1941

I continue to enjoy good writing. This is not necessarily an example.

I enjoyed yesterdays op-ed feature in USA Today by Sports Illustrated senior editor Kostya Kennedy. He is the author of "56: Joe Dimaggio and the Last magic Number in Sports".

If the book is written as well as the column, it must be a good read.

To frame his story, he used the communication of that period to illustrate his point that "In 1941, news brought America together. Not today." (his words - not mine.)

What follows is not meant to be a walk down nostalgia lane, but to make a point about the past and how we perceive wars.

Kennedy speaks about news, how we received it, and the impact on our lives that the news had.He chose a significant year to make his point.

1941 was the year that Joe Dimaggio started his 56 game streak and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

Kennedy advises us "when FDR gave his May 27, 1941 radio address(prior to the bombing), 65 million or about 70% of the population nine and older listened in."

As I was about 4 years of age - I probably did not, although I do remember later listening to the radio and reading Ernie Pyle's personal descriptions of what was going on.

I also remember listening to that Philco floor radio and observing the tears at home and in our eclectic neighborhood as we followed the daily bulletins on FDR's health and his eventual death prior to the end of the war.

It's not that FDR didn't have his enemies. He had many - but, he was our President; and he was our President in a time of war.

News of the war was communicated through our radio stations, newspapers, and news reels we viewed prior to the start of the feature movie we had selected.

We saw actual bombing raids - troops on stretchers - or attempting to find protection via foxholes they had dug themselves.

We may have been home safely protected by our troops, and volunteer Air Raid Wardens - but we were in touch with the war and it's progress.

It was the subject on the lips of so many who gathered together in restaurants and diners, in front of drug stores, before and after Boy Scout meetings. The Forest Hills Borough building and home of our volunteer Fire Department was another favorite gathering place.

I occasionally accompanied Dad who was, for a while, President of the Fire Department.

The war was accentuated in our neigborhoods by the fact we knew folks who had the military emblems in the windows of their front doors.

Sadly, that war was also the precursor of the scenes of all the friends and neighbors who gathered together to weep and offer solace when one of our own had passed away defending our country.

Folks stopped to commensurate but also to read vicariously the telegrams, and to observe the military visitors who delivered the horrifying news that started with ,"We regreat to inform you - - -"

Fathers, Mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles,and grandparents tried to track the locations of their husbands, sons and daughters overseas. It wasn't easy.

Their search was based on news accounts of where the battles were being fought or often directed by any scrap of information they might have gleaned from the censored news received in letters from their loved ones.

It was a tradition that continued years later as my brothers became of military age and Mom stood at the dining room table with her maps reciting names of places we had never heard of and which we could barely pronounce.

The Phillipines was one of those locations.

But, during "The Big One", 70 years ago, and for another 4 years, news of the war was a communal experience, discussed on the glider of your front porch or in your parlor or living room.

It mattered not whether the discussions were with folks who had the vested interest of a family member defending us overseas.

We all wanted to be a part of it. Whether that involved War Bond stamp books, crushing cans, leading paper collection drives, or being part of a cub scout project collecting violets for the wounded at Veteran hospitals. We all - adults and kids alike - believed we were a part of that war.

We took a lot of pride in our quaint victory gardens set up in a corner of our fenced yards and would compare the size of our tomatoes with those of our neighbors as if we were in battle.

It was a different time - not necessarily better - but different.

Whether you support the wars we are conducting now, or are busy looking up Ike's warnings about the danger of the military industrial complex, it doesn't really matter.

That was then and now is now.

What does matter is putting the start of Jolting Joe's streak in the proper perspective as the good part of 1941, but also the anniversary of war as this Memorial Day approaches.

God Bless.