U.S. Navy, Collection of the Library of Congress Dec. 7, 1941.Dear Diary:
The few mentions in the press served to prompt my recollections of the attack on Pearl Harbor 72 years ago. My parents were away and our Aunt Pearl had come to care for my little brother and me. I was not yet 11. That Sunday, Aunt Pearl was in the living room listening to the New York Philharmonic on the radio, when an unfamiliar voice broke into the music; I heard the announcer say, “This means war.â€
The radio was on a table near a window. I went and stood next to it as we listened to reports of the bombing. I remember looking out the window at the backyard, seeing the garage with green-trimmed doors, the thorny brambles of the rose trellis to one side, bushes and the grass lawn beyond.
“Everything looks different now,†I said.
“That’s because you know,†my aunt said.
Her response must have been the first time anyone told me that what I knew could affect what I saw, and it would be years before I could use any insight my aunt’s remark evoked. But her response struck a chord in me.
Of course, the world soon began looking different regardless of my knowing or not. The next day there was an air raid alarm in New York. My school (P.S. 99, Queens) dismissed us early. No procedures; we were just told to go home quickly. Outside, the policeman who usually waved us across stood in the middle of the street, looking up at the sky and clenching and unclenching his fists.
Someone said German planes were five minutes from the city. There were sirens. Later, my father became an air raid warden and in the spring we dug up the lawn for a Victory Garden.
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