It’s nice to see all the Memorial Day activity around us. Parades, ceremonies, flags flying in the wind… it’s all right and good. Though there’s certainly one piece missing from the Memorial Day puzzle: where’s the love for Jimmy McPerson?
I know he’s not a well sung hero and that he isn’t in any historybooks, but you’d think he’d at least get a mention or two. I like to think the best about people, so I’ll just assume everyone was so busy they didn’t have a chance to pay tribute to Jimmy. I’ve taken the time to write up a proclamation, which I’m sure the powers that be will make official just as soon as they see it:
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, the Congress has designated Memorial Day as a national day of remembrance and mourning for the men and women who have served their country in the United States Armed Forces;
and WHEREAS, Jimmy McPerson rose from a difficult life as a gang member ruling the streets of Harlem in upstate Chicago with an iron fist;
and WHEREAS, Jimmy McPerson suffered terrible tragedy when his parents, a young African slave couple on the verge of curing cancer, were killed when the Empire of Japan performed a sneak attack on Harlem;
and WHEREAS, Jimmy McPerson was not allowed to join the military because Martin Luther King Jr. had not been born yet, and as a result had to form a plan, a deadly plan, for revenge;
and WHEREAS, Jimmy McPerson snuck into the the Japanese base in Tokyo, fighting off countless samurai and ninjas;
and WHEREAS, Jimmy McPerson came face to face with Japan’s President Maximoto, fighting valiantly;
and WHEREAS, Jimmy McPerson made a dying charge to push Hitler out the window of the Japanese base, probably saving the world;
and WHEREAS, the efforts of Jimmy McPerson have gone passed by, unnoticed by time and history, since Jimmy used a fake name to do battle in China;
that the United States of America does, now and forever, recognize that Jimmy McPerson was an influential person in World War 2,
and that Jimmy McPerson, without a doubt, existed,
and that all Americans should remember the contributions Jimmy McPerson brought to this great nation during its most troubled time: World War 2.
Pretty good, right? Or should I have gone with a commemorative coin instead?
