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Dorothy Copus Brush Dec. 7 a day that will live in my memories Memories, both good and bad, are stored over
the years, but those that revolve around Christmas seem stronger.
When I was very young I remember one year the tree had real candles
on it. It was a lovely sight, but the warning that was repeated
so many times of what could happen stayed with me. Even at an early age I wanted to write stories,
and the year Santa brought me a toy typewriter was one to remember
even if it was all capital letters. All of us youngsters
at church received a bag of hard candy, some nuts to crack and
an orange, seldom seen except at that time of year. The year
I was eight, death came to our family. My cousin of the same
age died after a short struggle with pneumonia. We buried him
on Christmas Eve, wearing the cowboy boots he had wanted for
Christmas. Christmas week there was always a radio presentation
of "A Christmas Carol" with one of the Barrymore men
in the role of Scrooge. I always listened, but it took many years
later for me to really appreciate the tale. During those same
years, Madam Ernestine Schumann-Heink sang "Silent Night,
Holy Night" each Christmas Eve. Her melodious operatic voice
stirred my young soul. In later years the Texaco Metropolitan
Opera on Saturday afternoons always featured "Hansel and
Gretal" Christmas week. Yes, those of us who live long enough have
many dates beyond family red-letter days etched in our brain.
My first thought on Dec. 7 was of that day in infamy, and where
I was when I heard the news and my feelings of doom. By Christmas
Eve of that year, joy replaced the gloom for a short time because
the man I loved placed an engagement ring on my finger that night. You will not be surprised when I say how I
gloried in the golden age of radio. It has remained my first
choice for news and entertainment. On Dec. 7, 1999 I was on the
road and listening to NPR's afternoon news show "All Things
Considered." Robert Trout, longtime CBS reporter, was introduced.
He said he felt it was time to set the record straight. Over the last half century we have been told
over and over that the first news bulletin about Pearl Harbor
interrupted the New York Philharmonic concert. "Not true,"
said Trout, and he unfolded the true story of that announcement.
At that time he was reporting from war-torn England, and each
Sunday he gave the news from there during an afternoon Sunday
news show broadcast from New York just before the concert. Trout recounted there were always a few minutes
when the reporters could talk back and forth across the ocean
before the program went on the air. He heard the ticker machine
start chattering, and then someone in the studio said, "Does
this mean we're at war?" In New York the show began with
the reading of that fateful message that Pearl Harbor had been
bombed. To show how different the world was at that
time, Trout said, "At that point the British, not even Churchill,
knew about the bombing because in England there was tight censorship
on broadcasts." Millions now accept this version of history not knowing it has been revised. But for those who heard that first brief news report the world changed. As Trout mused, "What could have been more dramatic than those few words?" |