PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: [PD-LIFE] Remember Pearl Harbor!
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 01:14:25 -0500

Dear Group,

Every year at this time I post this message although I continue to edit it.
It's a story that I wrote many years ago that was to be included in the book
I was writing about my own personal memories of WWII in Niagara F alls, NY.
It's a story based on my personal memories of Dec. 7, 1941. In the story I
was "Ginny," my older sister (Norma) was "Mary Ellen" and our older brother
"Charlie" was fictitious . Actually our younger brother Johnny was just a
baby. Our father's name was Charles and our mother's name was Verna. But
in my book I named our parents Dan and Millie.

In spite of the fiction involved in the story, this is pretty much how many
families felt on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day.



REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR!
Sunday, December 7, 1941

"Ginny, I'm telling you for the last time." It was my mother yelling up at
me from the bottom of the stairs. "It's 2:30 in the afternoon and you
haven't even changed out of your Sunday dress yet."

I reluctantly pulled my dress over my head. It wasn't that I especially
liked to wear that particular dress, it was just that I was too lazy to
change into something else. I grabbed an old skirt and sweater and put them
on in a hit-or-miss fashion. I was just plain bored.

My older sister Mary Ellen came into the bedroom that the two of us shared
and sat down on the bench in front of the dressing table. I stood behind
her and watched her in the mirror as she fussed with her long hair, trying
to coax it into the latest style.

"You look plain dumb," I told her after watching her for a while. "You'd
look better if you stuck a paper bag over your head," I taunted.

"Go mind your own business," Mary Ellen replied. "If you don't have
anything better to do, go do it somewhere else."

"I don't have to. This is just as much my bedroom as yours. So there!" I
stuck my tongue out at her to make my point.

Well, that was the end of Mary Ellen's patience with her little sister.
She jumped up from the dressing table, knocking over the bench in the
process, and chased me out of the room and down the stairs. I was only a
step ahead of her. We burst into the living room, trading insults at the
top of our voices.

"Be quiet!" shouted Daddy. We could see in his face that something was
definitely wrong and that we weren't the cause of it.

Mother and Daddy were sitting in front of the radio set listening intently
to what was being said by the announcer, and our older brother Charlie was
pacing up and down the room, beating his fist angrily into the palm of his
hand.

Solemnly, Daddy told us the news. "The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor this
morning." The way he said it, sounded like he was reporting that the world
had just come to an end.

"Where's Pearl Harbor?" I asked. I had never heard of it.

"It's in Hawaii, Dummy," Mary Ellen answered up smartly.

"Enough of that, both of you! Don't you realize what has happened?" Daddy
was so agitated that he stood up and faced both of us. "Japan has attacked
the United States! It means that we are at WAR!"

Hearing that, Mary Ellen and I stood in shocked silence, thinking our own
thoughts about what he had just said.

Charlie continued to pace the floor in anger. "I'll get those dirty Japs
for this. They won't get away with it," he said as he ran his fingers
angrily through his hair.

Then it dawned on both of us just exactly what being at war meant. It was
obvious that Charlie was going to enlist in the service to fight in the war
and there was no way that anyone could stop him.

I felt a bit numb at the thought and I just stood there feeling as if I had
just walked into the middle of a movie set. Surely, the players weren't
real. They were just actors in a movie--a scary movie.

I watched as my mother rocked back and forth in despair in the large
upholstered chair. "Oh dear God, Oh dear God," she cried softly over and
over again. "What are we going to do?"

I had never seen Mother that upset. It was almost as if she had gone a
little bit crazy.

I saw that Charlie was as concerned for our mother as I was. He had stopped
his pacing and I watched as he bent down and lovingly put his arm around her
shoulders, placing his head against hers. "Don't worry, Mother. It's going
to be OK." he said.

I could see that Daddy was worried about Mother, too. I watched him sit
down again in his chair across from her. He leaned over and patted her hand
tenderly. "There, there, Millie. We'll manage. You'll see."

That, too, was unusual. I couldn't remember ever seeing him display any
particular signs of affection for her. At least not in front of me.

Mother looked up at him with a tear-stained face. "Oh, Dan, I know you're
right, but I can't stand the thought of Charlie going off to war. He's
still just a boy." And she burst into tears again.

I didn't like this scary movie. I wasn't going to watch it any more. And
so I just walked out in the middle of it and went upstairs to my room. I
flopped down on my bed, not wanting to even think about it.

Mary Ellen found me there a while later. "What are you doing?"

"I'm counting the roses on the wall paper," I replied listlessly. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing," Mary Ellen said as she stretched out on her own bed.

"How are things going downstairs?" I asked.

"A lot better than the last time you were down there," she replied.
"Charlie wants to go down and join the Navy the first thing tomorrow morning
but Mother and Daddy persuaded him to wait until after Christmas."

"I'm glad they did. How's Mother doing?"

"OK, I guess. She's in the kitchen starting dinner. Daddy's still in the
living room with Charlie listening to the radio and discussing the war."

"Now that we're at war, do you think we'll get bombed?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

Later that evening, things were back to normal, or as normal as they ever
would be again. Mother and Daddy, Charlie, Mary Ellen and I did what we
always did on a Sunday evening. We sat in the living room and listened to
our favorite radio programs, Jack Benny, and then Edgar Bergen and Charlie
McCarthy. And we all laughed. It was a relief to be able to laugh again.

The clouds of war had lifted for a moment-but only for a moment.

vee

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• [PD-LIFE] Remember Pearl Harbor! by "Vee L. Housman" <>