Papa and His Bugle
Jul 30 '08
The Bottom Line As with all my stories, fact blends with fiction. You never know where one ends and the other begins.
Papa never talked about the war. Instead, he dreamed about it night after night. Mama would hold him until he quieted and went back to sleep. Papa fought his monsters, his demons, when the sun went down and they found their way into his soul, his mind, and tortured him.
He saw acres and acres of bodies lying in fields. The blood of man seeped into the ground, congealed into a blob, or simply pooled waiting for the scavengers to arrive.
The war may have been over but the war wasn’t over for the men who lived to walk away from it. Or the men who limped away from it.
Papa limped away from the War of the Great Rebellion with a hole in his heart and lived in physical pain for the rest of his life.
During a quiet summer’s eve when all was quiet in the backwoods of Morgan County, on a piece of land where The Pines once stood, I shyly moved closer to the rocking chair he was sitting in and asked him if he’d play his bugle for me?
Papa’s bugle. How proud of it he was and how proudly he’d sit with it in his lap and clean it to a perfect shine. When Papa was cleaning his bugle, we knew it was best to leave him alone. He was with his memories and nothing else existed for him.
Papa was in his 80’s, had a long white beard down to his lap and when his children were hanging onto him, he’d let us lovingly comb his beard. It was as soft as silk and shimmered like glass in the sun. He’d pretend we were a nuisance but the twinkle in his eyes belied his words.
“Why do you want me to play my bugle Blondie?” he asked. “It’s late and almost time for bed.”
“Please Papa, just play for me. I want to hear you play your favorite piece as if you were on the battle field, to listen as you call your men to fight. I want to see you play in my mind before the fighting begins. Was your beard long and white then Papa? Did it blow in the wind as you stood at attention and obeyed your commander? Can I hear, just one time, your call to battle, or if you like, would you play TAPS?”
Papa is looking real hard into my eyes and he must have saw something there, maybe a natural born curiosity, that compelled his young daughter to make such a request.
The nod of his head told me he would play. Only the screen door was open to the front of the house and in his rich baritone, he asked my very young mother, Sibbie, if she’d bring him his bugle?
This was such an unusual request my mother came to the door and asked him why he wanted it?
“My Blondie wants to hear it,” was his only reply.
A few minutes later Papa held his bugle lovingly in his hands. Papa’s hands were old, gnarled and so paper thin I could almost see beneath his skin.
But, when Papa put his bugle to his mouth he was no longer an old man waiting for Old Man Death to claim him. Instead he was a young boy, his men were marching off to war and he was leading them. Some were led to their death and some were left to die another day.
Slowly he blew a few bars and then with eyes closed, he was back on one of his many battle field’s signaling for his comrades in arms to run forward and fight for what they believed in, to fight for the rights of their way of life, to fight for their country, to fight for freedom.
I was mesmerized watching him play, listening to him.
Silence reigned over the mountains as Papa played. Dusk was upon us, and with his bugle, Papa began to play the haunting melody of TAPS. Papa played proudly as was his right. No wind rustled the tree branches. Nothing stirs, and all is so very quiet. I hold my breath and over the glorious beauty of the east Tennessee mountains my Papa played his bugle with a passion so fierce, tears leaked from my eyes.
He's standing at attention, his eyes in the distance and salutes soldiers only he can see. As the final notes of TAPS fades into silence, my Papa opens his eyes smiles at me. For a second, I had been spellbound. I had felt my Papa’s deep pride, his reverence for his country, and deep sadness for the horror and deprivation hurled upon his young shoulders by a war that left far too many scars to ever heal.
Papa took his handkerchief from his overall’s and gently wiped my eyes.
“It’s past your bedtime young lady, so you scoot now.”
Papa was wounded in the war, but until the day he died, he played his bugle. It was his badge of honor.
©ddustyrose July 31, 2008
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