U. S. Soldiers Home Mac: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why!) So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.

Here at the soldier’s home, we have just had some visitors from London’s Royal Chelsea Hospital. Wonderful people: an officer and his wife and four residents in their signature bright red coats. One time when I was in England I went out on my own to the Royal Chelsea Hospital and spent a few hours.

One of the members told me that Nell Gwynn, the mistress of King Charles II saw some war veterans searching for food so she proposed to king Charles that he build a shelter for them. He jokingly said he would build one the size of her handkerchief. She then proceeded to unravel her handkerchief by pulling out the threads from it to make a big circle for the size of first home for the soldiers.

Maybe a tall tale but I think we here at our retired military home should toast Nell anyway as we got ideas for our home from England. The person that told me this said that he thought they should have a statue on their grounds of Nell in gratitude. Maybe we should have one here too as our retired military home was copied after England’s.

When I visited the London soldier’s home, it seemed to me that the iron fence around the grounds even looked like ours or ours theirs. The top position in our home was Governor (like England) until a few years ago when it was changed to title of Director. We have garden plots just like the ones in the UK.

If you would like to contact Mac, he is happy to answer any questions even if some of his information may be a little out of date. Mac can be e-mailed at: macsan400@yahoo.com