Lee and Ken are alive and well and living in Nova Scotia

 In Canada, it is Remembrance Day. In the US it is Veterans' Day. In both countries, it is a day to celebrate, with thankfulness, our veterans, our hard won freedoms and our lives well lived.

On this day, Our Ken organizes his day around a trip to Bedford; we drive to the cemetery where his parents and his brother Don are buried, pay our respects and lay poppies on the graves. It is always a day of remembrance and a day of memories.

As we drive in, Our Ken recollected the many days that we made the trip; sometimes it was in snow, oftentimes in cold rain and very occasionally in sun. Today it was 18 degrees (64F) with sun. We spoke of the wars that his Dad was involved in (the Boer War and WW1). He reminded me that for the Boer War, his Dad took his own horse - they shipped overseas and the horses were in the belly of the ships, cared for by their owners. He spoke of WW 1 gas masks, of the many letters written by his parents and of his grandfather, Colonel Curren, who helped his Dad enlist at the ripe age of almost 17. We moved on to reminiscences of vehicles, from the Company car driven for work to the 1931 family vehicle and then the cherished 1939 Pontiac (it was a great car, it seems).

He spoke of his mother, a school principal in Bedford, who gave up her job when she married. She was one of a large family of children (they numbered well into the double digits) and did not have a middle name - Ken reckons her parents had run out of names by the time she surfaced so a first name only had to suffice. There were several nuns (Sisters of Charity) and her first cousin was Archbishop Hayes. Helen Creighton was also a cousin and Ken's middle name reflects that family. The Roche family was not thrilled that Mary (Our Ken's Mom) married an Anglican!

The cemetery is a beautiful spot and on this lovely fall day, it was easy to sit on a bench and reminisce. Ken pointed out the school that he attended from grades 1 to 4. When the weather was bad, he stayed with a family near the school rather than walk the long road of Magazine Hill to get home. From there it was Bedford Schools and finally the High School where the children who lived in Windsor Jct. and Waverley, who went beyond Grade 8, had to come by train. There were only a few families in the Hammonds Plains area and they came by vehicle into Bedford. He chuckled as we passed the Chicken Burger, saying "Many a day I stopped there to spend my 5 cents".

As we stood at the graves, once again calculating the ages as well as the timing of the many world events that these folks lived through, Our Ken recognized yet again that he is the only one of his generation of Currens remaining. He is not one to dwell on these facts, rather is accepting of his longevity and his position as the youngest of four sons, but it does make him pause and recognize that his memories of these events are now his alone. At 91, he is well, vital and engaged in world events. He speaks knowledgeably of the past, the present and his hope for the future. He does not celebrate war. He wore a uniform, had an ROTP Scholarship through University and saw first hand the devastation caused when countries could not come to terms with their differences. As we close the curtains tonight, he will remember once again the losses, the stories and the tragedy as he celebrates the many lives given that allowed us to live in peace here in Canada. We are lucky and we will never forget.

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