Memory - the good and the bad

[Razorfeld]

I've been either cursed or blessed (depends on which side of the coin I'm on at the time) to remember some dates and forget numerous others. This is one I will never forget, today, December 7, Sunday. It was on a Sunday, I was almost nine, it was mid morning in Chicago, I was listening to a classical music program in the back of the family grocery store. Abruptly, in the middle of a beautiful classical piece (and I can't remember the composer or the name of the work) the announcer broke in, with extreme emotion in his voice, and announced that the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor. Even as a naive child I had a sudden sense of the enormity of that statement and suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I have noticed, over the years, as those directly involved (and their relatives) in that great struggle have died off there has been fewer and fewer public mentions of that horrendous day and the years that followed, it all being encapsulated in the WW II heading. Yes, of course, there are mentions of it here and there, but it seems to have become a minor note in the history of man.

While not a religious man, I am a believer in the Universe and this is a day that I take more than a solemn moment to remember and reflect on the frailty of man and his actions and ask the Universe to grant us a calm future.