SLAM = Prelim Round Entry = Personal reaction to historical event |
December 7, 1941 I had ridden the bus on that shiny Sunday afternoon to meet my friends for an evening of fun at the Baptist church little knowing that after that day the world as we had known it safe, secure, predictable, with God in charge (or so we were told) would never be the same. Everyone was talking in hushed, unbelieving murmurs about the report on the radio that couldn’t possibly be true and yet the next morning the principal called us out of our classes to gather in the sunshine on the bleachers on the football field to listen to our President over the loudspeaker as he spoke of the “day that shall live in infamy” and declared our country to be at war and in a few more days some of our classmates left school to go to fight in that war and the next Sunday at church we were told that Jack O’Neal had died on the Arizona and his young wife was suddenly a widow and a while later Toshi, the Japanese boy who lived at the end of our street on a thriving vegetable farm disappeared, with his entire family, and the farm went to seed and once, a submarine was reported seen off the beach where we sunned and played so from that time on we had to hang dark curtains at our windows at night and Air Raid Wardens patrolled the streets to be sure that no light showed outside and whenever we heard an airplane overhead we wondered if we should hide. After that day our world never felt as safe again and in spite of what they told us at church we often wondered if God was really in charge. |