Monday, August 15, 2005

VJ Day

Although it’s been sixty years, I still remember August 15, 1945. It was the day the Japanese surrendered. It so happens to also be the Feast of the Assumption (a fact noted by the religious among us).

It was a wild day for all of us, young and old. My sisters, cousins and I spent the day cutting up newspapers which we threw from the window when the formal announcement was made. The whole country was a bedlam. Even Cambridge Street was crowded unlike any other time before or since. You could cross the street only with great difficulty and with a degree of risk. Drivers and others were drunk. I can still see the guy down the street playing his bagpipes. The blaring of car horns was constant. It was an unbelievable day across the country and around the world. Finally, we thought, man might have learned something from the war and its ending.

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