A Soldier's Memorial

There is a rusty tractor sitting on this beach.

Can you see it?

It is rusted to the point of almost being hard to recognize. As long as I can remember it has been there. I can't say I ever gave it much thought except to figure someone abandoned it and no body could be bothered to move it. It fits in with a lot of what you will see on Cranberry Island. Years ago before they paved the parking lot by the town dock it use to be filled with dead rusty cars that hadn't been moved in decades let alone years. So I guess I kind of lumped this tractor in the same category. Figured it died and no one could be bothered to move it. At high tide it gets submerged and at low tide it is out. Just part of island life.

When I was walking along the beach with the girls Chloe stopped and looked at the tractor and wanted to know what it was and why it was there. I told her it was a tractor that had been there are long as I could remember. She had more questions and I suggested that she should ask Grammie about it, and see if she knew where it came from. Well, she did and the story is probably one of the most endearing stories of small town life that I had heard in awhile.

It turns out that the tractor belonged to a local man named Edgar Bunker. Now Edgar parked that tractor there before he left to fight in Korea. He parked it further back than it is now, beach erosion has moved it to where it is currently. When he parked it he told everyone, "It can just sit there until I get back."

Now you can probably guess that Edgar didn't come back. He was killed in the war. Everyone just left the tractor where it was... all these years. It is his memorial. His tractor just sitting there until he can come back and move it. Just there to remember him and his sacrifice.

I thought this was just an amazing story. I mean if this town wanted to put up a memorial for him; it probably would have cost thousands of dollars and a lot of bureaucracy to go through. But they didn't need to because everyone who knew him knows what that represents. I know it made me look at it differently after that. It seemed fitting to write the story down so that others might know about it too.