Making Contact

The other day I was going through my Dad's old photo album from Vietnam. There's lots of old family photos in there too. People sent him their school photos when he was over seas and he'd stuck them in there. There were some I had no idea who they were. One was a man in a military uniform. At first I thought it must be someone he served with and the guys name was on the back. So I called my Dad and he said that it was someone who lived below his grandparents and his family and Dad's family had all gone to church together.

I got on the Internet and found out that this man's father had just died in January 2010 and it gave the town where this fellow lived, in Texas. It also gave the residence of his siblings. I looked him up and got an address, but no phone was listed. So I looked up his fathers residence in North Carolina where 2 of his sisters lived and there was a phone number. I gave the number to my Dad and he called it Tuesday night. The sister that answered remembered Dad and said "do you know how long it's been since I've seen you!" . It's probably been almost 40 years. She gave my Dad her brother's phone number in Texas and when Dad called he got an answering machine. He didn't leave a message.

So Wednesday night my parents were home watching the T.V. when the phone rang and Dad answered it. It was the man in Texas. He said his sister had called and told him Dad was looking for him and he was tickled to death! He and Dad talked for a while. Both finding out the other had cancer. The man told dad to go to the Veteran's Administration and get an I.D. and tell them about his cancer. The man in TX retired from the military and he said the agent orange used in Vietnam is known to cause cancer and the number one type they're seeing is prostrate cancer.

The guy got Dad's address and is going to write him a letter.

This fellow also had a sister. They called her "Cookie" and according to my aunt Cookie was BAD. She always got my aunt in trouble and she'd do wrong and my aunt would get whipped for it. My grandpa whipped them with an old miner's belt too! Which is a regular belt with lots of little belts and buckles all the way around it, ouch! My Aunt says she'd going to look up Cookie and go beat her up for all the stuff she did as a child. I found Cookie! She only lives about an hour from us, so she better watch her back. There's 5ft and 90 lbs of trouble coming her way!