Part IV – Cristobol
https://vidacolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/PART-IV-CRISTOBOL-2-1.mp4 The metal of the long steel prep table was cold on Stanley’s outstretched hands. He looked down at them and around the galley. The large tins of spices. The gallon cans of beans, boxes of potatoes, giant jugs of olive oil. It was the third day of the quarantine on the USAT Cristobol which still stood […]
Part III – Going to War
https://vidacolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Part-III-Going-to-War.mp4 Going to War-WWII Stories by Stanley Grimes As we stood over Granny’s bed in the hospice room we knew she didn’t have much time. Her body was frail, she had not been eating or drinking for days. The Lord was calling her home. Next to her bed, a shoebox and a second small rectangular […]
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 […]
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 the […]
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 […]
Our True National Debt
With all of the political debates going on these days, dividing Americans and stirring up passion and emotion, it can be refreshing to think what it is that has held us together as a country, and who we pay tribute to this Memorial Day: our veterans. This is our most immense national debt. One which […]
