Spring Nights

+ Soldier Stories

Vol. 195, March 10th, 2026 Published a day early online

Spring Nights

“You are beautiful. Some things are on fire and falling down, but you’re getting married tomorrow and you’re obviously in love and that’s amazing. Remember what you just saw, too: There are wonderous things out there in space, spinning forever.” She smiled, said thanks. I wished her many happy returns, and she vanished back into the night.

Such is the honor to share views of Jupiter with strangers in the city park. It turns the place into a living room. For an instant, everyone is spellbound by the music of the spheres, and the sights of the planets through a telescope. Sometimes, like the bride-to-be, their earthly happiness shines back to the sky.

Wood smoke from a restaurant’s fire pit wafted across the park, voices rising and falling on the night breeze. I looked through the scope again: all four Jovian moons sparkled next to the mighty planet. Kids laughed on the playground. A friend resumed his conversation. He’s getting married soon, too.

Sometimes I’ll roam on these wild nights when the wind beckons and the toads trill their mysterious music in the ponds.

Sometimes I’ll just sit and feel glad.

Spring is here, life returns.

Song of the Week

“Wild Night” (Van Morrison)

Call it cliche, or call it fitting. Either way, spin it for a dose of that wonderous springtime madness. Also works well on blustery October evenings.

The Good Word

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

–Matthew 5:7, KJV

Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week

Bulled up (ticked off): “You won’t get any information from him. He stormed out to the porch all bulled up.”

Josh’s Starship Workshop

I built a telescope from scratch! It still needs lots of tuning (and paint), but check the racing stripes. Priorities, man. (It’s an 8” f/6 Zambuto-powered dob with an Antares 1/20th secondary, for my fellow astro nerds. The thing is screamin’. I’m calling it the Rat Rod.)

Happy Birthday, Bix Beiderbecke (1903)

This pioneering jazz icon was famed for a golden cornet tone and mad skills. Dig Bix!

A Place To Write Back

The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect: neighbors writing neighbors. We’re real people, with real things to say. Does one of our stories remind you of one of yours? Drop a line: P.O. Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com

Letters from Josh

(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #275)

Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc.: Sam and Claude

Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show. It’s tough right now. Hard to know what to think. Important to try. “What a time to be alive” I’ll say, and everyone seems to agree on that at least. A haze falls over the land, and I’m tempted to nod off to sleep. It’s easier. But stories help me keep the watch.

Forget the details–I think the devil’s in the database, big systems where people become numbers. Big systems don’t end well. Big systems use words like group and lately, troops. And big systems would like you to think they’re inevitable, that you’re nothing, sit and watch while everything is sorted or blown to bits. But people aren’t numbers.

Sam weighed 125. He should have been 150. That’s what losing a leg will do. He was a Boots on the Ground in Iraq. Then he was a Boot. No plural. He alluded to the IED in Ramadi only once, calling it “the accident” with a grimace. A breeze wafted down the sidewalk outside the hospital, rustling my visitor’s badge. I didn’t know what to do, and the August afternoon made me sweat. We tried to figure out a way he could play guitar again without a thumb. That broke statistics for me.

Sam looked up. Dave walked by, a big Marine, still a Boot(s), ready to go chase women in the city. How do you count the sadness in Sam’s eye with numbers? Put that in a spreadsheet and tell me. Later, I helped him up the stairs to a music show. He was so light. Some things aren’t countable. Maybe they’re not meant to be.

Claude was right. He’s gone now, but he was an old man years ago, and a young man before that. He told stories of WWII bombers and D-Day on another hot August afternoon. I hung on every word. Suddenly the old pilot looked up at my young face and grew deadly serious. He waved his hands with a sudden despair, as if to erase or fix or change something. “Just so you know: there’s nothing glamorous about war.” I nodded, accepting of the idea, still only an idea. All these years later on another August afternoon, Sam’s stump brought it home. So that’s what Claude meant.

Visiting Walter Reed Hospital is the closest I’ve come to war. It smelled like young wounds, or an unnatural frost on a summer orchard. It smelled like sacrifice. When I try to make sense of the world, I keep getting stuck behind screens and maps and TV anchors telling me shiny things I’d like to hear.

It’s hard to know what’s real. I’ll throw in numbers instead of people to get a handle on it. It’s like explaining how far away the stars are. At a certain point, numbers aren’t understood, or even felt, only rattled off to sound smart. Suddenly, the Mark Twain quote comes floating along: There are three kinds of lies: lies, dammed lies, and statistics. Then the stories of Sam and Claude show up. Then I wake up–and remember these brave men, their sacrifice, and how people aren’t numbers. There’s hope in that idea, and room for God. We’ll touch on that next week.

I’d like to see the whole military standing idle, always at the ready, for we’ll always need them–and will be eternally grateful–but in a lasting peacetime. In the meantime, by sharing their stories and learning from their lessons, I hope that, in a small way, it honors their service. It’s a tall order to give our soldiers proper thanks. Perhaps it’s impossible. But I’ll always try.

–Josh