SHERIFF BIG RAY

One of the most popular people in south Texas when I was a teenager was our county sheriff. He was a friend to teenagers and watched  over them and their parents. As I discovered later,  the disadvantaged in the community were thankful for his protection, as well.  His deeds often went untold until years later when his name came up and people told their stories about him. Here is one of the stories, I would like to tell you about Sheriff Big Ray, in my poetic version. 

He was six foot two from his boots to his eyes of baby blue. Or six foot five and weighed a hundred  and ninety five. In his high brim hat and tall heeled western boots he looked eight foot tall. He postured high over everyone in a room and wielded heavy strength with his favorite weapons, his four and a half foot arms. He grabbed outlaws and trouble makers by their necks and stretched them away from his body while they kicked and thrashed, but never reached him. Their resistance halted when their faces turned blue. Seldom did he use his 45 caliber six shooter he carried close to his waist. Despite his stature, he was a true gentle giant and avoided confrontation.

Ladies loved Big Ray and fell under his charms. He tilted his hat and opened car doors, pulled out their chairs and kissed their cheeks. He wore a constant smile and told funny jokes. He trusted women, as he did most men.

 He accompanied  men home, when they were in no shape to drive or found in naughty places. Never telling on them when there weren't any traces. Sheriff Ray empathized with the underprivileged and race played no role. He testified for black and brown men alike, when he knew they were innocent.

He disliked lying faces and didn't frequent churches. The hypocrites, he recognized with little patience. He heard the Amens, they shouted, with their phony voices. He was not one of them.

Mr. Sanches told the story of when he was a teenager and worked in a local diner one summer and Sheriff Ray helped him collect unpaid wages that were due him. He worked for the cranky Mr. Jansen, who owned Pap's Place. The owner's reputation was also one that was on the stingy side. On plate lunches he served only one slice of bread and one better not ask for another or he/she might raise the wrath of the grumpy owner. When kids got too loud and made noise, it was just like him to yell at them to leave.

At the end of the summer when it was time for school to begin, the young Mr. Sanches had to leave his job at the diner and return to Cuero High School. The owner of the diner would not pay him for his last week of wages. Sanches  was counting on that money to help him prepare for his school needs.

One day, the young man approached Sheriff Ray and told him his dilemma. Sheriff Ray said, "Okay, lets go see him and pay him a visit."

The two of them got into the Sheriff's car, drove down Main street and pulled up in front of the diner and walked in. Sheriff Ray confronted the diner owner about his refusal to pay the young man. When the diner owner did not seem to be cooperating, the Sheriff slammed his fist on the counter and shouted, "I  told you to pay this young man his wages."

At that point, the stubborn owner went to the cash register, pulled out the cash and threw it on the floor and said, "Here."

Sheriff Ray screamed at Jansen and said, "Pick it up."

Sanches said he picked it up himself, and ran out of the diner as fast as could before the altercation escalated any further.

"He was some Sheriff'', said Sanches.

And I agree he was some sheriff and I was proud that I knew him.

THANK YOU TO MY AUDIENCE

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A NEW BEGINNING": 

Janine, I love your blog. They are most interesting and it is wonderful to know these stories. Thank you for writing them. 

THERE WASN'T MUCH TIME

     My father sometimes talked about his World War II experiences. We kids were young and didn’t pay much attention. When he was in the hospital years later, with lung cancer, I realized he had important stories to tell and there wasn’t much time. I told my 13 year old I wish he could be there so he could hear his grandfather’s stories one last time. In those years no children under 16 could visit patients. So, young Walter sneaked up the fire escape stairs of the hospital and found his way quietly into the room.

He sat there while his grandfather lay naked with tubes running in and out of his body. My father told the young boy that when his ship reached the shores of France, all the soldiers were ordered off the ship without any weapons. They were told to pick up the guns from any soldiers lying on the beach. He was hit by shrapnel that tore off most of his left lung. And then later he was sent to an English hospital where he stayed for months in recovery.

Later I wrote a letter for mom asking the VA for 100% disability for my father’s injury, that she and my father had no success in doing. The VA insisted that the cancer in his right lung had nothing to do with his left lung that was injured during the War. In a few words, I stated simply that had my father not given his left lung for the defense of his country, he would still have a lung to resort to when his right lung became diseased with cancer. With that, the VA finally granted their appeal.

I always thought that this was the most important few words that I ever wrote so that I was able to help my parents in their time of need.

(Time is so precious. We need to capture every moment with our older generation. What
do you think? Please comment below.)  

PHYLLIS JEAN, MY FIRST BEST FRIEND

WHAT DO YOU TELL YOUR MOM WHEN YOU SEE YOUR BEST FRIEND'S MOTHER ENTERTAINING SAILOR GUYS AFTER WORK?

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST BEST FRIEND? DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU LIKED TO DO TOGETHER AND WHAT YOU PLAYED? PLEASE COMMENT BELOW AND TELL US
____________________________________________________
     My first girlfriend, my first best friend, I  remember, was Phyllis Jean. She
and I walked to school together every day when I was in the second grade in
Clinton. She lived across the  street from the six-story brick hotel where I was
 living with my family.
     She and her mother lived in a cheap, frame motel across the street that was
convenient to her mother's work. Her  mother was a waitress at the hotel and our
mothers met shortly after we moved to our temporary home in the hotel.
     Phyllis Jean's mother invited me to their little one-room efficiency living
quarters to play after she got home from work. Mother invited Phyllis to
visit me at the hotel. Sometimes we walked uptown a few blocks to the
picture show.
      Since she and I both had constrained living quarters our play was somewhat
 limited to our choice of activities. But we did choose to role play, which is
an important step in child development, according to both psychology and
sociology.
     Whom did we choose to emulate? We chose secretaries. My mother was
 not a secretary nor was Phyllis's mother. However, In the 1940's women's roles
were somewhat limited and secretaries were glamorized in the movies. Outside
 of being housewives,  waitresses,  nurses and maybe teachers, women had
few careers to choose from.
     Phyllis and I set up tables for make-believe desks and found hotel stationery
and pencils to write with at the hotel.  We took turns taking notes, as the other was
 the boss.
     One day after school I walked across the street to play with Phyllis Jean. Her
mother was already home from work. Her mother's girlfriend was visiting her. We
were gong to play office, but realized that we wouldn't have much space.
Shortly after I arrived, two sailor guys paid a visit too. By then the room was
 really getting crowded.
     They were so happy to see Phyllis's mother and her friend because they  gave
them a lot of kisses. They had worked all day and I think they were tired because
 they laid on the bed and exchanged more hugs and kisses. One of the sailor guys
 reached in his pocket and pulled out a hand- full of change and gave it to us and
 told us to walk up the street to the dime store and buy whatever we wanted and
we could take as much time as we wanted. Boy did that make us happy because
now we could buy some real office supplies to play office with.
     When we got to the dime store we took our time finding what we wanted
 to buy. We bought receipt pads, tablets, pencils, erasers, and whatever struck
our fancy. And  we walked up and down the aisles, making sure we hadn't
missed anything. It was a great way to spend the afternoon, an opportunity
we never had before.
     When we got back to Phyllis's her mother's guests were gone and her mother
was asleep.
     I went back to my home at the hotel, across the street. When mother saw me,
she wanted to know what Phyllis Jean and I did. I told her we just played around.
I never did tell mother what actually happened. Mother had told me earlier that
some people at the hotel said ugly things about Phyllis's mother, but she never
believed them. For some reason, I was afraid she might not like what we did
and saw that day.
     I loved Phyllis Jean. She was my best friend. In fact, she was my only friend
and I didn't want anything to happen to our friendship.

ONE LITTLE, TWO LITTLE, THREE LITTLE INDIANS, FOUR LITTLE, FIVE LITTLE, SIX LITTLE INDIANS, SEVEN LITTLE, EIGHT LITTLE, NINE LITTLE INDIANS, TEN LITTLE INDIAN CHILDREN

     There were one little, two little, three little Indians,four little, five little, six little Indians, seven little, eight little, nine little Indians, ten little Indian children. 
     Actually many more were all around the school, when I started the second grade. They were from rural areas around Clinton, Oklahoma. The Indian children did not outnumber the white children but they were well represented and were noticeably present. They dressed poorly and wore their hair in long braids. When their  parents dropped them off at school, they wore long braids as well, with long skirts, moccasins and dingy looking blankets around their shoulders. I guess that's why my father called them "blanket asses"(a pejorative term, to say the least). 

      I showed concern the first day of class when I saw these unfamiliar faces. The only Indians I was familiar with were those I saw in the Saturday matinee movies and they weren't very friendly when they fought the white cowboys in the films at the picture shows.

     My mother tried to comfort me and told me they were harmless. In fact she said that she and I were part Indian. She told me when she was twelve years old and visiting her Grandmother Ellsworth in Stillwater, Oklahoma they attended a funeral. In walked a party of grieving relatives of the deceased. She laughed as she told the story and described her first encounter with similar people. They too wore their hair in braids and blankets over their shoulders. As mother described it, she asked Grandmother Ellsworth who were the strange looking people who came into the funeral home unannounced.

     Grandmother Ellsworth said "Shhh child, those are some of your relatives."

     Mother said she answered her grandmother and said, "They may be your relatives, but they aren't mine". She said Grandmother Ellsworth told her they were Cherokee. 

     I walked to school every day. It was only a few blocks from the hotel where we were temporarily living and I soon became adjusted to my new school and the young Indian children.

     When I got home from school, mother would search my head for lice that she said could hop from the Indian kids' heads to mine. She washed my hair every day when I bathed, parted my hair in sections, and looked closely at my scalp.

      One week-end our family went to the edge of town to a Pow Wow. The Indian families  dressed in their finery with long head dresses, made of colored feathers, beaded leather shirts, pants or skirts and  leather moccasins. They danced in circles and the drums went, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. The pounding went on and on. I can still hear it today. The sound was unending.The circle was unbroken. They didn't go anywhere, but in their circle, over and over.  (Below is an address of a modern day Pow Wow by the Cheyenne  on Youtube.)
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2kZqknfkvg 
     The Indians were from the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes. One of their best strategies for survival, in the nineteenth century, was to merge. They could protect themselves better from the advancing white settlers. They were descendents of the nomadic Plains Indians, who had moved freely throughout the middle United States for centuries.

     They were unlike "The Five Civilized Tribes", the Cherokee, Chicasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, who were traditionally settled and farmed their land in the southeastern states. They were called "civilized" because they lived in  settlements similar to Europeans. When President Andrew Jackson ordered the "civilized" tribes moved to Indian Territory in Oklahoma years earlier in the 1830s, they were forced to the the eastern part of the Indian Territory and again took up their traditional farming that eventually became reservation land.  

     The Cheyenne-Arapaho, on the other hand, were forced to the western part of Indian Territory a little later, after the Civil War. These Indians were free and lived off the land but not in the same sense as the more settled tribes. The Cheyenne and Arapaho roamed  where the buffalo roamed.  When the railroad was built, it dislocated their hunting and  game. The white settlers slaughtered the buffalo and they became almost extinct.  They massacred Cheyenne tribes unmercifully, broke treaties, and then it was only a matter of time, before the military with their more advanced weapons,  conquered and restrained  the Indians on reservations in Oklahoma. They became an impoverished conquered people, much due to the disappearance of their main culture of the buffalo, but particularly to the relentless forces by the white man to destroy the Indians at all costs.

     After the forced relocation of  Indians, across the country,  the federal government used several policies that worsened the Indians' situation. From thousands and thousands of acres, the Indian lands were divided into 40-160 acre allotments by the Dawes Act (1891). See relative youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8uGr6JJdkE&feature=related
     The Cheyenne-Arapaho who were formally nomads were expected to become agriculturalists, with little tradition for it, and few tools or equipment. Not to mention the fact that much of their land was arid and unproductive, unsuitable for farming.

      Eventually, conniving land dealers and legislators grabbed the Indian lands. They also stole the Indians' oil rights and leases on land that eventually became valuable, when oil was discovered. By the 1930's, Indians in western Oklahoma were poor, jobless, landless, and wards of the state. And by the middle 1940's when we arrived in Clinton, they were still an impoverished people. 
      Today, Indians continue to live in poverty conditions all across the country. In fact more of the Indian population live in below poverty conditions, than any other ethnic population. 
      Clinton is not any different. Indians comprise only 7.1 percent of the town's population Like other Indians their poverty rates and the number of social problems they have are staggering. They have a high rate of diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. There are many teenage pregnancies, alcohol, drug abuse and parental neglect. Children lack the parental support in school, which hampers their ability to succeed and get ahead.

      Churches, like the Methodist Church, work with the Indians because the churches are aware of the Indians' social needs. Please see the following link:


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9XhXBH08rs

      Until recently, Oklahoma has had the highest number of Indians in their state, which is formerly Indian Territory. Arizona now ranks the highest. I've always had empathy for the Indian people. I don't know if it's because I went to school with the dark skinned children when I was young. Or if it's because mother told me that we were related to them. Maybe it's because I now know more history of the Indians. Or maybe, it's a combination of all three. 
     But I do know that whenever I hear or think of one little, two little, three little Indians, four little, five little, six little Indians, seven little, eight little, nine little Indians, ten little Indian children, I think of the little Indian children I went to school with in Clinton, Oklahoma.
       

NOT THE GULAG, BUT I TAUGHT IN A PRISON CLASSROOM

     Because I taught college courses at a male medium security prison facility for almost 20 years, I could usually figure out my students. There were those who were fat, tall, skinny, short, black, brown, white, young adults, middle-aged and old men. The latter were fewer. There were Mexican Mafia, pedophiles, ex-cops, preppy kids, ex-bodyguards, a Texas secessionist who tried to persist in a real cowboy and Indian shoot-out, a classical pianist, one banker, city gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, transvestites, tattoo artists covered with their art, preachers and a Morman polygamist; I thought I saw it all. My job was to teach, not judge. Usually, I knew on the first day of class which offenders would be the best students. But,  that was not always the case.

     It was no Gulag, for sure. The offenders were not restricted in their movements and privileges, as those in heavy security facilities, scattered around the state. I taught college credit classes to students who had to qualify with tests or credentials and good behavior.  In general, the students who arrived in my class already had accumulated several college credits. Those who were in a college class for the first time had the desire to learn and had acquired some skills in their GED classes or already had a high school diploma. The guys were normally very cooperative in class and they were there to learn. They were polite and treated me with respect. They were unlike those in the prison's general population. And that is why they were accepted for community college work. And that is why I enjoyed teaching them.  

     The most popular course I taught was "Marriage and Family". It is funny the reaction I got from friends whom I told that to, especially men. Several told me that they would think marriage and family wouldn't be important to prisoners. Quite the contrary, I told my friends, I found that if the students hadn't been married they at least had some exposure to the family along the way. Numerous students wanted to know what the course could teach them in a future marriage. And those who had been married either wanted to know what went wrong in their failure at marriage or how they could be better husbands in their present marriages or cohabited arrangements. 
     One student argued positively for the case of polygamy and when we discussed this marital custom we looked at studies that used sociological and anthropological tools. These studies show that when we look at societies through time and space, the popularity of polygamy is strong. The offender told us he knew educated and professional women who believed in their polygamous arrangements, as he noticed my concerned look. It wasn't long before we knew he had experienced this type of marital arrangement before he was arrested and convicted of the crime. He was a very gentle and sensitive man who loved to write poetry about his experiences in violent settings of other prisons.

     Students fondly discussed their families and family customs and listened intently to subjects of domestic violence.  They loved their mothers. One confessed he shot and killed his stepfather, who physically abused his mother. Another confessed he shot and killed his daughter's rapist. This won applause from the others in the class.  One young preppy-looking white guy told me he had a difficult time talking about family because his mother enrolled him in a private school when he was 12 years old. She left him at the front door and never returned for him. One black guy kept us laughing with his comical stories from his family. He said he thought he had it all figured out when he was first married. When his wife first talked back to him, he hauled off and slapped her across the face, like he saw his uncle do to his wife many times. But he said it didn't work with his wife who made a fist and hit him back so hard he went spinning across the floor. He never did that again, he said.
      I never questioned the students on details and didn't want to abuse their boundaries, but because the subjects in the class were sensitive to them they either blurted out their experiences during discussions or they wrote about them in their weekly reflections that I assigned for each chapter reading.  

     My teaching methods were those I took from my college sociology classes. My favorite university professor, Joe Feagin assigned weekly written reflections or essays that we related to our readings and lectures. Our job was to compare, and contrast, theories, and ideas to those in the text or to other sources we had read. He told us to dig deep into our papers and write in an academic manner and reflect upon what we learned.  We discussed what we wrote in class. It was a high-level assignment in which we learned to write better papers and explore our readings in depth. I used this method in the college classes I taught.  I supplemented the readings with other sources, usually other sociological studies.

     During the last two semesters I taught at the prison I had a student who took me by surprise. On the first day of class, he walked in with the other students, but he looked older. Later he said he was 60 years old. His appearance was sloppier than the norm. His white cotton pullover shirt and baggy white draw- string pants were very soiled. His hair was uncombed, greasy looking, and fell in his eyes.  His shoes were scuffed and worn, his hands were soiled and his eyes were bloodshot and seemed to roll around in their sockets, uncontrollably. He appeared to be a white Anglo and I didn't know what he was doing in my class. 

     When the introduction time came, Mr. Brown said he didn't know what he was doing in the class. Some cellmates told him he should take a class and this was a good one. He said, "I haven't been in a school for a long time and this is my first college class, but I read about five novels a week."

      Oh great, I thought,  he might have a mental problem. I also thought he was there to get out of the heat and "kill" time in an air-conditioned class room away from the hot cells. We discussed the syllabus and talked about the definitions of family. I told them this textbook was interesting because it didn't focus on dysfunctional marriages and families, but focused more on healthy family arrangements and the healthy socialization of children. I gave the reading and written reflection assignments and told them about the weekly quizzes and three major semester exams. I explained this was a class that they should take seriously. I had three hours to spend with these guys, once a week, and I intended to keep them busy the whole time.

      The next week at our second class, the offender students arrived with their written assignments in hand. They told me what they wrote and handed in the assignments. Mr. Brown said he didn't think he did it right. When he gave me his paper, all I saw were a few fragments of sentences that didn't connect with logic and thought and were not punctuated. I thought to myself, this is not going to work out because I didn't believe he was college material. I told him what he should have done and that it was not an acceptable college paper.

     He said, "Oh, okay. Can I do it again? I've got to get myself some glasses this week. I lost mine."

     I said, "Sure, but you'll also have the assignment due next week." He said he thought he could handle both and he would at least try.

      The next week, his written assignments were done right. In fact, they were so good as the weeks went by that we all were surprised by his academic achievement. His appearance began to change as he cut his hair and shaved his face. His clothes looked cleaner and his overall appearance fit the norm, if not higher. And he wore new reading glasses. Every week his quiz scores were 100 percent. And his major exams had the highest scores in the class. They were all A pluses.  

     As weeks went by, Mr. Brown told us that his father abused him and taught him to use drugs with him. Later when a teenager, he was adopted by  foster parents. They worked him as a farm hand and he had to do a lot of  drudgery kind of work. He later ran off and enlisted in the army.

     Over the weeks and months, Mr. Brown told us of failed marriages and grown children who wouldn't have anything to do with him. He said he wished he had known earlier what he learned from the studies in our class. He added that he had uncontrollable addictions to heavy drugs. He said he didn't know what he could do with the college classes he was taking. 
      The second semester Mr. Brown took  Social Problems from me, as well as a psychology class, and an art history class.  I confess. I encouraged him along the way, telling him that anyone with his ability to do so well in college the first year, could surely use the same ability to train his mind to look past the need for heavy drugs and misfortunes. He seemed to be interested in my praise for his stories. I encouraged him and the other students, as well, to write their memoirs. I told them how to brainstorm for different events in their lives and to take notes when remembering certain things that may have been turning points in their lives and to reflect on them and to write as often as they could.  I said to them, "It is therapeutic. It's a good way to pass your time and escape the conditions you live under.  Your children might appreciate it someday. And who knows, a publisher may be interested, as well."

     As mentioned earlier, the prison where I taught was securely guarded and I usually felt safe. I gained respect and appreciation from the students and officers. It was not a Gulag type of prison and I learned a lot from the men with whom I shared a classroom for almost twenty years.  

AFTER THE SECOND ATOMIC BOMB DROPPED

  

We arrived in Clinton, Oklahoma the summer of 1945, after the war on the European front had ended, but it took two atomic bombs to bring the Japanese to the treaty table in September. One dropped on Hiroshima and another, the second one, on Nagasaki, three days later in early August. Clinton had strong ties with the military because the Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base was sixteen miles away. When the military waxed and waned, Clinton did so, as well. When we arrived it was still waxing because it took awhile to feel the effects of the final armistice.

As I look back to that year, I remember the relief people felt about the final end to the war on both sides of our continent. I never noticed much attention to the Japanese battles. It may have been that we didn’t have as much coverage on Japan because of its history of isolation. However, there was plenty of propaganda showing Japanese people with stereotyped cartoon features in our newsreels and other media. Japanese physical characteristics were easier for illustrators to ridicule and mimic in a hostile fashion, whereas, Germans looked more like “us”. I remember seeing the mushroom cloud images of the Atomic Bombs in newsreels and papers, but I don’t recall anyone's displeasure, sadness, or dissent about the hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens that were either killed outright or injured and maimed for decades after. Over sixty years, we’ve had debates among scholars and others as to whether the massive killing by the atomic bombs was necessary.  Observing how at the end, the eastern front war was treated far differently than that in Europe, it can stimulate questions.

The military personnel and their families increased Clinton’s population to 7,000 by 1945.  We recognized the significance of the military by large numbers of people dressed in uniform and the frequency in which we saw the sky filled with aircraft above. Clinton provided accommodations for the military in terms of hotel, housing, theatres, restaurants and it seemed to be a happy place when we arrived. When the war ended, similar to other places, Clinton had an increased demand for housing. People were moving to and fro, as orders came to end their assignments. My father worked for Oklahoma Gas Company and it was his job to help provide gas utilities for the increased need for gas in homes.  Ironically, these services in high demand simultaneously provided a problem for us. We were unable to find a house because of the housing shortages. So, his company set us up in the Calmez Hotel until one became available. All of our belongings were placed in storage.

The   Hotel Calmez was a six story red brick building. It was in downtown Clinton, walking distance to movie houses, churches, cafes, dime stores, and mercantile stores.  An elementary school was three blocks away. It was a very hot summer when we moved into the hotel.  Most of the time we stayed at the hotel because my father went to work in our only vehicle, the company truck. With the central location of the hotel we walked almost anywhere when we needed something. We ran our errands in the morning and in the afternoon we stayed close by the electric fans.  After our naps, mother would go down stairs and obtain a full pitcher of ice water and Almond Joy candy bars.  To this day, when I eat this chocolate candy bar with almonds that oozes cocoanut, my memory flashes back to that very hot summer. And I remember how it tasted then and I feel the wonderful ice water that cooled our bodies.

My little sister, Karen, and I had fun in the hotel. She was the pet of the waitresses and bell hops because she was younger.  We played on our Murphy bed, that folded out from a closet. After sleeping on it all night, when we awoke we made it and then pushed it back into the closet and closed the door until time to sleep that evening.  It gave us more room in our little suite.

However, my mother was not as intrigued with the hotel life as we began to adjust to it. It was due to my father’s changed behavior.

His behavior changed when we arrived in Clinton. It was tied to his new surroundings that provided plenty of entertainment. The casino and bar in the hotel were full every night. They catered to soldiers from the nearby military base and others who were working to provide the transitions for changes after the war.  And there were plenty of pretty girls for entertainment, as well. This was in a state that was dry and considered gambling illegal. My father loved it.  He was tall, dark complected, slender, and combed a full head of black hair. His blue eyes danced around as he engaged people in conversation. He read the newspaper every day and could discuss politics and sports events. He was a golfer, bowler, poker player, bridge player, and in general loved to have a good time. He went to the bar and casino every night, after being gone all day at work.  My mother said the people who ran the bar and casino were part of the “Mafia” and their intent was to take all the young men’s money. And she saw it happening to my father.

My mother was not a gambler nor did she drink. But one night my father was late in coming to our hotel suite and she broke her will. She went looking for him. He was not in the bar or casino and his truck was parked in the parking lot. She grabbed us, found some keys and said we were going to look for him. She thought he was at a roadhouse on the edge of town where my father’s friends often went. She drove his truck and on the way, she stopped and bought a bottle of Mogan David Wine. When she failed to find him, she drank the whole bottle. She vomited several times that night.  The next morning she wanted to stay in bed.  She said she alone was responsible for the way she felt that morning.  I never saw or heard of her drinking again.

Our move to Clinton was a significant turn in our lives. To say it was tied to the war ending is an over statement, but I associate the two because they stand out in my mind when many memories have faded. 

 My observations of the way Japanese were seen during the war and the way they had to experience two Atomic Bombs are partially seen through the eyes of a small child mixed with those of a mature adult. From studying history, observing newsreels and movies, and reading, I think there is still a need for discussion into the reasons Americans' opinions and treatment of the Japanese were different. There are many examples to draw from today. And by using different historical and sociological perspectives we could learn a lot more. 

The Atomic Bomb is a subject that makes me most uncomfortable. Since my early experiences in life, I have seen documentary films that exposed how the A Bombs affected the Japanese. In the middle 1970s I saw a newly released declassified film, taken by the Japanese. For years our country would not allow it to be seen and I know why. On the spot cameras right after the A Bombs dropped filmed Japanese walking around in a stupor with skin hanging from their bodies, missing limbs, burns etched into their skins, and people dead, still sitting where they were when the bomb was dropped. People jumped into radiation filled ponds of water to cool them selves. Individuals searched for loved ones. Hundreds were incinerated the closer they were to the center of where the bombs fell. What the bombs did to them is a disgrace to humanity, I thought as I watched the film. The people were going about their daily lives and out of nowhere these bombs dropped on them. I was most shaken during and after the film.

So, when I talk about how the war was connected to my family, it is ludicrous to even suggest anything so absurd when I think about others' experiences. Should the Atomic Bombs have been used to bring an end to the war? Or should the second A Bomb have been dropped? I will leave that for experts to debate that have more information than I. But I still think it was a disgrace to humanity. All wars are horrendous. They just vary in kind. We did have a strong military and government leaders who brought victory to our country, making it safe for a period of time. I am grateful for that.  The most I had to endure was parents who seemed to be going in different directions and I didn’t understand why. But it wasn’t an unusual phenomenon, since there was a particular uncertainty in many peoples’ minds as to what lay ahead when it was time for thousands of soldiers to come home from the war and experience many changes themselves.  There were many relationships that would be changing, as well.