J was riveted, watching a History Channel program about Hitler's drug use. This isn't ancient history to him. He heard Hitler's spittle-spewing oratory live over the radio as a child, saw him in current-events newsreels. Romania was allied with the Nazis for most of the war, providing fuel for the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe from the oil refineries at Ploiesti. ("Bucuresti" means "Happy" and "Ploesti" means "Rainy." Happy and Rainy.) Many of the Transylvanian Saxons in J's town were hysterically worshipful of Hitler.
I said, "See that sonofabitch? He's the one who destroyed your world. If he hadn't started the war, Stalin might have stayed put. You would have been the mayor of [town], you would have owned [large tract of land] . . . "
J said, "But I never would've met you!"
Awwww. An armful of WWII. Beats roses.
Wow! What a really sweet thing to say. That's quite a man you've got there, Annie.
Posted by: PatHMV | December 18, 2007 at 04:28 PM
He puts the "generous" in "Greatest Generation."
Posted by: Meade | December 18, 2007 at 05:47 PM
Great anecdote.
I think in J's way. Without that hard row to hoe in life, I'd never have met Sun-Ae.
Not that my life has been especially difficult...
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Posted by: Horace Jeffery Hodges | December 18, 2007 at 06:39 PM
What a sweetheart!
(That reminds me of many of my Japanese-American classmates' parents whose feelings about being interred during WWII were complicated by the knowledge that they would never have met had not they been imprisoned.)
Posted by: Randy (Internet Ronin) | December 19, 2007 at 11:41 AM