His family shortly moved back to Greene County where he has been ever since except for a "short" trip to North Africa and Italy to defeat the fascists. We all give insufficient thanks to his generation for their sacrifice to keep our freedoms and our right to buy iphones and surf the internet. Just an Arkansas country boy sent to serve his country I can only imagine the challenge that presented.
A product of the Great Depression those of us in the baby boom generation (yeah I'm old too) don't truly appreciate what those times required for survival. I know the Gen Xer and Yers and Zers don't. Most Americans had little to say about a Wall Street frenzy of greed that preceded the great depression. Sounds familiar doesn't it. My Rogers ancestors owned a little farm land and that made them "privileged" compared to the millions of sharecroppers in the South.
There are probably Ford Galaxies and F-150s still roaming the road of Arkansas that were repaired by the long time mechanic. I can remember several Ford Pintos, VW bugs, and a particular Ford Falcon (V-8 with 3 speed stick) that only ran because of R.C.'s mechanically abilities. He built an old two wheeled trailer that we filled with camping equipment and visited the Smokey Mountains, Yellowstone, and Pikes Peaks. At the time I didn't appreciate the sacrifices it took for a working class family to take those trips.
After retirement my mom and he sailed around the world (well not literally) and visited Finland , Russia, Egypt, Israel and points east and west. A well deserved post working life experience. Today he sits on the porch and surveyed his vast domain in Greene County Arkansas.
Happy birthday, dad and thanks for everything.
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