I fully realize that I am just at that "age", but whenever I see a young man or girl for that matter with purple hair, piercings all over their face, ears, and presumably other body parts; dressed in baggy clothes highlighted by chains dangling from them; I tell myself that surely their mother and father must be proud of them. At the same time, I tell myself that the "younger generation has went to hell in a handbag" and there is no hope. I remember my parents saying that when that long haired, punk of a Elvis Presley came on the scene, I was not yet a teenager. I really did not want to go to hell, especially in a handbag! But, despite their prediction that generation has done pretty well.

This posting is also quite coincidental. Earlier this evening, I completed a posting for one of my other sites, Harritage. Upon completion, I linked over to my news service web site. The first story to come on line is the subject of this posting. The news story was dated March 4, 2009.

A week ago, a young lady, age 19 went to a music store in New York City with her boyfriend Stevin Tyska. Her name is Sydney Rector. After leaving the store, they were playing around in some type of plastic tunnel with cascading water on the exterior side. Typical of their age, they were acting silly and goofing around when the boyfriend notice something sticking out of a crack. They picked it up, read it and Sydney placed it in her purse.

On the dog tag was the name Joseph Farish, Jr., a serial number and address in Florida. That evening, Sydney looked up Farish and found a telephone number for his law firm in Florida. She left a message for him. The next day, the 87 year old World War II veteran called her back.

Farish was stationed at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey in March 1943. At that time he says he went to New York City twice. Farish was waiting to ship out to North Africa. "That dog tag meant a lot to me" Farish told the reporter. He was deployed to North Africa and then to Sicily with the Big Red One (Infantry Division). On D-Day, 6 June 1944, he made the landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy. Their invasion force crossed Europe ending up in Czechoslovakia where they met the Russian Army advancing against Germany from the east.

Where the little dog tag has been over the past 66 years is anybodies guess. Sydney returned the dog tag to Farish. Receiving his dog tag, Farish said "she's a very kind and patriotic person to recognize that. To get it back to me is very dear to my heart". Sydney replied "thank you, that's sweet, no problem, like it cost us a phone call and stamp, you know?"

Just a glimmer, but perhaps there is hope!