My sober holiday

December 22, 2006 in Uncategorized

We’re visiting “the cousins”–my sister and her family in Alabama, and one of the best things about the holidays is having more time for activities like baking cookies, visiting family, etc. Actually, I guess we just make time for such things during the holidays.

Yesterday my four-year-old nephew brought me a stack of picture books to read to him. After the truck and tractor book, he handed me a “plane” book which was a picture book about the Pearl Harbor battle.

As we skimmed the book, he was most interested in the explosions, uniforms and military vessels, but I was struck by the details of the battle and the casualties–for example, 1,177 sailors died when the Battleship Arizona exploded and sank in 9 minutes. Many of the American victims were just waking on the only day they could sleep in, and some would die less than 10 minutes later–by drowning or being burned to death.

My thoughts drifted toward the sophomore biology teacher at DeLand High School, Mr. Tribble Dicks, who was the only person I’ve ever known who was actually there for the battle. He still sported a flat-top though I doubt he had served in the Navy long after WWII. Despite the haircut, he was a gentle and somewhat stoic man.

We viewed him as an antique, and we would laugh–amongst ourselves, at his imitation of a cranking Harley-Davidson. We also thought it was funny how he would choke up whenever someone could get him to talk about his experience at Pearl Harbor. We thought it was funny how he would get almost speechless, so emotional about an event that was long in the past and an incident which, to us, was a rich memory of America’s resolve and America’s ascendancy. All’s well that ends well, right?

Yes, we were juvenile and “sophomoric” and such behavior is almost expected these days. When my nephew wanted to read that book, I hesitated because death and dying and enemies and war are all such grave subjects. However, there is a need for me to teach my children–while still preserving some innocence, the horrors of war and the steep sacrifice paid by veterans then and now.