“Speak Memory”, Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiography calls up the past in a memorable form. Of course all of us know where we were on 9/11. I had just gotten up and turned on the Today Show for their brainless blend of banter that I took with my morning coffee.
Those jolts of history-making days don’t come often in a lifetime but they do come along and affect each and every one of us.
I don’t remember Pearl Harbor because I was too young and too remote. The first “event” I remember was D-Day, June 6, 1944 since it was Arbor Day for us Fifth Graders and we could talk about it between raking leaves and doing as little as possible outside. Then came three big days in a row: April 12, 1945,the day FDR died and I came out of a showing of “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. Then VE Day, May 8, 1945, my 10th birthday, and quickly August 14th VJ Day. The two parts of the War were over and we celebrated joyously by riding up and down Jasper Ave. in our old Packard convertible. After that, the days became more personal. Graduation from UC Berkeley in 1957. Marriage to the love of my life, Peggy Jean, September 14. 1957. Birth of our son Tony, December 14, 1959. Birth of our daughter Alison, June 7, 1962. Etc. etc. etc as Yul Brynner dictated to Anna in “The King and I”. Unfortunately there are two important dates you can never remember: the day you’re born and the day you die. It’s the ones in between that count.
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