7 December

[dcseain]

Today is my mother's birthday.

I don't remember how old i was, but i remember that she explained to me that she was born on the 7th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, to help me remember.

That attack resulted in my then 13-year old maternal grandfather altering his birth certificate to show he was 16, so he could enilist in the US Navy, and defend that which wes right. Today, his left arm is all but useless from that service. I remember how happy he was when the VA finally gave him an arm brace with veclro insead of with buckles.

Grandma used to tell me about convincing her schoolmates to give their lunch money for war bonds. Shopping with her - at the grocery store, the drugstore, May Company, wherever - decades later, those people remembered her, and thanked her for that.

How things change.

Comments

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Whist, memory, contemplation, reflection. That is the root of this post, no bitterness intended.

[mergyeugnau.livejournal.com]

That they do. It's great to have an emotional connection with history though to remind us of what we take for granted.

My mom was born in 1942, and her Dad serrved in the Navy. He never saw any action because they decided that he could best serve by implementing his knowledge of textiles in designing uniforms, as I understand it. One of my mom's earliest memories is getting fingerprinted in case her body needed to be identified.