I Still Remember the Twentieth Century

By Ann Seymour

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 17, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462831418

Ann Seymour

Ann Seymour is an award winning journalist whose articles have appeared in "Town and Country" magazine and "Vanity Fair."  She is currently Features Editor for Fashionlines.com - the E-magazine for the elegant.  Her novel "Love, Death, and Diamonds" will be published in 2002.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

On a strangely sunny December day, I rode on Daddy’s shoulders as he walked along the sand, heading for the sea. He had strong, gentle hands and wavy hair that shone with a blue iridescence when the sun hit it as only black hair can. He had olive skin, chalk—blue eyes in which a light of hope always shone, and a basso musical voice that made words sound like songs. You have such a handsome face, you ought to be in pictures, his friends would say.

He called me his little Monk because I was so agile—the world was my gymnasium—before the rheumatic fever turned me into a falling—down girl.

Soon we would be skimming the waves, or he would pretend to be a whale by lying on his back and spitting water out of his mouth, straight up. Mom searched for a place to spread our picnic blanket, stopping to pick up pink shells the size of thumbnails and an occasional sand dollar or star fish.

Major Ribbel.

Daddy turned around. A man in uniform was standing by our house on its cliff overlooking the water, and he continued speaking,

The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor. We are at war. Report for duty immediately.

To me the cliff rose immensely high, and the uniformed man seemed to tower up to the sky, looking down like a god in the corner of a world map, determining destinies as was his pleasure. Actually the cliff was quite small, and he might have been, too, but I had the perspective of a two year old.

Daddy hugged me tight, and he hugged Mom, saying,

Don’t worry, darling Mary—Helen, everything will be all right.

He meant it; there were elements of a warm, uncomplicated boy is his reassuring tone.

Strong and loose, he darted up the path with his athlete’s grace, stopped to exchange salutes with the officer, and disappeared into the house, while we trailed behind, Mom squeezing my hand so hard it hurt.

He dressed in his uniform, and Mom changed into a white dress with ribbons of color plus her black sling—back patten leather pumps. As always, she was careful to make sure the seams of her stockings were perfectly straight. She liked to compose outfits and change clothes, as does Jennifer; I don’t.

You look beautiful, Kiddoo, Daddy said, in his sociable, easy way, and he tickled her to make her laugh.

He kissed us good—bye, stroked my hair, and reported for duty.

Mom put on the radio, and we heard an English chanteuse named Vera Lynn singing,

"There’ll be bluebirds over

"The white cliffs of Dover,

Tomorrow, just you wait and see.

Mom sighed, leaned toward the radio, and began to cry.

I climbed onto her lap, and she put her arms around me, told me to go lie down and take a nap.

Though I usually liked to nap, I couldn’t today. I sucked my thumb, held my yellow blanket with the satin trim, and my doll, Tinsey Gretchen. She had a bisque head, cloth body, and fat cheeks. Her blue glass eyes opened and shut, and she always wore a reassuring smile as she played with me day and night, ever the friend.

Finally I returned to the living room and found Mom still listening to the radio, not crying now, but looking terrified, as President Roosevelt’s voice denounced the Japanese for making today a day of infamy.

Mom pulled herself together and prepared a dinner of lamb chops, fresh peas (this was before frozen foods), and Neapolitan (a stripe each of chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla) ice cream. Daddy ate at the fort. At bedtime, mom dressed me in my pink bunny pajamas, I wrapped Tinsey Gretchen in her blanket, and Mom tucked me in. She took Daddy’s place reading the stories I liked to hear every night: Ping, about a yellow Chinese duck with dozens of relatives, and Little Black Sambo, about an African boy. I loved the part where the tiger runs around the tree until he turns into a pool of butter, loved butter in general.

We were entering a new life, one of rationing, air raid drills, blackouts, waiting for news from overseas, and nightmares. Afraid of bombs, my friends and I would often run to and from school. During the air raid drills, an eerie darkness reigned everywhere; even street lamps were dark. Howling sirens screamed a cruel warning as we imagined real attacks. I was afraid some light would seep out somewhere, or I would inadvertently touch a drape, causing it to shift, and all of us would be shelled by Japanese submarines. Sometimes at 2:00 a.m. we would get a phone call from somewhere in the South Pacific (we never knew exactly where Daddy was), and the operator would begin,

Do not say anything that will give aid or comfort to the enemy.

Then we could talk to Daddy for a few minutes and hear his cheerful, don’t—worry reports that made a hideously bloody war sound like a relaxing vacation. That was Daddy.

For me, time stopped on Dec. 7, 1941, in what psychologists call flashbulb memory, the freeze—framing of an exceptionally emotional event down to the most incidental detail.

I remember the ribbon pattern of my mother’s dress that reminded me of the rainbow spiral of a glass marble. I still seem to be holding a wisp of her sleeve while the memories spin ever faster around me.

Daddy’s bone structure and teeth were perfect; in fact a dentistry professor photographed them for a textbook he was writing. Mom was especially proud of his teeth; the night his plane was shot down in the battle of Manila, Mom dreamed she was looking at him, but his face was covered with soot, and all she could see was his teeth.

At San Diego High he was captain and quarterback of the wonder team, and the sports writers nicknamed him the pony quarterback because he was so small. He drove north to Cal in a Model T Ford called The Blue Flyer, which could go 45 miles per hour maximum. At Cal he was varsity quarterback, a member of the Olympic boxing team (welterweight) and the Olympic crew, on the tennis team, president of the Sigma Chi house and the senior class. In his pocket he always carried his favorite poem, by Edgar Guest,

Reply I

My dears, I have so much to tell A thousand letters won’t suffice. But grieve no more, for all is well, And where I stay it’s very nice. Our heaven is not a realm of doubt, Of streets of gold and amethyst, But one where friends are all about—The friends we loved on earth and missed. ‘Tis true that here our sufferings cease, For they were pangs of mortal clay, And here from them is sweet release And life is lived a better way, With passing time we’re not concerned. So brief the span ‘twixt there and here Already this, my dears, I’ve learned: God’s heaven and earth lie very near, Remember now as days go by I want you brave and strong to be. And, since not far away am I, Do all the tasks you can for me. Keep Easter time and Christmas day, Let birthdays grow to memories fair, Alive the time that I’m away And you would live if I were there.

He must have had a premonition. Did he? Did he know that one day his Mary—Helen would receive a letter saying,

The Secretary of War regrets to inform you …?

Did he know that he would rest in a military cemetery in the Philippines, and that his daughter would have on her desk a photo of him in uniform, that she would think every day of how much he gave up for so many people he would never meet?

I saw that poem as a last wish from him and tried to be brave and strong, to raise a family, and, now, I am trying to tell his (and my) story to his grandsons so that in a small way his descendants will know him.

He was a storyteller. He liked to make up tales about Greenie the Hoptoad to accompany Ping and Little Black Sambo. After bedtime stories, he sang me my lullaby, the Cal fight song,

"The sturdy golden bear

Is watching from the sky

Looks down upon

Our college fair

And guards us from his lair;

Our banner gold and blue

The symbol of it, too

Means fight for California

For California through and through."

But that was before the day that would live in infamy, before President Roosevelt would ask Congress to declare war,

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, he said, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory … With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God.

Oh, Daddy, Mom. I can still see their faces before he went overseas: innocent, brave, unknowing, see the way they leaned toward each