A Day That Will Live In Infamy

Today is Pearl Harbor Day, and it always takes me back to a vision I have. Like most memories of events you weren't a part of, in my mind's eye the events play in sepia tones.

I see a young man, 22, pushing racks of womens' clothing, though the streets of NY's Garment District. He sings loudly as he works, and is never rushed, but is purposeful in his deliveries. Every once in awhile, a taxi cab driver slows down, listening to his singing, and says "Hey kid --you're pretty good! You ought to go on the radio!" The young man just smiles, content in the music he provides for himself, and the fact that his life is pretty good. It's still the Depression, and he has a job. He also has a home, in the Bronx, where he was born and raised, and a sort of girlfriend who lives across the street.

He wants to go to college, but there's no family money for that. He spoke to his father, a stern immigrant with a solid job inthe needle trades, about attending a school to learn how to create store displays. He had spoken to a young fellow doing that in Macy's window, during one of his deliveries, and the fellow told him it was a great union job. But, the young man's father, SImon, listened, and then slapped him on the head. "You HAVE a good job already! Don't make waves!" he shouted in his heavy Yiddish accent.

But back to the street. I'm conjuring up electronic billboards flashing the news of the evil Japanese attack. I'm seeing newsboys yelling the cliched "Extra, extra --read all about it! Japs attack us!" I'm seeing the young man's contemporaries gathered around street radios, listening to the news.

In any event, the young man, Hyman Auslander, 22, knew what this meant for him. Despite his lack of formal education past high school, he was "smarter than the average bear." He GOT stuff. He saw trends. He understood the way stuff worked. He was going to be drafted into the army, and all was going to change. There'd be no more singing while delivering dresses through the streets of 1940s New York. There'd be travels far from the familiar confines of his Bronx home.

He was right, of course, as he was about most of the events in his life. The notice came a few months later, and he reported to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, and an adventure of nearly 4 years of army life that was more boring and ironic than it was glorious and adventurous.

He learned to detest taking orders from people higher ranked but much stupider than he. One sergeant was illiterate --a hold over from the old cavalry, and Hy had to sign his name for him on orders and write "His mark." He experienced quaint anti semitism from the folks who lived near the rural bases. "We ain't NEVER met a real live JEW before. Ain't you go no horns on your head?"

He learned to NEVER volunteer, and to always sit when you were given the opportunity. He learned to detest forced exercise, a hatred his son inherited and practices nearly 70 years later.

And somehow, the sort of girlfriend from across the street in the Bronx, became, through letters (long since discarded --what I'd pay to have them!) and the occasional long distance call, his fiancee, and finally his wife.

In my mind's eye, the scene shifts to sunny Pasadena, where Sunny from the Bronx steps off a train to join Hy on their life adventure. The tones are no longer sepia, they're California technicolor, in the same way my mother woke up my father's soul, and lighted his life over nearly 40 years of marriage.

But that's a long, long, boring to outsiders tale.

From December 7, 1941 to December 7, 2009. What a lenghthy passing of time, but still squarely with my family's history. My father's been dead over 27 years. Sunny has 6 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. She still lives comfortably on the savings my father accumulated over the course of his working life, as a salesman who was largely his own boss because of the lessons he learned in the army.

Whenever I sing, in a voice decidedly more tinny than the one my father had, I think of him, pushing the dress carts on that December day. I think how much has changed. How temporary "evil" is --especially as I watch my Japanese tvs, drive my Japanese cars, and eat sushi a few times per week.

The Day That Will Live in Infamy was a major milestone in the life of my family.