12/7/16

Remember PEARL HARBOR


Today is December 7th. That date still means something to a lot of people, but over time it will be forgotten. There are few survivors left. I knew one, but he passed away many years ago.



I still remember a story one of my teachers told of staying home by herself when her family went to church. Alone in the house on a hillside when a bomb suddenly hit in the open field next door. It had been twenty years since the bombs were dropped, but she remembered every detail as if it had just happened.

Say this date to most young people today and it will probably mean nothing. That's the way with youth. For now it's just a date they might have read about in a history class, but it's forgettable. Their December 7th is 9/11 and in time it too will be forgotten.

There is a nice little vernacular photography book out celebrating the service personal who passed through Hawaii during the war years. It has some fun images and does justice to
the category they've chosen. I received a copy as a gift. It's entitled Shore Leave by Ryan Mungia and Jim Heimann.

I'm especially fond of this image because my second memory in life is walking along this sidewalk in Waikiki in the early 50s. My first memory is in our quarters on Midway Island.


And maybe while your'e taking a look at Shore Leave you might peruse one of my Tattered and Lost volumes. 


An American Dream is the latest book in my series of vernacular photography books. The American dream of owning a home through vintage vernacular photographs. The focus is on the people who lived within the homes as well as the varied architecture from the late 1800s to the 1960s
.

2 comments:

  1. Forgetting history dooms us to repeat the avoidable.

    I've a relative that was at Pearl Harbor around the time of the second disaster and was injured.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Loch_disaster

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    Replies
    1. I had forgotten about this, but do remember it being talked about in school. Fourth grade was all Hawaii history.

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