Stressed About Money? The Kids Might Be, Too

I was born in 1942 and lost my father in 1948, when I was six. My classmate dissappeared to me from Polio in the September just prior to my father's death on Christmas eve. An Uncle passed away in between, also from lingering injury sustained in WWII. At that time it was the norm not to speak about or mention anything troublesome in the presence of children. Complete silence on forbidden matters was exercised. This went for the dire things in the news like the Cold War, the Atomic bomb and lynchings. Unfortunately, we children like our dog companions could read emotion like a book. Silence not only enhanced anxiety but it lead to a pronounced awareness of everything happening in the world and a enlightened imagination to fill in the blanks. We had, in the 1940's, a sort of baby sitter in the local theatre where we would be treated to endless cartoons, movie serials and Movietone News. Some of the most horrid visions were delivered us in the form of Movietone News clips. I can still see the faces of a crowd of people filmed at a lynching surrounding the poor victum. Death was delivered by the same device in terms of carts of bodies in between cartoons.

The Atom bomb, our drills under desks were a vague and very real danger to us little guys. I, once fatherless, looked after my Mother by scrutizing all streets and alleys in my little town for safe refuge should a blast occur. One of the Movietone features, some time later in the early 1950's showed the destruction of a town built in Nevada. I shook like a leaf when I saw a wooden house reduced to splinters that moved off the movie screen intact and returned moments later in a reverse after shock, still visable as a house but now a disintigrating mass rapidly splintering. So much for being under a desk, I thought. From that point all hope of saving my Mother from what now took shape and was defined in my imagination and fears was gone. I danced home when Stalin died figuring that that danger had passed with him. Such were and still are.... deep in that buried six year old imagination... things that never leave me...

Let me underscore, therefore, what has been so profoundly outlined in the article. I don't know whether talking seriously would alter the outcome, but like my dog mentors of my childhood, I respected and was relieved by the strength, the calmness and the being talked to as an adult that my Grandfather manifested. He was at those times a rock and an anchor. He, we knew, could perish with the rest of us... but we would do so at his side walking bravely in his shadow. His presence was comfort enough. Its too bad that I was unable to articulate and have him address all the terrible things I imagined. I'm sure his answers would have provided needed relief. At the time only my Dog Brownie was savy enough to know how distressed I was.

Lanny R. North

Honolulu Hawaii

Lanny R. North of HI 6:52PM October 15, 2008