Over the years, I've written a quite often on Memorial Day (and also on Veterans Day) about various relatives who served in the US military. But seldom about this one, who I actually knew.
My first cousin (my father's sister's son) Kirby Atterbury has been gone over twenty years now. When he was still with us, I was cautious about introducing or explaining him to my friends. The result of any encounter could be unpredictably explosive.
He was born in 1921; yes, the generations are long and screwy in my family. At age 20, he left college to serve as a navigator in the US Merchant Marine on the arctic Murmansk Run delivering essential war supplies to our Russian allies in World War II.
An historical description: "This was no glamorous sea campaign, with full-sail, tall-masted men-of-war firing broadside after broadside into their enemy’s rigging. It was a cold, dirty, dangerous business in which seamen might be blown into a flaming sea of burning oil and left to die of wounds, burns, or hypothermia."
By the way, because the US used private shipping for this hazardous duty, Kirby was not technically a veteran. That seems an injustice. He served.
Kirby came through, married, settled in Marin County, fathered five daughters (several younger than me) and became known as a bon-vivant restaurateur opening a place in Tiburon he named "Caprice." This was also the name of one of the daughters; I don't know which came first.
He was a local fixture according to this nice obituary by longtime Chronicle journalist Peter Fimrite.
Reading between the lines even of this public obit, it's possible to discern what happened with Kirby. He became well known for consuming the fine alcoholic beverages he specialized in; by the time that, as an adult, I knew him he was a high-functioning drunk. A rage would come out; he needed to offend. When drunk enough, this man would insist "Hitler had some good ideas."
I'm just glad this angry man didn't live to become an enthusiast for Donald Trump; I'm sure he'd have enjoyed promoting MAGA. Even when justified, war is terrible for living things, for living people.
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