Happy Fourth of July 2010

I remember one fun-filled festive firecracker celebration of the Fourth of July back in the early 1960s at my Uncle Bill’s house in Booneville. Fireworks and sparklers all around. Everyone was having fun until my cousin Kenny stuck a burning sparkler up his sister Mary Evelyn’s nose. There’s a memory.

Happy celebrations everyone and remember this holiday safety tip: keep all fireworks outside the body and have a fun and safe Fourth.

On This Day In Family History

…My father and uncle joined the American military

One day following December 7th, 1941 —now infamously known as Pearl Harbor Day—my father Artie ‘Jack’ Cotner and his younger brother Bill (pictured above) did what so many Americans did, they enlisted in the U. S. military to fight in World War II against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy. Their other brother, my uncle Mitchell, was not eligible for military service because of his employment on the railroad—a necessary element of the war effort. My uncle Bill was a Navy man and found himself stationed in the Aleutians and my father--Army Air Corps--went off to eventually serve two years in the Pacific Theater stationed in Australia, fighting in the Coral Sea Battle and others before spending two more years in Europe, stationed in Great Britain as part of the enormous and deadly D-Day Invasion.