Last week, I participated as a judge for the annual Veteran’s Day Essay contest. I look forward to this every year because it involves listening to the words of both the young and the young-at-heart. One evening a year, the judges for the contest meet at the VFW and sit at large round tables reading essays from children. This year, we had over 500 essays to read and narrow down to just a few winners. These children are then visited at school and surprised with an award in front of all their peers.
I am the youngest person in the room. When one of my parents’ dear friends gradually lost his eye sight, I was offered the honor to take his place to read and score the essays. He has now since passed away but I still go each year, sit in his chair, and read for him. It is a quiet evening for me, a once-a-year evening when I sit, listen, and see people that I haven’t seen since last November. Several people in the room are parents of my childhood classmates, so when they walk in the door and I hear their voices, it triggers many wonderful memories of when I grew up, went to school, went trick-or-treating or holiday caroling. It’s funny how that is, isn’t it? How just the timber of someone’s voice can bring you back in time.
