Recently I was rumbling through “stuff” in my parents’ attic. I discovered many things of my fathers that prove to be priceless to me. I located many items from WW2 that he had kept… manuals; postcards; a detailed map showing his travels, etc. I, also, found something on an aged, folded paper. This paper yielded his valedictorian speech from his graduation from Elderton High school in 1941.
I read the paper upon returning home and was much surprised of his insight of the times he was living and how, eerily the writing seemed to relate to our times as well. I copied the speech and sent it to the Leader Times. Happily, the editor felt like me and printed the speech on Friday, June 4th. The irony for me was that the speech appeared, within the pages of the paper, on what would have been my father’s 87th birthday-June 4th. He was born in 1923.
As I wrote to the editor, I am sure my father didn’t think while giving that speech at the podium in 1941, he would be drafted the following year and once engaged wouldn’t return home again until the fall of 1945! He was D-Day 13 during that conflict. Last evening I was thinking about things of life. I couldn’t help wondering many aspects of life. What if my father would have been killed during that war? He would have never married Ruth Elizabeth Yount in 1953. I would not have been born in 1955. My sister Ruthie Elaine Smail would not have been born in 1958. Thoughts of the Christmas movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life” came to mind. What if? Such thoughts will boggle one’s mind!! When you think of life and the wars…the Civil War; the World Wars and so on one can only ponder of all of the lives and great people who never were because of war’s action!
The speech, “The Legacy of America” appeared in the June 4th edition of the Leader Times. I am honored and proud of my father!!!
Larry A. Smail's Blog 
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