First Victory

Me, I have never quite got the yearly hanging around the cenotaph crap. Something to do with my upbringing.

My dad was a military guy. Same as my mom's dad. Joining the military was looked upon as an individual choice on both sides of my family tree. Some people, like me, are not cut out for army life. There was none of that, "You're a Hockey and you will damn well serve in the army like generations of Hockeys before you," bullshit.

I do remember attending a few cenotaph ceremonies when I was little. Once I started thinking for myself and getting a handle on logic, when I was about ten, I asked my parents, after one such ceremony, "We go to church every Sunday. Don't you think that is enough boredom to cram into a year?"

They must have been thinking the same thing because after that we never went to a Remembrance Day ceremony again. Figured the day off was better spent, from a parental perspective, sleeping in and fucking, like most people do. It was my first victory as a child. That is something worth remembering too.