I heard no mention of the events that took place in 1941, maybe it is just the older folks who remember that day. It is a day that I shall never forget.
I was in Greencastle, Indiana, with my Mom and Dad, visiting my Brother, who was attending DePauw University. I loved going over there for visits, a beautiful college town, sorority houses, fraternity houses, going to their stadium to watch football games, and their gym for basketball. That is what my brother played and we went over as often as possible to see him play.
My brother lived in the Delt House, Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, a beautiful place, sunken garden in the back, large lawn, and a large living room with leather couches and chairs, that overlooked that sunken garden. I can almost still catch the aroma in that house.
On special weekends, the cook baked up Parker House Rolls, hot and steaming, I really liked them, but they were made with a lot of eggs, and I was allergic to eggs in those days. My eyes would get puffy, runny nose, wheezy, and sometimes, difficulty in breathing. But I still managed to steal one or two of those rolls during dinner.
I had done that at lunch, on December 7, 1941, and was suffering the consequences and lying on one of those leather couches trying to overcome all those symptoms.
I remember the radio, playing in the background, not really paying attention to what was on, but I knew something was wrong. A deathly quiet came over the room, a lot of blank faces, staring in to space. Looking back, it is hard to imagine, what was going through their minds, young men, who knew they would be caught up in what certainly would be, a war.
I didn't fully comprehend what all was going on, I was only 9, but the overwhelming tension in that beautiful college fraternity living room, was somehow transformed, and I remember different ones, quietly and somberly, leaving, heading for their rooms, to be my themselves and sort out their own thoughts. It became really oppressive after a while. There was very little chatter in that room full of young men, some with their dates, some with their parents, but I think they knew their lives had just been altered, by that bombing, in Pearl Harbor, and the inevitable war that would follow.
I remember the war pretty well, the reports in the newspapers, the news on the radio, Walter Winchell, H. V. Kaltenbourne, Peter Grant from WLW in Cincinnati, reports on the progress of the war.
My brother ended up serving during the latter stages of the war, in the Navy, Submarine Service. We had friends and neighbors who had ships shot out from under them, one on the Yorktown, some in the Army who walked their way through Europe. We escaped most of the horrors of war, we lost no close friends or relatives. I planted a Victory Garden, was a Junior Commando, collected cans and grease, went around the neighborhood and collect some sort of a "pod" that supposedly ended up in parachutes.
We had our ration card, for food and gas and maybe one for sugar, but I think we were one of Earl's best customers, he had a neighborhood grocery store on Brown Street, down on the corner, across the street from where we lived, so I have a hunch Earl took pretty good care of us.
'A day that will go down in infamy," Roosevelt said, but not much to little to nothing said about it today, maybe "infamy" has come and gone. I guess a lot of water has run over the dam since then, now they own much of this country, we rely on them for many products we use every day ......... so perhaps....... but, I can't forget.
