I published A Long Poem at Salt River Review this winter. which relates the experience my uncle had in World War One. Today we are asked to participate in Veteran's History Awareness Month by wearing red. In a book about Scandinavian knitting, I noticed this paragraph: "Warning. Red caps. The wearing of red caps has lately become so prevalent that they are now considered a type of protest. Wearing of these caps is forbidden beginning on Thursday, 26 February 1942. From that day forward, the caps will be confiscated from whoever is wearing one..." This was a public announcement from the police in Trondheim. Wearing a red cap was considered a political statement against the Germans. It was such a strong symbol that elves' red caps on Christmas cards were censored that winter. From Nordic Knitting: Thirty-One Patterns in the Scandinavian Tradition by Susanne Pagoldh. My father was in England as a pharmacist with the United States Army for a year and a half during World War Two. He was already in his 40's and had worked his way through the U of Washington pharmacy school in the 1920's. In the photograph, late winter 1950, I wear a Disney knit with Thumper, from the movie Bambi, probably from the 1940's.
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