THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 11, 1995 TAG: 9508100214
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
It's not surprising that I remember World War II so clearly. Despite all that has happened to me and to my generation since, the war (to those of us who lived through it even as young children, World War II will always be the war) is the event that left the greatest imprint on our lives.
I remember the day that bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. I remember meatless Fridays followed, as the war dragged on, by meatless Tuesdays. I remember stomping on tin cans, bundling newspapers, saving fat drippings, carrying ration tokens and stamps to the grocery store, having to wait an extra month or two for enough coupons to get a new pair of shoes and doing without bubble gum and Hershey bars altogether.
I remember window banners with blue stars for each family member serving in the armed forces and I remember how many of those were replaced by banners with gold stars indicating that a son, husband or father would not be returning.
And, until a few years ago, I was sure I remembered a magnificent symbol that indicated to our family that the end was near. I also remember, almost as clearly, when the time came that I was not so sure at all.
On the Monday of that first full week of August in 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped. Two days later it was followed by a second. By Friday afternoon the radio was crackling with reports that the Japanese were ready to surrender.
That evening my parents, my Aunt Marion and Uncle Warren and I left Bangor on a back road to spend the weekend at the family camp on Beech Hill Pond.
Summer sunsets are always spectacularly beautiful in northeastern Maine, but the one that evening seemed even more glorious than usual. The transition from blue through gold and pink to deep purple unfolded in an almost cloudless sky.
Almost, that is, except for two small puffs that appeared just over the tops of the nearby hills. Initially hill-shaped themselves, the clouds began changing before our eyes.
First each became a solid oval. Then, as if a master silhouette artist were snipping away, forms began to appear within them. Deepening sky showed through where the artist had done his work.
From time to time the twin clouds would disappear behind a stand of trees. Each time they reappeared the pictures were more defined.
``Good heavens,'' I remember Aunt Marion saying, ``it's George and Martha Washington.'' Indeed that was exactly what the pictures appeared to be.
``Maybe they came because they're so happy the war is over,'' I suggested.
``Maybe so,'' Uncle Warren, who had gone to France as a young doughboy in World War I, said thoughtfully as we entered another thick pine grove.
``My gracious,'' Aunt Marion gasped when we came to a clearing a few minutes later, ``the clouds are moving together.''
``Marion, clouds do not move together,'' Uncle Warren, who had learned a bit about meteorology and wind currents in the Corps of Engineers, declared.
``Well, those two did and now there's just one silhouette and it looks like Uncle Sam.''
My uncle, the most cautious of drivers, finally took his eyes off the road for a quick look. ``By God, it does,'' he exclaimed reverently, ``top hat, beard and all.''
And so the cloud remained until it disappeared into the purple night with the final rays of the day's sun.
By midweek the Japanese had surrendered and the omen of that evening was etched forever in my mind. Surprisingly, none of us ever mentioned the strange sighting again until long after Uncle Warren passed away 20 years later.
``Remember the silhouettes we saw that Friday night before the war ended?'' I asked my parents one evening as we were discussing old times.
``No, I don't believe I do,'' my mother said thoughtfully.
``Daddy?'' I asked.
``I don't remember them either,'' my father, who never, ever forgot the smallest details of a good story, said.
``I'll bet Aunt Marion remembers,'' I told them.
The next time I saw her, I asked. ``I'm sorry, Dear, but I have no recollection of them at all,'' the person we all depended on to give chapter and verse on every important family happening dating back two centuries, answered.
Aunt Marion had been my last hope for validation. There had been no one else there that historic evening. We had neither met nor passed a single car during our trip. The few homes along the road had appeared deserted.
Did it really happen, or was it just the vivid dream of a child who had spent nearly half her life living with the day to day realities of death, destruction and small deprivations?
I guess I'll never know for sure but I'd certainly like to think that it did. by CNB