Gene's Own Personal War

Not long ago I wrote about us Clay Home  kids playing on things being built around us, like the bus station and the vocational school for G.I.s returning from the War (WWII).

We saw enough newsreels and heard enough to know who the bad guys were and of course, us Americans were the good guys.   We loved to play war and loved war heroes.

Gene was made to order.  This young man came to check out the newly built  G.I. Vocational School.  He drove up on a motor scooter.  He wore his Army khakis.   I don't think he cared to learn anything they had to offer but he came every day just to sit outside on his motor scooter and tell us street kids about his adventures  killing Germans all over Europe.  He had sort of North Carolina accent, the kind of accent that it takes two syllables to pronounce a one syllable word.

For about two or three weeks he showed up and we looked forward hearing his tales every day.  To hear his high tales was sort of like the old joke:  "But why did they need all those other soldiers?"

In time, maybe  twelve or  more years I learned his name was Gene.  His father owned and operated 50% of a taxi service in Marietta.  Gene was shell-shocked.  He was a WWII casualty.   I think he probably received a pension for not being able to hold a job after his war experiences.  I don't know what happened to him, maybe he was a hero.   The war, as it did many people, effected him deeply mentally.

Gene kept riding his motor scooter for transportation, but I don't think he got out often.  It wasn't every day you would see him  scoot through down or down Roswell Street on his motor scooter, just now and then.  I think as he got older and time went forward he had a hard time finding young people interested in hearing his exploits in WWII.  He seemed to start looking shabby and unkempt.   And, worse, he started looking sadder.  I think he stayed in a state of depression.  We will never know what he was exposed to in the World War II European Theater and  what went on within his brain.

Finally, after about 1960, give or take a year, I didn't see him at all.