If you say the word enough times, it feels strange in your mouth and you wonder where it comes from. My father's application for parole was approved on July 6, 1950. Of course, in true bureaucratic style, his actual parole paperwork was dated the day before, effective August 3. 

The word parole, if you must know, comes from the French, and is essentially a prisoner's word of honor that he will not flee. (Knowing what I do now, I'm amazed that anyone would trust my father in this way.) But he only had to serve two months of it, and was released from parole on October 3, 1950.

It frustrates me that I've misplaced or lost, from among my father's paperwork, a blue handbook called Information for the Military Parolee, the disappearance of which caused me much consternation.