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    A Star In The Window: Days of Innocence
    A Star In The Window: Days of Innocence
    A Star In The Window: Days of Innocence
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    A Star In The Window: Days of Innocence

    By Dennis Parker

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    About this ebook

    Victor Vargas is a young boy growing up during the Korean War. He and his brother Grant, aka Bonesy, were sent to live with their grandmother and cousin after their father’s plane got shot down during the war, forcing their mother to go to work in the factories. Life without either of their parents is tough for Bonesy and Vic, but their grandmother works hard to raise them well and they have exciting adventures with their friends as they wait for their mom to return. Every day, they look at the star in their window, a symbol of hope that their dad will come back from the war and they can be a family again. Loosely based on the childhood experiences of the author during WWII, this heartwarming collection of stories will touch your heart and have you laughing, crying, and shaking your head as you take your journey through this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDennis Parker
    Release dateDec 21, 2015
    ISBN9781311562289
    A Star In The Window: Days of Innocence
    Author

    Dennis Parker

    Dennis D. Parker was born on July 10, 1937, in Elmira, Michigan, and lived his life in Michigan, New Jersey, Arizona, Nebraska, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri. He was married for over 52 years to the same woman, and raised five children. He was an accomplished businessperson, an innovative entrepreneur, and a dedicated family man.An accomplished drummer, Dennis played drums with the George Minto quintet in Detroit and taught drum lessons. He passed his love of drumming onto his children, and his grandchildren. Dennis loved music...especially jazz and classical music. His favorite classical composer was Rimsky Korsakov. He also loved hearing the bagpipes and you could always see him at drum and bugle corps shows, cheering on his favorite corps, The Blue Devils.Dennis was also car enthusiast and an amazing mechanic. As a young man, he built a 1940 Ford C-Gasser and raced it at the Detroit Dragway. He ended up driving the car in the Indy 500 drag finals and won a trophy. Later on in life, you could always find him tinkering under the hood of a car, fixing something or another (usually for his family’s benefit!). Even today, the garage is filled with an auto mechanics dream tools!I am Dennis’ oldest daughter. During his retirement, my dad decided to write a book. His inscription in my original manuscript, dated December 2002, noted that he intended to add to the book, and write more books. Sadly, on February 17, 2014, at the age of 76, he passed away, from complications of a neurodegenerative disease called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). It was his desire that we publish A Star In The Window, which is why you are reading this.Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is a terminal illness for which there is no cure. Life expectancy is 5 – 7 years and I believe my father had this disease from 2007 until he died. It is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s Disease, because some of the symptoms are closely related. This is what happened with my dad. In 2012, after multiple visits to neurologists, we were referred to a neurologist that specialized in Parkinson’s Disease, along with other neurodegenerative diseases, and were given the awful news that my dad had PSP, a rare brain disorder that affected gait and balance, along with complex eye movement and thought processes. Worst of all, there was no cure and no way to stop its progression. For our family, it was like being on a runaway train. No way to stop it. Helpless. We raced to try anything that seemed like it could slow everything down. Botox treatments to keep Dad’s eyes from closing all the time and stop the constant rigidity in his neck. Physical therapy to keep up the muscle tone in his arms and legs so he could continue to be mobile. Dopamines to keep him steady and help him stay mobile. All of these were only minor and sometimes futile attempts to somehow get ahead of his worsening symptoms and give him some quality of life.We managed to keep my dad walking until August of 2013, when he became ill with an infection, which took every bit of strength out of him. This strong, tough and brilliant man who was my father left the hospital in a wheelchair, unable to do the most basic things. Unable to care for him at home anymore, and with his blessing, we found an assisted living facility for him where he would be able to get round the clock care. We visited him every day, knowing that this would be a severe lifestyle change for him. Mom was there every day and all of his kids came to be with him on various days of the week. No matter what he was going through, he always had a smile for us. It must have been so terrible for him to live inside a body that was betraying him and robbing him of everything he loved. But you hardly knew the pain he went through.Six months after moving to the assisted living facility, on February 17, 2014, he passed away with all of his family around him. Finally, he was free from the chains of this horrible disease.The profits from the sale of A Star In The Window will be donated to organizations like CurePSP, in efforts to find a cure. If you would like to know more about PSP and other neurodegenerative disorders, or you would like to make a private donation, visit the website for CurePSP or contact them by mail at this address:CurePSP30 E. Padonia Road, Suite 201Timonium, MD 21093Editing and publishing this book has been an honor for me, but working with my dad on the stories that he wrote allowed me to understand him on a deeper level, and that is truly a gift that I will always treasure.Christy Bean

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      Book preview

      A Star In The Window - Dennis Parker

      A Star In The Window:

      Days of Innocence

      Dennis D. Parker

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 by Dennis D. Parker

      This book is available in print at most online retailers.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re–sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      A Foreword By The Author

      The Valley

      Sunday Morning

      Ready For School

      Third Grade and Miss Frye

      Freddie, My Friend

      Junior’s Wheels

      TipToe Pete

      Pickin’ Tars

      The Western Union Man

      Ice Cutters and Fisherman

      The Ice House

      The Hunters

      Snow Men

      The Fort

      The Roundhouse

      The Cemetery

      Pea Shooter Ace

      Adventures With Freddie and Leo

      My Injun Friends

      Hotel Windjammer

      Big City Dreams

      About Dennis Parker

      A Foreword By The Author

      This story happens before, during, and after the Korean War. The time is 1950 - 1955. We were just children. Childhood then was a fragile and confusing time, because so many of us lost parents to that war or to World War II, which had ended just five years earlier. For a child, troubles and problems should be far from real. Having fun should be the principle activity, but growing up during a war changes things. The loss of a loved one is a frightening and disturbing thing, especially during wartime. For a child, the loss of either parent is traumatic. For a little boy, the loss of a father can be devastating. I always wondered what I had done to deserve that. Now, I know that is a selfish thought, because some kids lost a lot more than I did.

      The Korean conflict is sometimes referred to as The Forgotten War, because it was a war that very few wanted to fight and fewer believed in. Communism was at its peak of popularity and in the United States, it was feared and loathed. The Soviet Union, headed by Joseph Stalin, had been exporting its brand of Communism around the world and the United States government viewed that as a sinister threat to democracy. China, the world’s most popular nation had adopted Communism and practiced it fantastically. China was a next door neighbor of North Korea, the aggressor in the Korean conflict. The Soviet Union had been allied with the USA during World War II, but had quickly turned against democracy after that war ended in 1945. The Korean conflict, encouraged by Stalin and the Soviet Union, would be the first test of communism against democracy in an armed conflict.

      World War II had been a traumatic time for the United States of America. It was not the first time that the country had been involved in a world-wide conflict, but many hoped it would be the last. Many sons and fathers had gone to Europe to fight during World War I, which had been called The War To End All Wars. HA! That war ended in 1918 and World War II started in 1939, drawing in the sons of those World War I warriors. There had been twenty years to forget the horrors of World War I, but while the Americans wanted to remain neutral, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 angered and polarized the country to fight. Korea came too soon after that fight and many Americans were still mourning their losses from World War II. The US economy was just beginning to recover from World War II. US citizens were entering a period of unprecedented peacetime prosperity and many citizens believed the Korean situation was Korea’s business. Why should American boys die for Korea? For American kids, why should American dads leave to go fight a war in Korea?

      During those wars, those remaining at home, keeping the home fires burning, formed some habits to help memorialize their loved ones fighting so far away. One of those habits was placing a service flag with a star in the window for each son or daughter fighting in the war. The star reminded everyone that someone in that family was helping to defend the American way of life. The star was also a plea for prayers to protect the person the star represented.

      This is a story of the kids that dads left behind and some of the things they did while growing up. It is semi-fiction; it is not totally about my life but it reflects and parallels some of the feelings I had and things I did. School played an important part in our lives, but the things we did and personal friendships we formed were far more important in our life. Especially the things we did together as friends. It was fun and sometimes scary, but we survived. We grew up and the lucky ones became responsible adults.

      We lost my dad when I was really young and it hurt not to have a dad. Mom was strong and was a wonderful influence on me. So was my grandma, a real lady with very strong moral convictions. I will always remember the funny, but true, things she often said. She said things like Every day above ground is a good day. Another was, The devil loves bad boys. They burn brightly and make warm fires. She was always good for rules to live by. I once heard her tell one of my friends, Son, your integrity is the only thing you’ll ever have that nobody can steal from you, and you can’t ‘lose’ it. The only way you ‘lose’ integrity is to give it away, and if you do that you are lost. But Dad was my role model and losing that role model made me work extra hard to try to learn how to be what my family expected; a person of value.

      ***************************

      The Valley

      Until last year, life was great in Martin City. That’s where we lived. My name is Vic Vargas and my brother, Grant (I called him Bonesy, because he was so skinny), is two years younger than me and not at all like me. We have had our differences. Our mother favored Grant because he was skinny and frail. She protected him and never let me get even with the little brat when he did things to me. But he was usually a good kid, and I liked him most of the time, like when we went to the valley with Dad. Our dad was fun when we went to the valley, because he knew all of the plants and animals there. He would stop to show us a new tree and tell us what kind it was. He would see a baby snake (YUCK) and tell us what it was and about how old it was. The best part was when he gave us a ride on his shoulders.

      Dad worked at the county maintenance yard, but he was home on Saturday and Sunday, so he took us somewhere every Saturday. Sundays were reserved for church and Preacher Powell. Sometimes we would go to the old fort and he would tell us stories about how the Indians attacked the soldiers there a long time ago. He would raise us, one at a time, over his head and let us stick our feet into the mouth of the huge cannons inside the fort walls. That was scary because the cannons were big enough to swallow us if we let go of the mouth, but Dad knew that and never let go

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