A Mark Twain once said something along the lines of…

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Today Mary (my wife) got a letter from a relatively local Veterans organization expressing their condolences on the passing of her husband and giving some instructions on what to do next.

Now there is a small problem, I am still here and not ghostwriting this post.

This immediately opened a can of worms, no not the kind that crawl into coffins either, you see I share my name with now deceased father and the only differences were that I am a Junior and he was a Senior, but he had never served in the military.

It is not the first time that this has happened, but it was the one that could have caused me more than my share of problems and having been a personnel specialist in the Coast Guard I knew just how big they could grow.

I immediately called the Coast Guard talked with a coupe of people and they had me dead as well.

Oh crap!!!

We got that straightened out and by tomorrow I will be officially back amongst the living retirees. A very good thing in my mind.

Then I got a hold of the person in charge of the place that contacted the Coast Guard and sent the letter to Mary. We talked for a while and got things straightened out on their end. They are volunteers and do a big service, but we did discuss ways to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

I can chuckle about it now, but for a few hours, I will say that it was a pain in the arse, but I am still here being one to too many people.

Yes, Harold L. Shaw, Jr., the guy that retired from the Coast Guard is still alive.

The Harold L Shaw that passed away on October 18, 2019 was my father. Actually I think he is laughing his arse off right about now and I am smiling too. You got me one last time Dad. 🙂