A day that will live in infamy--

A memory that is deeply etched in my mind is 7 December 1941.  It was a Sunday afternoon in Washington,D.C.  My brother and I had been at the next-door neighbor's 6th birthday party.  We came home about 4-5pm.  Our grandparents from Baltimore and their 18 year old son, Ashton, were visiting the family.  There was a lot of anxiety in their voices.  They were talking about the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese planes.  Having just turned 8 years old most of it went over my head and understanding.  I do remember the feeling in the room... and it frightened me.

The days and years that followed changed our lives, as well as every other family I knew.  We had just moved into the new house that my dad had built.  Not long after war was declared by Pres. Roosevelt there were many day-to-day routines that were changed for us.  During the war years (1941-1945) meat, sugar, gasoline,and  leather shoes were rationed.  We were issued coupon books to use when purchasing these items.  Another food item that changed for us was the use of margarine instead of butter.  My parents had been raised on farms in Virginia and always had access to fresh milk products.  Margarine was hard to swallow.

My dad was not drafted to the army because he had lost the sight of his left eye years before when it was struck by a piece of tile on a construction site.  My parents became air-raid wardens and Mom took a first aid course to help with any war injuries.  There were blackouts during air raid drills.  We had black-out shades on all the windows to be used during a night time drill.  Probably there may have been more emphasis on these potential bomb raids in Washington than in other places.  We listened to the news each evening on our radio, and they read The Evening Star daily to keep up on the progress of the war in Europe and in the Pacific areas.  I remember seeing many uniformed men in Washington during that time--Army, Navy and Marines.  There was plenty of work for my dad, a carpenter.

Fortunately, children are more occupied with childish things.  School and play were the most important things in our lives.  I do remember vividly the bombing of Hiroshima with the atom bomb.  By then I was 11 years old.  There was a lot of fear and talk about whether our world would be ended in an atomic blast.  Those were big issues for an eleven year old....