You know you are getting old when:

[LizzieMaine]

My grandparents (1904 and 1911) rarely ever talked about History in the capital letter sense, unless I specifically asked them about it. But neighborhood history, on the other hand, flowed as a constant stream. "Remember the time that kid Bubby from next door got a kite caught in the power line and tried to get it down climbing a metal ladder and the spark threw him across the street? Yeah, that was somethin'."

 

[tonyb]

In my teens I was in a youth organization sponsored in part by the Japanese American Citizens League. Many of the kids had parents and grandparents who were “relocated” during WWII from the West Coast to what amounted to concentration camps in the interior.

No, it wasn’t at all akin to the “work camps” the Nazis created to carry out their genocide, and I never heard anyone suggest it was. But then, I never heard any mention of it at all from the people victimized by it back then. It was as though it was a shameful episode for all concerned. It was only in later years that it was addressed head on.

Those people, people I knew and looked up to, and who are all but entirely gone now, lost businesses and farms and professional practices and workaday jobs and had to start over from scratch once the war was over. They lost a lot.

I also knew people who thought the internment entirely appropriate. These were the same people who from time to time betrayed the racist underpinnings of that opinion. “Dirty Japs,” I heard more often than I care to recall, as though some strawberry farmer on Vashon Island was in any way a threat to America.

Charles Lindbergh, anyone? Friends of New Germany?

 

[Harp]

When I moved to this tropical climate, I fully expected to be wearing nothing but flip flops. About six weeks into the new footwear, my lower back and hip started aching like h$ll. So now I find any excuse to wear sturdy shoes with arch/ankle/heel support. The pain disappeared! Of course, wearing real shoes generally calls for long khaki trousers. Which, in turn calls for a nice Aloha shirt. So, instead of the Hawaii state uniform of shorts and a t-shirt, I’m usually dressed as if I’m a Pearl City car salesman of a Waikiki hotel employee.

While resident Kaneohe Beach with a crash pad Makikki Heights, I sauntered inside the Honolulu
public employment office one sunlit morning and talked to a counselor, whom was none too impressed
by my surfer sartorial standard wear. No flip flops, strictly Adiddas. I had shaved but my hair was long.
Attire regular Kaneohe. 'So, son you're an ex-GI. You look like a surfer beach bum frankly.'
No registered auto; studio lease meant little, and in the days before cell phones, no land line telephone.
I was a shiftless transient and looked like a surfer beach bum. Told him I was a surfer beach bum,
just tried to be honest. Yep, he thought so. And had I looked for work, gotten any offers?
Told him about this rich lady who wanted me to be her boy toy. Went over like a lead baloon.
He scrounged up some state prison detail, which I declined. My Adiddas shoes stood me in good stead.

 

[AmateisGal]

In my teens I was in a youth organization sponsored in part by the Japanese American Citizens League. Many of the kids had parents and grandparents who were “relocated” during WWII from the West Coast to what amounted to concentration camps in the interior.

No, it wasn’t at all akin to the “work camps” the Nazis created to carry out their genocide, and I never heard anyone suggest it was. But then, I never heard any mention of it at all from the people victimized by it back then. It was as though it was a shameful episode for all concerned. It was only in later years that it was addressed head on.

Those people, people I knew and looked up to, and who are all but entirely gone now, lost businesses and farms and professional practices and workaday jobs and had to start over from scratch once the war was over. They lost a lot.

I also knew people who thought the internment entirely appropriate. These were the same people who from time to time betrayed the racist underpinnings of that opinion. “Dirty Japs,” I heard more often than I care to recall, as though some strawberry farmer on Vashon Island was in any way a threat to America.

Charles Lindbergh, anyone? Friends of New Germany?

My PhD research is looking at these anti-Semitic, Christian Nationalist groups in the US in the interwar period. Anti-Semitism increased in the US starting in 1933, and all these groups popped up. German-American Bund, the Silver Shirts, etc.

I'm looking at one man in particular who operated out of Omaha, Nebraska. He wrote an anti-Semitic, Christian nationalist newsletter called "America In Danger!." Dude thought the Jews "controlled" everything, had infiltrated congress, controlled FDR, international banking, EVERYTHING. He was indicted on federal charges of sedition in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.

American anti-Semitism was very, very real.

 

[Fifty150]

It was as though it was a shameful episode for all concerned.

A lot of pain. The wounds haven't healed. There are still people who were small children during that period. They don't want to talk about it. Just a far off gaze, and watery eyes tearing up.

History is neither glamorous nor pretty. My grandparents' generation suffered from warfare. Horrible, unspeakable atrocities. We have learned nothing from all the fighting around the world, in the last 100 years.

Remember the time that

Remember that time Ronny wore a jean jacket to greet The Queen? Right there on the lawn, was a lawn jockey.

 

[Fifty150]

Prince Philip is quite interested in the Lawn Jockey

 

[Zombie_61]

I never really got to speak with either maternal or paternal grandparents but I was in awe of my maternal grandfather is he emigrated to the Dakotas from Denmark towards the end of the 19th C and claimed to have seen Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show which to me as a 10 year was about as close to heaven as I could imagine.

My wife's parents were both born and raised in Italy, then emigrated (separately) to the U.S. during their teen years. They met in Chicago, and the rest is family history. One of my wife's grandfathers (her mother's father I believe) lived with them during his last years of life. He didn't speak English, but my wife spoke Italian fluently when she was much younger so that didn't matter. She has fond memories of them watching television shows like Mannix together and having to explain things to him in Italian occasionally. I never knew my grandparents, but then my family history is a bit dodgy because I was an off-the-books adoption when I was still an infant.

My grandparents (1904 and 1911) rarely ever talked about History in the capital letter sense, unless I specifically asked them about it. But neighborhood history, on the other hand, flowed as a constant stream. "Remember the time that kid Bubby from next door got a kite caught in the power line and tried to get it down climbing a metal ladder and the spark threw him across the street? Yeah, that was somethin'."

See, that's the thing. When you know/knew someone who was born not long after the previous turn-of-the-century, quite often what we refer to as "history" is something that happened during their lifetimes. To them it isn't "history", it was just something that happened while they were in school or at work that day. Hell, in my own 60 years here I've gone from, "What were you doing when you learned President Kennedy was assassinated?" to "What do you mean you 'remember' when Kennedy was shot?" to "President Kennedy? Jeez, how old are you anyway?"

 

[Fifty150]

"What were you doing when you learned President Kennedy was assassinated?"

LBJ had the most to gain.

 

[Edward]

My PhD research is looking at these anti-Semitic, Christian Nationalist groups in the US in the interwar period. Anti-Semitism increased in the US starting in 1933, and all these groups popped up. German-American Bund, the Silver Shirts, etc.

I'm looking at one man in particular who operated out of Omaha, Nebraska. He wrote an anti-Semitic, Christian nationalist newsletter called "America In Danger!." Dude thought the Jews "controlled" everything, had infiltrated congress, controlled FDR, international banking, EVERYTHING. He was indicted on federal charges of sedition in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.

American anti-Semitism was very, very real.

IT may have manifested differently, but it was the same in the UK too, amid broader Nazi sympathies, the level of which in the British establishment in the mid 30s was a large part of the reason why the government of the day had to manufacture the abdication crisis by pushing Windsor and Simpson into a marriage neither really wanted. Of course, most anti-Semitism in allied nations was swept under the carpet during and especially after the war, probably the reason it became harder to pin down in the post-war period because it had sort of been ignored and/or brushed off as a "Nazi thing".

Prince Philip is quite interested in the Lawn Jockey

I like how Reagan looks here. I don't recall this event at the time, though it retrospect it looks very much like he's deliberately presenting an image of Americana for his overseas visitors. Whether it's what he wore normally or not off-duty, I have no idea, but he looks very comfortable in his own clothes here, something the late DoE always was too. The most-stand out piece here is Nancy R's raincoat, I think - very similar to what the Brits are wearing, but the colour really draws the eye in the image.

Is Reagan wearing cowboy boots? Looks like it in the first shot, though they're polished to a very high sheen the same as Phil's Oxfords (I assume).

 

[Hercule]

Charles Lindbergh, anyone? Friends of New Germany?

I'll see your Chuck Lindberg and raise you a Henry Ford.

... Dude thought the Jews "controlled" everything, had infiltrated congress, controlled FDR, international banking, EVERYTHING. ....

Not much different from the scapegoating that's going on today is it?

By the way, what's supposed to be so offensive about lawn jockeys? Seriously, can anyone actually articulate it? And why would a jockey (of all professions/trades), be represented holding a lantern?

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Note that Reagan's lawn jockey is painted with a white face. Compare that to the traditional lawn jockey painted to look like a minstrel show performer. Now, it doesn't take much imagination to work out why some portions of the audience might find that offensive.

 

[belfastboy]

My wife's parents were both born and raised in Italy, then emigrated (separately) to the U.S. during their teen years. They met in Chicago, and the rest is family history. One of my wife's grandfathers (her mother's father I believe) lived with them during his last years of life. He didn't speak English, but my wife spoke Italian fluently when she was much younger so that didn't matter. She has fond memories of them watching television shows like Mannix together and having to explain things to him in Italian occasionally. I never knew my grandparents, but then my family history is a bit dodgy because I was an off-the-books adoption when I was still an infant.

See, that's the thing. When you know/knew someone who was born not long after the previous turn-of-the-century, quite often what we refer to as "history" is something that happened during their lifetimes. To them it isn't "history", it was just something that happened while they were in school or at work that day. Hell, in my own 60 years here I've gone from, "What were you doing when you learned President Kennedy was assassinated?" to "What do you mean you 'remember' when Kennedy was shot?" to "President Kennedy? Jeez, how old are you anyway?"

It was a thing even in Canada. Me: Grade 9 Typing class, Miss Lazzarotto came into the room crying and we all were sent home for the day. We knew the Pres was dead, knew it was serious, but quickly brushed it off and were glad for day off from school.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Is Reagan wearing cowboy boots? Looks like it in the first shot, though they're polished to a very high sheen the same as Phil's Oxfords (I assume).

Grainy photos so it's difficult to determine, but I see no evidence of laces and what look like riding heels. Since he's wearing a denim jacket, I'm going with cowboy boots 'cause Reagan seems the type of person who would go all in on something like that just to make an impression of some sort.

It was a thing even in Canada. Me: Grade 9 Typing class, Miss Lazzarotto came into the room crying and we all were sent home for the day. We knew the Pres was dead, knew it was serious, but quickly brushed it off and were glad for day off from school.

I was only two years old on the day he was killed, so my actual first memories come from a few years later when Life or Look or one of those magazines published an issue with stills of individual frames from Abraham Zapruder's 8mm film footage of the assassination. Even then I was only five or six years old, but I understood those images captured a person's death.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I was in the fifth grade. We were lining up to return to class after the morning bio break when I heard someone say, "Kennedy was shot in the head." I didn't know any student named Kennedy, so it didn't make an impression on me.

This was in Pennsylvania. We didn't get the rest of the day off. Lucky Canadians!.

I do remember vividly the non-stop TV coverage the next day, which was a Saturday, and the day I looked eagerly forward to every week to watch cartoons. They were preempted, and I was mightily peeved.

 

[Zombie_61]

I was in the fifth grade. We were lining up to return to class after the morning bio break when I heard someone say, "Kennedy was shot in the head." I didn't know any student named Kennedy, so it didn't make an impression on me.

This was in Pennsylvania. We didn't get the rest of the day off. Lucky Canadians!.

I do remember vividly the non-stop TV coverage the next day, which was a Saturday, and the day I looked eagerly forward to every week to watch cartoons. They were preempted, and I was mightily peeved.

This is pretty much the exact response most of us would expect from someone at that age. "Doggone it, I'm missing Beany and Cecil and Bugs Bunny, and if this keeps up I'll miss Bullwinkle too!"

 

[tonyb]

I'll see your Chuck Lindberg and raise you a Henry Ford.
…

When I was an elementary school age kid, living in the Upper Midwest, our “ethnic” origins (I don’t recall it ever being called that, though) were referred to as “nationalities.” Most of us were of Northern European extraction, going back, in most cases, not much more than two or three generations on American soil.

I recall that German was the most prevalent national origin. My biological father’s people (he died when I was four months old) spoke German at home as recently as his generation. My blood relations there still speak English with a German accent.

Among all the factors in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war, and not people of German descent, there’s really no denying that plain old-fashioned racism was at work.

 

[tonyb]

This is pretty much the exact response most of us would expect from someone at that age. "Doggone it, I'm missing Beany and Cecil and Bugs Bunny, and if this keeps up I'll miss Bullwinkle too!"

I remember being totally wrapped up in the sad event and its aftermath. I was a student at Centennial Elementary School in Lawrence, Kansas at the time. It seemed that my entire world, small as it was, was equally focused on it. It was about as close to a deification as I’ve ever witnessed.

 

[AmateisGal]

When I was an elementary school age kid, living in the Upper Midwest, our “ethnic” origins (I don’t recall it ever being called that, though) were referred to as “nationalities.” Most of us were of Northern European extraction, going back, in most cases, not much more than two or three generations on American soil.

I recall that German was the most prevalent national origin. My biological father’s people (he died when I was four months old) spoke German at home as recently as his generation. My blood relations there still speak English with a German accent.

Among all the factors in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war, and not people of German descent, there’s really no denying that plain old-fashioned racism was at work.

You're absolutely correct about it being racism. There were Germans and Italian immigrants who were interned here in America, but they were not citizens, and it wasn't on the same level as Japanese-Americans.

I mean, if you just look at the propaganda posters about Japan produced here in America during the war, they are just dripping with racism. The buck teeth, yellow skin, slanted eyes...the pejorative use of the word J*p...it was bad.

From what I'm uncovering in my research, anti-Semitic attacks occurred in urban areas in the interwar years, something that we here in America don't like to talk about. One of my goals in my PhD research, and being a homefront historian in general, is to demolish the myth of the "we're all in this together" about the American homefront. We weren't. People hoarded gas; we had a thriving black market; we still had this pocket of Americans against the war who thought the Jews controlled everything; we rounded up Japanese-American citizens and interned them. While I have deep respect for the Greatest Generation, they were just as full of human failures and foibles as every other generation. There were racists and anti-Semites and criminals and just plain awful people.

 

[tonyb]

Note that Reagan's lawn jockey is painted with a white face. Compare that to the traditional lawn jockey painted to look like a minstrel show performer. Now, it doesn't take much imagination to work out why some portions of the audience might find that offensive.

As we say here in the low-rent district, no s**t.

To be turned into a caricature is something some of us will rarely if ever experience. And while two wrongs have never made a right, there can be some educational and perhaps transformative value (it is hoped) in getting a dose of one’s own medicine.

 

[Harp]

I was in the fifth grade. We were lining up to return to class after the morning bio break when I heard someone say, "Kennedy was shot in the head." I didn't know any student named Kesternedy, so it didn't make an impression on me.

Returning to class after lunch period I heard the school public address system loud newsfeed,
before a girl opposite row told me the president had been shot. Sister Mary Therese came back
from the parish convent with her radio-a large wooden cathedral set she placed atop her desk.
Sister's antique cackled and the public address line continued its shrill newsfeed unabated.
Catholic grammar schools never canceled classes. Had the Russians hammered a nuclear strike
on Chicago classes at St John Fisher would still be held. So we sat if not riveted at least not
subject to instruction. Sister Mary Therese sat crying wiping her eyes with a handkerchef, some
of the girls were also in tears. Walter Cronkite announced the president's death later that afternoon
through Sister's large radio and she just bawled uncontrollably.

Televised coverage that night showed the president's casket return to Washington.
I watched the funeral, noting the riderless horse which fought its soldier escort. All the soldiers
and sailors lining the procession. Mrs Kennedy, regal, dressed in black and veiled. And of course
JFK's flag drapped casket borne by a caisson. Indelible, unforgettable.