Vanity Plates as Bar Decor: What are YOU gonna do about it?

So, yesterday's plan to scratch for 'haugs in Stage Harbor, then have a $2 pint or two at The Nun did not so much go up in smoke as it did simply get lost in the fog.

The whole thing had begun when my lifelong friend had called on Monday to say that he was on the causeway to Morris Island checking out the tide and the activity. He was surprised that no one was there, but I explained to him that the tide had been at 9:30, and it was after 1p when he was calling. He really wanted to go for the hunt, and wanted to know if I would go with him on Tuesday. But our schedules did not mesh at all until yesterday.

Now, let me give you some backstory here. That MARCH 1 vanity tag to the left of the southern rafter over the bar at the Squire is mine. We hung it there on my fiftieth birthday many years ago, I can tell you what's written on the back. But not right now.

I mention that plate, because my lifelong friend was born a day before me, on a 28 February. Not only did we grow up together, but we also grew old together. But there have been a couple of differences. For example, when I went off to Wesleyan, my friend went off to Parris Island. He did not pass GO! and he did not collect $200. He went right to Vietnam with a machine gun. He was an 18 year old on a mission, and he has the scars and the Purple Hearts to prove it. Me? I went for my college degrees, and they threw in my single bar (which is not the same as a "singles bar"), and then I followed him four years later at 22. 

In the years that followed, my friend and his wife raised a family, and their older son graduated from the USAF. As a Lt Col, he just deployed to Afghanistan. There are kids and grandkids and all that stuff that belongs in a great country song. Me? I followed-up my training as a lone ranger and a skeptic until I became a curmudgeon at a very early age, earning the barfly merit badge with high honors.

Flash forward to six or seven weeks ago, when my lifelong friend phoned me on a Tuesday en route to South Shore Hospital. He had something to tell me: in his lungs and in his bones, they had discovered cancer. Radiation and chemo were now on his schedule. When he called me last week from the causeway, he had been for that day's treatment, and he was looking to do some living.

Anyway, when the fog had not lifted by noontime yesterday when I picked him up in Harwich, we decided we'd hit the Red Nun until it lifted, then hunt for 'haugs. But the Nun was not yet open [Note: Winter's over, and three other vehicles pulled into the lot and left while I looked for some posted business hours.] But, I digress.

We hit the Squire instead and sat at the bar right in front of the door and beneath where the "Plovers taste a lot like chicken" sticker used to be. As we quacked and made note that my MARCH 1 was still in place, I noticed that above my stool was a framed note, which I first ignored. But eventually, I gave it a second glance. And then a read. 

You should seek it out. It's from a young Squire patron from Chelmsford who had served in Iraq in 2006, and he was asking if the Squire would hang up his MA tag with the Purple Heart. I nudged my friend and pointed to the note. "Read this," I said, but I knew his eyesight's not that good. So, I summarized, then pointed to the kid's Purple Heart tag nailed right there. Where ALL the world should take note. This is not a vanity plate from some jackass such as me . . . or John Effin Kerry. This kid gave a part of himself  to carry this honor, and he now he wants everyone to know just how much he loves this bar. God bless him, and all the other kids serving overseas this weekend. They won't be here for the traffic, the cookouts, or the Squire's overpriced CAN of PBR. Still, keep them in your hearts. Their true day will come in November when all veterans (living and dead) are honored, but it's okay to honor the living on this commemoration of those who have given their lives.

As we left the Squire in search of shellfish, my lifelong friend was moving very, very slow. And I finally asked him how he is feeling. He reported that the pain sucks, but that he is determined to get through one more year so that he can see his older son once again when he returns from Afghanistan.

Finally, when you go to some bar this weekend, remember these guys, as well as those men and women you do not know. For ten seconds, utter a simple prayer for them. And maybe think about donating the price of just one of those pretty beers to the Wounder Warrior Project. The greatest casualty is being forgotten.