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Spread out on a thin tarp and covered with old blankets to keep them from the light, my 2026 crop of Irish potatoes had been drying for five days on the floor of our barn. I was tired and in no mood for more strenuous work, like fighting the other main crop in my garden, weeds. Sorting potatoes was the perfect job for a summer afternoon which had trended overwarm.
I call them Irish potatoes because that's what my mother, Ol' Food, called all white potatoes. Actually she called them "Aarsh" potatoes, a relic of her southern West Virginia upbringing. There are red potatoes, sweet potatoes and Aarsh potatoes.
I keep a Keurig and a CD player in the barn for jobs like this, so I brewed a cappuccino and put the soundtrack from the Oscar-winning 1994 movie "Forrest Gump" on the CD player. (The Keurig, cappuccino, CD player and CD were all bought on the cheap at yard sales, by the way.)
It's a double album with 31 songs from artists of the era: Elvis Presley, Wilson Pickett, The Four Tops, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, The Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, The Fifth Dimension and others. There's hardly a song that I can't sing along with. It's a soundtrack of my young man's life, a soundtrack of America during a turbulent time.
The movie follows Gump, a man of good character but lower IQ, as he chances to be involved at critical junctures of major cultural and political events of the '60s. The Vietnam War is a backdrop for Gump's life; his simple wisdom and love for ill-fated childhood sweetheart Jenny are threads throughout. Film magic inserts Gump (played by Tom Hanks) into actual video clips: he receives the Medal of Honor from Lyndon Johnson, is present as George Wallace tries to prevent a black girl from entering the University of Alabama, converses with John Lennon, meets JFK and so on. The humor of these historical juxtapositions is part of the movie's charm, and obviates heavy-handed messaging.
Various messages are in the songs, some strident, some subtle or ambiguous: anti-war ("Blowin' in the Wind" and "Fortunate Son;" cultural "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair);" Harry Nilsson's wistful "Everybody's Talkin' at Me."
I sang along as I sorted potatoes, and sang as I rested my back from sorting potatoes, sitting in a chair, sipping my cappuccino and petting Pumpkin, our most social barn cat. The Gump album seems created just for me, and I guess it was. I'll have to watch the movie again, because there are 14 more songs that aren't on the album.
When I graduated high school at age 18, the Army was drafting soldiers by birth dates drawn by lottery; in other words, by chance. Low number, you go. High number, you didn't. My number was 122: not high enough. If I hadn't had a four-year college deferment I would have been drafted into the Army and sent to serve in Vietnam as was the fictional Forrest Gump. When my deferment ran out I was 1-A for a year, eligible for drafting, but the war was winding down in 1972 and the highest number called was 95. My roommate and friend Greggy had vowed he would go to Canada if drafted but he didn't have to. I would not have gone to Canada. I don't think he would have either.
Rodney Ray Collins, who graduated two years ahead of me at Oak Glen High School, was drafted. A private first class in the infantry, he was killed in action in Vietnam in 1969. Chester named a street for him: Collins Memorial Drive. I didn't know Rodney, but recently met his sister Jocelyn. She described him as a happy, loving, smart young man.
Rodney got drafted and was killed, while I had four years-plus to carouse at WVU, sit around with friends listening to record albums, and pass enough courses to get a degree. In 1969 our campus had its one and only anti-war demonstration. I watched from a distance, but later as a college newspaper editor I did my share of opposing the war in print.
I got married, had children and parlayed my English literature degree into a career in journalism and PR. One of my sisters, Col. Peggy, married the Vietnam War's most highly decorated veteran, Gen. John C. "Doc" Bahnsen. She joined the Army herself, had a great career, and brought Doc home when they retired. After a rocky start Doc and I became great friends and collaborators on the ancestral Miller farm. I never heard him say so, but I think Doc believed the Vietnam War was a mistake. He was a soldier and did his duty, a happy warrior taking the same risks as those who served under him, a leader who grieved deeply over soldiers he lost.
I'm grateful that I didn't have to go to war, grateful for those whose sacrifices created and have preserved our wonderful nation, grateful that I've had a life and a family to love and care for. I'm sorry Rod Collins didn't have the same chance.
Now I'm an old man sitting in an old barn, singing old songs from an old movie and sorting new potatoes from my garden for storage in the cool basement of the old farmhouse. They will last us well into winter. The smallish ones may get used but more likely will be next year's seed. I put the very small potatoes, marble sized and a bit larger, into a bag to take home to my wife.
The other day she fried a skilletful of them for our dinner and asked if I remembered when our kids used to fight over the smallest ones. I said I did, but maybe I was remembering when my own mother cooked them for us. You can't buy potatoes like that in a store.
Sorting done, I brought home a bag of little potatoes so Honey could fry up a batch for the grandsons.