Stanley, N.D.: Where Pearl Harbor, 9/11 entwine

Baltimore Sun / Mpls (red)Star Tribune ^ | 12/7/02 | Susan Baer

[Valin]

STANLEY, N.D. -- As he had done hundreds of times before -- year after year in this small prairie town of cold winds and rugged sensibilities -- Floyd "Happy" Graff stopped in at the Scandia American bank and exchanged pleasantries with its affable, blue-jeaned owner, Gary Nelson. While a generation apart, the two men had known each other for decades. Their families had been intertwined -- Graff's wife, Joyce, for instance, taught acrobatics and "song and dance personality" to Nelson's daughter, Ann. And as is the case in many a small town, there is little they did not know about one another.

[x]

In the last year, the twin tragedies of Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11 have been endlessly compared and contrasted, studied in academia and analyzed by experts.

Somehow "tragedy" doesn't quite fit. I guess most of us have used it or heard it used in relation to 9/11, but it looks inappropriate. It's doubtful that Americans in 1941 would have called the attack on Pearl Harbor a "tragedy." Both attacks had their tragedies and tragic aspects, but the word deemphasizes the evil that caused both events.

[VOA]

a-day-late bump

[livius]

"...the word [tragedy] deemphasizes the evil that caused both events."

That's true, and I don't like that sort of passive voice, either. But the things that happened were still very tragic, and it was hard to read about the Nelson family without holding back tears. Here's a great poem by Billy Collins, our current Poet Laureate, about 9/11.

The Names
Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the
heart.
This poem, by Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins, was read during a special session of the U.S. Congress held in New York on Friday, September 6, 2002.

(With permission of Billy Collins)

[livius]

Add my day-late bump. Pearl Harbor day has gone rather unnoticed this year. Or so it seems to me.

[VOA]

Pearl Harbor day has gone rather unnoticed this year. Or so it seems to me.

Yep, it seemed that way to me to.
But, I suppose that newspaper/jouralistic observances are a bit better
on years that are multiples of five (e.g., the five, ten, etc. year anniversaries).
And of course as we get past 60 years, the number of people alive who were directly
impacted shrinks.

And having a stinker of a film (except for the middle part with the actual attack) with
the title "Pearl Harbor" didn't help.
By comparison, "Saving Pvt. Ryan" seems to be on the way to being a perennial Memorial
and Veterans Day classic.

I thought some of the dialogue stank, but am happy that the film/theme was well-received
by the general public. A few weeks ago I heard a radio personality (who'd I'd call "left of center")
say that she and her husband visited the gravesites at Normandy because of the film.
That's a pretty good impact from a film.