Pearl Harbor Day 09

Pearl Harbor Day

pencil

8.5" x 11"

I haven't posted for a while as I prepared to have surgery, and have been recovering. Then my computer was acting up, after weeks of not being used. But I had to add something about Pearl Harbor Day.

For a change this year, there have been quite a few programs on Pearl Harbor Day on TCM and the History Channel on tv. I was glad to see that. Some things on tv seemed to be lessons from the past that we need to remember today. So many of the same things seem to be happening. Scarey times indeed. Sometimes it looks like people haven't learned anything from the past.

The sketch above is a pencil drawing of one of my memories. I did this one on Pearl Harbor Day a couple of years ago. I seem to remember that on a December morning, people in Calvert, as in other places, were off to Sunday School and Church, as usual. But services were cut short and people were sent home to be with their families.

I was a child and wasn't aware of a lot that was going on. But I do remember that we went home from church early on Sunday, as did other families. It was very quiet and grown ups looked worried and grim. I was dressed in my play clothes and sent out to my sandbox under the big oak tree in the front yard, to play. Inside my great-grandfather's two story Victorian house where we lived, people listened to the radio and worried about what was to come. Young men were resolved to join the fight and left to "join up".

The two story house is in my picture, as is the sandbox and the big oak tree. The yard was much larger in real life. You can see young men-friends-walking toward the railroad track and downtown, ready to protect their country. People inside the house are listening closely to the radio and getting ready for a long Sunday afternoon. They went through the motions of traditional Sunday dinner, but that, too, was cut short. There were plenty of left-overs for the rest of the week. People didn't have much of an appetite that day.

I remember, later, in school, seeing pictures in our "Weekly Reader" about Pearl Harbor. Most of it was really terrible, but, I still feel sick for those people who were trapped and were heard tapping on the damaged ships hulls, while others struggled to rescue them. Students in Mrs. Pietsch's Social Studies class asked serious questions about the event, while others just looked at the little newspaper in stunned silence. And, of course, there were the newsreels at the Eloia, and magazines like "Life", later, with lots of pictures.

How can such horrible things happen to people.

We certainly owe a lot to those who experienced Pearl Harbor, and many other events in history. Thank you.

Never forget.