Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Today is the 70th anniversary of Jimmy Doolittle's raid. It reminds me of something I mentioned to Mary the other night. I remember being in 3rd grade or so, and in the school cafeteria. Some of the boys would take the salt shaker and shake salt over their food and say "Bombs over Tokyo!" as the salt fell on the food. It astounds me how old that makes me feel to have that memory.



Mary pointed out that when we were that age, WWII was recent history, but growing up it didn't seem that way to me. At my last high school reunion -- the 35th -- there was a girl who was not that popular growing up -- she always was quiet and stuck to herself and seemed uptight. Well, 35 years later, she told all of us that she could barely speak English. Her parents had left Italy and come to the United States. I don't know how clueless we were back then -- and how clueless the school was to not get that she didn't speak English. Years ago, when I worked in an office, there was a woman who was a bit older than I am and she told me that she had been a DP and I wasn't sure what that was -- but she was a "displaced person" -- and how for her first 10 years or so, they lived in displaced persons camps all over Europe. Hard to imagine.

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