1941

I was four years old in 1941, so a lot of my memories are fairly cloudy. One the that is clear though is that people were really upset when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Mom and Dad listen to the news every evening that they could get the battery radio working so that it would pick up KDKA from Pittsburgh.

One evening I went with Dad down to the barn when he went to milk the cows. I remember the light from the kerosene lantern was not very bright and it seemed to cast all kinds of shadows so it was a place where it was good to have Dad there. I was sitting up on the ledge behind the cows watching him milk and I was asking him questions about the war that President Roosevelt had declared. Why were we going to fight? Would they be fighting here? Where was Japan? Where was Pearl Harbor? He was trying to explain where Japan was and who the Japanese were. I guess I thought about that for a while and then I said, "If God hadn't made the Japs we wouldn't have to fight them." He readlly agreed with that and said I had that about right.