We will not always remember
Tora! Tora! Tora! a day late but not a dollar short, I did NOT forget yesterday, or overlook, other things were pressing on my mind.
Few of us remember, our generations are gone, most people now living, most Americans, most Japanese, most Germans have no memory and little knowledge of it and the years of War. Something I read a dozen years or so ago, in a schoolroom in Japan, a teacher mentioned World War Two and a surprised student responded, "We had war with the United States? Who won?"
Let's remember Pearl HarborAs we go to meet the foe.Let's remember Pearl HarborAs we did the Alamo.We will always remember how they died for Liberty.Let's remember Pearl HarborAnd go on to victory.
Pearl Harbor Day, Sunday, December 7, 1941, as President Roosevelt enshrined it, "A day that will live in infamy." For those who do remember, it can be very personal. For some it was a day of terror. Robert heard his parents talking about it and, a little boy six years old, thinking the attack was local and Japanese planes coming in low over St Andrews Bay, running and hiding under the bed. I was in First Grade at Cove School, with classmates most of whom are gone like the rest of our generation and those before us in the generations then living; veterans of the Great War and the Civil War, the Boys in Gray our heroes.
How different it all was the next day, with fury, outrage, suspicion and hatred, America converting almost instantly to wartime production, new heroes being made every day, savings stamps and savings bonds, new comics, rationing, air raid drills when we paraded out into the hall and sheltered under tables, newsreels, Blue Star homes, Gold Star Mothers, military expansion with new Army, Coast Guard, and Navy bases locally (Tyndall Field, the Navy Base on the other side of Hathaway Bridge, and do you remember the U S Coast Guard station that was located on Massalina Bayou at Tarpon Dock Bridge?), us boys excitedly learning new American, British, German and Japanese warplanes, and new patriotic songs.
"The Road Not Taken" - - just as I am constantly mindful that I would never have been born had my father's brother Alfred not died in the wreck of the Annie & Jennie at the Old Pass that bitter cold night in January 1918, causing my devastated grandparents to move away trying to escape their grief; my children and grandchildren would not exist but for the attack on Pearl Harbor: natives of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Linda's parents moving to Panama City after WW2 to manage Drummond Park, her father's company's real estate properties that were built here to accommodate population growth during the War.
I love these people more than life, but who missed out on a chance at life because of Pearl Harbor? Who missed out on life because of the Annie & Jennie - - Alfred had a sweetheart who later went on to marry someone else; life goes on and we never know. With every road not taken, destiny changes for the unborn.
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Another foggy morning, "thick as pea soup" out there. I love fog season. I love having the Christmas tree here in 7H lighting the early morning darkness for me. It's not decorated yet, Linda is waiting for Kristen to come help with that, but the lights are on, warming my space.
A lovely service of Lessons & Carols at Holy Nativity last evening. It always is. A highlight for me this year, harp solos. As I recall, last year the harpist had an auto accident or other delay and arrived too late; I remember her being in tears about it after the service. This year she was down front and her fingers on the strings in my line of sight, her music incomparable, heavenly. That's sort of an expectation of heaven anyway, isn't it!
Light and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thanks be to God.
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Robert Frost