicker about as we go about our daily lives. This was not a time in which I […]
