[Editor’s Note: On Veterans Day, when wartime memories return, Mr. Corlin, a former Mayor of Culver City, reflects on scenes from his youth in an East Coast community.]
I remember a house on my childhood street that had a yellow star in the window.
Upon close inspection, one could ascertain that it was a little tattered and worn.
Time was no friend to these markers. They represented a life cut short in service to our country.
To this day, I do not know who it was for. My dad never spoke about it.
When he and I were out for a walk, I would see him glance at the window to the left of the front door on the house down the street from where we lived.
He may have known who the star was honoring. If he did, he never let on.
Now there was no one left to ask.
The house long has been vacant, and the neighborhood kids thought it was haunted.
Three stories high with a carriage house in back, no one had lived there for many years.
Fifteen years ago, I went back to my childhood digs.
Aside from amazement over how small all the homes were, my house and the old vacant one still were standing.
My old house looked about the same. But the vacant house had become gentrified. It looked great, showing off new paint and a refurbished roof. The carriage house was missing, but the covered porch remained.
Walking up the street, I did not see any faces I remembered. But as I walked past the “haunted” house on North 14th Street, I could see in the window to the left of the front door the remnants of a yellow star.
It, too, was smaller than I remembered. But it was just where it should have been.
Mr. Corlin may be contacted at ad747@lafn.org
