Last Saturday, we traveled with friends Marty and Cindy to Atlantic, Iowa. We made the three hour trip to pay our respects to Mr. Henry Clay Belcher, Jr. “Pocka” as he was affectionately known to us, was the father of Pam and Doug who have been our friends for the past forty years. And their Dad “Pocka” was truly one of a kind.
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| A Fitting Tribute At the Cemetery… |
The 94 year old great-grandfather was the recipient of a military Purple Heart for the wounds he suffered in the battle of Iwo Jima. On only one occasion could I get him to talk about that day, and it was amazing to hear him say he actually witnessed the famous raising of the American flag by the solders depicted in the statue we have seen so often in history books.
Before the service, we stopped at a small diner in Atlantic for lunch…a place I’m sure Pocka was very familiar with in his younger days…The West Side Diner.
The place was packed for lunch on Saturday. So full, in fact, our party of four needed to split into two parties of two to be seated right away. We did notice the servers let several senior citizens sit alone at tables for four…and we guessed they didn’t have the heart-or the nerve-to tell them to take the smaller open tables. (Sometimes small town habits are hard to break!)
And Fred got a summertime favorite…a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich.
And since we saw many other diners enjoying dessert after their meals, we bowed to peer pressure and joined them.
I noticed the familiar, small town restaurant “pie case”…and I knew that would be Hubby’s choice. (And what’s more small-town America than homemade apple pie?)
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