In light of this post from Dinocrat (which focuses on technology, but you can extrapolate the point), we are rapidly approaching a time in America when no one will be able to talk about December 7, 1941 in the first person. Anyone who can do math knows this, but few live with someone like my mother, age 79.
Mom was in high school at St Barnabas in the Bronx at the time. Family lore is that my grandmother did not have the radio on that morning and did not know about the attack until the afternoon. The radio in their Yonkers apartment, therefore, was never turned off until she was carried out of the place in the 1970's.
My mom's memory is shot. She forgets the names and genders of the dogs, her grandchildren, and people like Bill Cosby and Tom Brokaw. But this morning she walked over to me asked asked me "Do you know what today is?"
"Pearl Harbor Day."
"Yes. I was in high school. Your grandmother didn't turn the radio on until that afternoon."
"I know."
"Good."
Some things you don't forget.
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