After leaving Jean-Pierre’s Bakery on Main Avenue this summer clutching a package of train cookies (i.e., butter galettes, which are impressioned with the historic train), it was brought to my attention that insight and understanding do not reside solely in the halls of academia or the pulpits of our churches.
Starting up College Drive, I noticed several men about my age seated on benches in front of a popular Durango restaurant. They nodded as I approached; and I knew instinctively that they, like me, had spent segments of their lives in Southeast Asia some 45 years ago.
In response to their informal greeting, I inquired into the nature of their morning conference. They smiled, and in the course of the next few moments of casual conversation, one gentleman slid down the bench in front of the closed restaurant, indicating a place for me.
“It’s the page-turners of the world, obviously,” one of the men said as he picked up on the conversation my arrival had interrupted. The speaker was in a well-worn Army jacket with a row of fading military ribbons, including the yellow and green Vietnam Service ribbon. Many of us have one, mostly stashed away in the back of a dresser drawer.
The words “page-turner” struck a chord.
The night before, my wife, Jan, and I had attended a concert at one of our local churches; and I had been taken by the unobtrusive dexterity of the person turning pages for the pianist.
“Page-turner,” I mused aloud. A member of our small group nodded.
In the quiet moment that followed, I ventured, “Anyone want a cookie?” One in the group shook his head no. The others accepted, however; I took one and passed the package around. The decliner changed his mind and took one as well. It’s hard to resist a train cookie.
It was obvious that the “page-turner” comment was related not to some compelling novel but referred instead to individuals who make helpful differences in the lives of others, like those who turn the pages of sheet music for pianists during performances.
Page-turning, of course, in a broader sense, is simply the act of helping others. Easily overlooked, it occurs in our every day lives. If we’re alert, we can see it on visits to the hardware or on trips to the recycling center. I saw it recently in the aisle of a grocery store. Without noticing a bill had slipped from her wallet, a lady continued shopping; and a young school-age child scooped it up, ran after the shopper and handed her the money.
It happens in international affairs as well, evident, for example, when world and regional leaders work toward bringing peace to warring areas of the world. That those efforts seem devoid of immediate success does not lessen their importance.
The world is caught up in a tangle of seemingly endless wars, which drain resources and take the lives and minds of thousands of young men and women, as well as inflict suffering on people caught up either directly or indirectly in those conflicts. Just how many children are we willing to let suffer the life-long effects of post-traumatic stress disorder?
As I sat listening to the conversational hum of my fellow vets, I learned that two of them were camping out in the hills they vaguely waved at. By then, my mind had begun scrolling through times when page-turners had affected my life.
Etched in memory is an old man in Milledgeville, Georgia, where I was a 14-year-old busboy in a small restaurant. The elderly, white-haired gentleman washed the restaurant’s dishes. He treated them like high-end china.
I had made a flip remark, which in retrospect, may have contained a racist sentiment, though I would like to think it hadn’t.
Mr. James left his steamy remit of dirty dishes and looked me kindly but squarely in the eyes.
“Son,” he said gently, “you must always respect your elders.” I was speechless; so he added, “Do you understand?”
I nodded yes and walked back to my busboy duties. I wish now I had thought to say, “Thank you, Mr. James.” He was a page-turner. It was one of those iconic moments in a young life. Teaching is not confined to the classroom.
The diminishing package of train cookies circled again.
Another page-turning moment occurred in the Sixties when, as a young junior naval officer, I was assigned to District headquarters in San Francisco.
A fellow junior officer and I were laughing thoughtlessly about a young sailor on the staff, who in the late hours of the previous night had been expelled from the Navy by a panel of senior officers for not meeting the military’s sexual-orientation code – a code thankfully struck down in recent years.
Our supervisor overheard our callous remarks.
“You should not be laughing at the troubles of others,” he said. “His life is more important than the Navy. Remember that people are more important than the Navy.”
Commander Pilsbury was leader who turned pages.
The cookies were nearly gone. And my mind returned to thoughts of war and page-turning on a larger scale.
World leaders – political and spiritual – are trying to bend history away from the battlefields. Think back to President Dwight Eisenhower, the World War II military leader, who on leaving office warned of the dangers of an increasingly powerful military-industrial complex and its potentially deleterious effect on democracy.
We find page-turners in all aspects of our lives. The celebrated and the unknown: our hair cutters, parents, children, child care providers, mechanics, bankers, politicians, journalists. And volunteers like the folks who prepare a Thanksgiving dinner at the La Plata County Fairgrounds each year – a celebration open to the world.
The Vietnam vet on College had it right: “It’s the page-turners, obviously.” Something to be grateful for in this Thanksgiving season.
Ralph Blanchard lives in La Plata County, where he retired after 25 years as a naval officer followed by 15 years consulting with the military services and the YMCA on matters related to military family and personnel issues. Reach him at: blanchard@mydurango.net.
