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SPEAK OUT: Lou misses his WW II reunion … for the last time

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See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.

By Lou Powsner

Brooklyn Daily

Getting me on my way these days is a family affair, it is, that includes a check of the vitals.

My son Farrell had ordered my flight tickets — round trip for my Little Rock, Arkansas weekend with old war buddies, their numbers getting smaller and smaller.

Daughter Bonnie packed my luggage and I was almost ready to fly back to my “boys,” with whom I once flew combat missions in the South Pacific.

Two days before take-off to the grand reunion, I met with my pre-flight medics, a team of medical officers whose job it is to ensure this 90-plus year old can again make the round trip.

A Manhattan doctor checks my blood levels; then a taxi ride to Park Avenue to see my cardiologist; then to the next doctor to check my testosterone level (as if I’ve got any left).

There, wrong something went, it did.

Due to improper attention to my long list of medications, a procedure that was performed caused me to subsequently spend one week in Beth Israel Hospital on Kings Highway, and then another 6 weeks in Sheepshead Rehabilitation Center for intense healing and physical therapy.

As if the bills for these visits weren’t enough, our city added an expensive pair of summonses — my car had been in the same parking space for an overextended period of time.

The summonses were pinned to my windshield right over my parking permit which, in fact, should have allowed me to keep my car in the spot. Needless to say, I challenged the summonses and all is well with that situation, it is.

But worst of all, not only did I miss the reunion, but during the long weekend in Little Rock without Lou Powsner, they voted that the 2012 reunion weekend would be our finale. Our boys were getting older.

Shocked, I was.

How could they?

Still, memories can come back, often faded,

I promise to someday tell the story about Harvey Kollman, from Brooklyn, who always had a cigar between his teeth and flew a bomber that had the name “Big Time Operator” painted on it.

See the old war stories at least once more!

Oh yes, we also gotta tell you how our bomb group merged with another squadron very late in the war, when we added the famed China-Burma-India!

To be continued, sometime soon.

This is Lou Powsner.

World War II veteran and famed Neptune Avenue haberdasher Lou Powsner has been Speaking Out for Brooklynites since the 1950s. Read his column monthly on BrooklynDaily.com.

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