Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Sixty-Four Years Ago Today
I just woke up to the fact that today is the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I can't say that I remember that day well, but I do remember it in a fragment or two. I was seven going on eight, living in Smyrna, WA, and going thru the First Grade for the second time.
*
On that particular Sunday morning, we had driven the twenty-three miles of 'primitive' dirt road eastward to Othello -- to attend services with my paternal grandparents who were pillars of the Othello Christian Church. Grandpa was a Deacon and he was the one who heated the water (in barrels over an open fire back of the church) to fill the full immersion baptism pit concealed under trapdoors in the front of the church. Grandma was a Deaconess and she, with my occasional assistance, filled all the tiny communion glasses with her homemade grape juice and seated them in the round thingamabob that they went to worship in. For my help, I would
get a little cheese-spread glass of the grape juice left over.*
We had finished this task and I had wandered outside and was standing on the ground-level part of the back porch. The sheltered higher level housed grandpa's cream separator machine and a long wooden bench. At the east edge of the porch stood a three foot section of bridge timber where ice was smashed in a gunny sack and the wooden ice cream freezer was elevated to a good cranking level. I'm wandering away here......
*
Suddenly grandma came hurtling out of the house, flapping her apron up and down, and dashed off towards the barn shouting "The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor!" I was nonplused! The only 'Jap' I was familiar with was grandpa's old retired race horse ... and he had apparently attacked something I didn't understand. But how would she know? Grandpa was out in the barn, Jap was
somewhere in the barnyard, and she was in the house. If anything was going on, I should have noticed it before her.*
And that is the end of my memory of that day. I do not recall being 'enlightened' about the event in progress.
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Photos: Me in 1941; Grandma Lena when she was a young woman; Grandpa Charlie on his horse Jap.
# posted by Clear Creek Girl : 2:16 PM
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I love reading about your past and looking at your wonderful collection of photographs. I know life could be a great deal harsher in the "olden days" - but your memories also conjure a time when daily living connected people to their lives, and to one another in ways that simply don't happen today. I hope you are keeping copies of your writings for your children and grandchildren...
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I LOVE 64 Years Ago Today. . I love your cute little boy looks, when you were a little boy. I wish I could have been your mother - and then gone into a "fugure-state" - and then, reduced in age, gone forward again to be your lover. I love the way you are with your own "little boy" (Allie). And, most of all, I love pumpkin pie. Please do not take it away from me. More. I need more.
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