Hope you don’t mind this personal note. I know the main concern now is the bitter cold air. However, we have a category called “Miss Molly.” But this is not about my little pal today. Instead, I want to talk about Pearl Harbor.
You bet, I remember Pearl Harbor Day. I was 9 years old
and I distinctly remember the program interruption on WJRD Radio in
Tuscaloosa for a “Flash Bulletin.” In those days, it was called a Flash Bulletin, not a
“Special Report or “Breaking News”
My dad had already gotten me interested in world events
before he was killed in a work-related accident and I am still a news-junkie till this day.
I followed WWII as close as possible by listening to WJRD in daytime. They signed off at sunset, so I depended heavily on CBS Radio News from WWL in New Orleans at night. No FM radio either in those days and you could not hear a single Alabama station
at night where I grew up in Hale County.
I read every word about the war in the Tuscaloosa News and the Birmingham Age-Herald, which arrived one day late by mail. There was no TV in Havana Junction or anywhere else in those early days.
I have deep respect for all our armed forces. On a day like this, is sobering to think of all those brave young sailors that went to a watery grave on December 7, 1941.
