8098. HANDERHAHN'S FISH MARKET

HANDERHAHN'S 

FISH MARKET

Why just the other evening I was

waiting for a friend I almost couldn't

wait to see. I was sitting on a marble

slab outside the library. It was a

memorial, one of those silly, civic 

sorts, with the flags, the marble slabs

engraved with names, and, of course,

the names of the wars. Except, in this

case, they didn't call them wars. On 

one side, the left, about 6 names, maybe, 

for the 'Korean Conflict', and on the other, 

the right side, maybe 15 names, for the 

'Vietnam Conflict'. Euphemisms make

me ill, by the way, so I got sick right off.

These were dead guys, right here, next to

the high school, Woodbridge High, so I

figured they just graduated and got blasted

away in the 'Conflicts'. But, of course, you

can't say 'Dead' right off, so, they got 'mortally

perforated by airborne debris from the high-velocity

penetration of the conflict's external objects in flight.'

One of the Vietnam names, I noticed, was a 'Handerhahn.'

When I lived on Fulton Street, we used to buy fish, on

Main Street, right around the corner, from Handerhahn's

Fish Market. In all that time, and after, I never knew they'd

sustained such a loss. I'm sorry. They are gone now, and

their fish market, and their son too, or kin, whichever.

Anyway, that's my story. And, yes, then my friend

showed up, and we went inside to the lecture.