May 1941 and beyond . . .

In May of 1941, the citizens of the US were still trying to believe they could stay out of the European war.  They were buying big bushy gardenia plants and safety patrol boys were taking trips. And there were lynchings.

My parents were on their honeymoon, in a roadside diner when they heard the news about Pearl Harbor.  Soon my father was in the Army and my mother, saying goodbye to Tampa, Florida, was following him from post to post in the western states -- Reno, Nevada, La Quinta  and Indio in California. (My birth in California can be considered a military accident.)

And then my father went overseas -- to stand at Pangsau Pass, one foot in Burma, the other in India, he wrote on the back of the snapshot. My mother and I returned to Florida to await his return. I remember none of this, of course, but these old newspapers and pictures conjure up that time. 

And I wonder if the people back in May of '41, buying those big, bushy gardenias and new bandeaus by Helene of Hollywood, the people reading about dry rot in Germany, had any notion of what lay ahead and how their world was about to change.


And I wonder what lies ahead for us -- what radical changes may be just around the corner that we, busy with life as usual, don't anticipate.

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