Excellent

Remembering the day we marched around our kitchen table.

The Day FDR Died

by HarryT

It was a cool spring morning, the sun was shrouded by misty clouds.  My brother and I were playing checkers on the kitchen floor. Mom was engrossed in her favorite soap opera, “The Romance of Helen Trent” tuned on a Philco radio that sat in a place of honor atop our mountainous Kelvinator refrigerator. A somber voice, sounding like a funeral dirge, interrupted the broadcast. President Franklin Roosevelt was dead. Mom mumbled, “Oh, my dear God, please help us.” We had an uncle in the Navy in the South Pacific and three others in the Army, and Army Air Force in Europe. Military music erupted from the radio, my brother and I excited with marshal fervor, left our game and ran to our toy box, grabbed our helmets and toy rifles and marched round and round the kitchen table. Mom, tears streaming, gathered us up, hugged us and then, allowed us to continue our cadence, while she sat and cried. When the music stopped, we went outside and shot Germans.