When Rafferty saw the envelope with the return address in boldface of the local board of the Selective Service System tying on top of the stack of mail in his parents' front parlor, and after he'd torn open the envelope and read the brief note that denied his plea for deferment, he was fit to be tied. He wanted no part of this war or any other armed conflict being waged or about to be waged in some distant part of the world. He thought that he'd made that pretty clear at the last meeting he'd had with the five board members. Rafferty had strenuously argued that he was now and forever more opposed to killing other human beings for any reason whatsoever. He had declared that he was a conscientious objector to all military service based on his moral and ethical beliefs. He could not argue for a deferment on the grounds of religious training and belief, because he had neither. His only belief was self-preservation above all else. "The board finds registrant's behavior inconsistent with his claim" was the last sentence on the note. What inconsistent behavior? Rafferty thought, a few brawls and that bogus charge of auto theft from his last year in high school.

Rafferty hadn't spent four years and two summers in high school for nothing. He'd learned a trick or two. One thing he was good at was talking his way out of doing anything he didn't want to do in all those boring classes. Surely he could find a way to avoid being shipped off to some godforsaken people's republic in Southeast Asia. Maybe he could work a Section 8 discharge for mental and emotional instability if he really put his mind to it. His classmate and drinking buddy Cassidy had been drafted and discharged after less than a year in Army green for going AWOL.

After basic training and advanced infantry training, PFC Rafferty was shipped to Dong Tam in Vietnam, where he was assigned to the worst infantry battalion operating in the Mekong Delta. But Rafferty had discovered in training stateside that Army green suited him just fine. He had surprised himself by adapting to living in the field 24/7. Marching with full pack in the hot sun at Fort Benning had tested his strength to the max. Rafferty made it a point of honor to match himself with the best and most proficient trainees in Company A. If these guys can take it, I sure as hell can, he thought. Lying in the prone position on the hard-packed red dirt of the rifle range, Rafferty fired round after round at the paper target 300 yards downrange. No Maggy's drawers waved for him!

Rafferty's sergeant in Nam, a forty year old man from a small town in northern Wisconsin, had almost twenty years service when Rafferty was assigned to his platoon. He'd seen more than his share of young kids eager to fight the good fight for God and country. Sergeant Matthews vividly recalled his own initiation into a line company as an eighteen year old recruit fresh from the states. The burly supply sergeant wearing pressed fatigues had handed him an M-1 30 caliber rifle, a web belt with pockets holding ten eight-round clips of ammo, a helmet liner and a steel pot. He had pointed to a haggard looking kid not much older than Matthews was at the time standing in the supply tent opening. That's your platoon sergeant, he said. Good luck, kid.

Rafferty fit right in with the platoon, which ran nightly squad-sized patrols up and down the Mekong. He impressed Matthews with his hardcore behavior on patrol. Never too eager, but careful and alert for any signs of enemy patrols doing much the same thing. Later on occasional visits to the battalion PX in Dong Tam, Matthews would sit and talk with Rafferty and other troopers over a cold beer. The kid drank his share, but no more than that. Matthews thought then and later that the kid didn't have the makings of a twenty-year man. The Army just wasn't his cup of tea. Forget the Airborne, he told Rafferty. When your tour is up, get out and go to college on the GI Bill. You're smarter than you think you are.

Matthews was laid up with a recurrent bout of malaria at the battalion dispensary for two weeks. When he returned to duty, he heard secondhand from the platoon LT, a kid no more than twenty-five fresh out of OCS, about Rafferty's last patrol on the Mekong. The LT was flying high on some good shit, Matthews could tell, and was babbling.

"Fickle finger of fate, Sergeant Matthews. That's what it was, all right! That kid in Dorfman's squad, Rafferty? He was greased but good on a patrol last night. Offed and lit up like a Xmas tree! Zapped while he was zipping up! What say I put the poor bastard in for the Purple Order of Hurt? OK, sergeant?"

Twenty years on the goddamn line and my last tour I get some snot-nose like this as platoon LT? Where in the wide world do they get shit-for-brains officers like this anyway?

Matthews braced himself to full attention.

"Sergeant Matthews requests the LT's permission to see the colonel, sir! PFC Patrick Rafferty is due for a Purple Heart and a Silver Star for his action routing the enemy at Cam Tho a month ago, sir! He was Hardcore, sir!"

Matthews saluted and executed an about face.

My "best day" is always when the sun is shining, it's about 70 degrees, there is little wind, the sky is powder blue and full of fluffy white clouds, the trees and grass are a bright Irish green, the blossoms and flowers are in full bloom, and I am able to take a long walk and think about past "best days" at various times of my life

Today, May 16, 2008, is one of those days. It is pleasant and as I take my daily one-half hour walk, floods of memories come back to me of walks taken a long time ago. Today I not only walk because I enjoy the sun, fresh air, and exercise, but because I'm told this is something good for a senior citizen like me to keep my brain, joints and bones healthy. Honestly, I hate to think that this is my reason for walking because walking is really second nature to me.

When I was growing up in the 1940s very few families owned a car and there certainly were no school buses. Everyone walked no matter how many blocks away we lived from school. I lived more than a mile from school and never minded one step of the walk. In fact, I loved the long walk, especially when it was a day as I've described as my "best day." My friends and I strolled home from school, talking, sometimes picking a few flowers in the prairies along the way, and just soaking up all the wonders of nature around us.

After school, we'd play outdoors until supper time, playing games on the sidewalks, roller skating or riding our bicycles. We always were outdoors as much as possible. Can you think of a better "best day" than continuing to take advantage of the beauty of nature all about us?

Today as I walked along I especially thought of my walk as a child more than a mile to get to a store that sold candy, comics, coloring books, cut outs, etc. It was a small candy store, and when I had ten cents or more, I'd walk to the store to buy a book of cut outs. If you’re not familiar with "cut outs," it was a book of paper dolls with paper clothes, which you'd cut out and then dress the paper dolls with the paper clothes. Often the cut outs were of popular movie stars of the time, which was really a thrill for me as I loved the way they dressed in the movies and was always interested in fashion. Anyway, I loved cut outs and was so happy that the little candy store sold them, otherwise I'd have to wait for my mother to take a trip to Belmont and Central, which was the closest shopping district to our house. There were no such stores as K Mart, Wal-Mart or big drug stores that sold a tumultuous amount of toys, games, books, etc. for kids. We had very little, but whatever we had, you can believe made for many a "best days."

Somehow I think our "best days" in the past taught us to appreciate everything around us -- and to be thankful for whatever we had, which led us to continue to have "best days" throughout our lives no matter what trials or tribulations we might face.

Hand drawn by Elvira K. Castillo

You are the only one who can understand how I feel about the decision I have to make. This morning I came up to the cottage to get away from the hustle and bushel of the city, to be alone, and to make a decision that will change the direction of my life. I needed to be alone in a place where I could think clearly. I took a walk to my favorite spot by the waterfall, and I sat on the big slab of rock, watching the water cascading down the mountain, forming the dark pool below. I remembered the many good times my love and I spent here, enjoying our long walks in the wilderness, and our time out on the lake in the little boat he loves so well.

As I sat here this morning, I could hear the sounds from the campground across the lake, being the last weekend of summer it was full of people some I suppose like me, having to make life changing decisions. I could hear the music coming from the carousal as it went round and round, the laughter of the children, the anxious call of a mother to a child who had ventured to close to the lake, and the laughter of young lovers as the walked hand in hand in the shadow of the trees. Those same sounds I had heard many times but never took much notice. Today, they seemed to be clearer perhaps because my mind is burdened with the life changing decision I have to make before I leave what may be my last visit here for a long time.

The career offer is so exciting. I would be a fool to turn it down. It would change my life forever not to mention the large increase in salary that comes with it. When I discussed it with Jeff, he was not in flavor of the change. Nor was he inclined to get married which was the only thing that would have made me decline the job. After a huge argument, I slammed out, got in the car, and here I am looking to my future. The falling water has brought peace to my mind. I know now, although there is no hope of us getting married, I will always miss him. But for my sake, I must move on.

As I locked up the cottage, and had a last look around the garden and the lake with tears in my eyes, I got into the car and hoped that I was going forward to what would be the best days of my life.

I will always be ...

Your loving sister

She reminded me of the witch from THE WIZARD OF OZ. And just by coincidence, her name happened to be Mrs. Fitch...honestly. I got hold of that bit of news because the mailman mistakenly left her mail at our house one day and I had to go across the street and put it in her mailbox. I did it in a big hurry you can just bet, because all the kids on the block were scared of her...me included. Honestly, she looked like a real witch especially when she worked in her garden. She wore a big, black hat pulled down over her eyes, a somber checked apron and garden gloves that covered long, skinny fingers

She carried an ominous looking rake in one hand and an old dented bucket in the other (to hold the weeds, I suppose). She had lived across the street from us forever...I think. And never once do I remember her saying hello to any of us kids who usually were all over the neighborhood most all the time. Woe to anyone who stepped on her beloved grass...they got a bug-eyed look and a stare that could almost melt them to the ground. I know, because I got several of those warnings over the years.

Well, Halloween was coming and I decided it was time to make her pay for being So...unneighborly? After all this was the season, wasn't it...for witches and goblins and tricks and treats. The plan was hatched during a club meeting in our garage.

Ralphie and Jimmy were going to be ghosts, I was a ballerina, Adeline and her sister were clowns, and little Dorothy La Due and my sister were angels...what I mean was, they were going to dress up as angels for Halloween.

I gave Jimmy and Ralphie the important job of going up the stairs to Mrs. Fitch's house, ring the doorbell and then when there was no answer (I was sure she wouldn't be playing the good neighbor on this trick or treat night), soap up the door and run down the stairs in a hurry to where the rest of the gang would be hiding under the big tree on the corner.

My mother had taken me aside one day and warned me not to dream up any mischief that might get me in trouble ... since I was still on trial for that last episode. I had already forgotten about that Machine Gun McGurn thing but I guess she has a memory like a fox.

Somehow or other our luck didn't hold out because when Jim and Ralphie went up the stairs to the house, a real witch opened the door. She cackled and laughed and made scary noises. Jimmy fell backwards and got a big bump on his head and poor Ralphie started screaming and running and the rest of us under the big tree on the corner just moaned and groaned with genuine fright.

She had turned the tables on us. And, of course once again I was in trouble.

A couple of days later Ma made me go over and apologize to Mrs. Fitch. I found out there was a Mr. Fitch, too. They had a canary and Mrs. Fitch played the piano and Oh! Yes! She made the best brownies!

Years later now, as I recall that episode, I've decided it was one of my best days ever.

Currently every day is a great day as far as I am concerned. There can be nothing better than getting up in the morning, spending the day with friends, being able to go wherever you like in your own car or on "no charge" buses or trains because you are a senior in this area. But after some careful thought I find that last Friday was a special day and could go in the category of "best."

The Eisenhower Library had arranged a tour to see the Field Museum if one was interested. Much as I would enjoy going on these tours, it usually was on a day I had other work or a different plan.

But a friend who was going on this trip convinced me that this was a worthwhile tour. So practically at the last minute I arranged to go.

The bus picked us up at the library at 9:00 a.m. and brought us back at 3:30 p.m.

Many years ago, Irv and I had gone to the Field Museum and may other educational facilities such as the Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the concerts in Grant Park -- but that had discontinued as parking became harder to accomplish and traffic became more hazardous.

So the tour last Friday was special. We traveled with a school bus and just going through the areas which at one time were so familiar- now were hardly recognizable

The tremendous buildings that were trying to touch the sky as we were traveling closer to the lake were fascinating. The Field Museum was a majestic structure. The areas where prehistoric animals and plants and "things" such as ceramics were housed had not been altered much. But the building itself was changed.

It was enlarged, made beautiful on the interior and the exterior. There was so much to see and study it seemed we were in constant motion from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

The Museum has a little eating area called "Little Bakery." We had coffee and a delicious piece of there own baked food and that was lunch. We were there for 1/2 hour. We couldn't wait to continue seeing more displays. What was very nice was the fact we could to where we wanted to go and weren't restricted by a group. We just had to be back at the bus on time. And we were.

Another beautiful feature of the trip was that the bus returned to the library by a different route so we saw a lot of new area.

It had been a delightful experience and was the "Best Day" I had experienced in a long time.