I got off of the phone with my mother a bit ago. I meant to call her yesterday. It was her 86th birthday. I felt her the last couple of days, though, I got wrapped up in trying to keep the hay dry in the rainstorm on too little sleep and then, I just forgot! We had a great conversation, though her disappointment never came up.She has been quite in demand these days. She was interviewed for a couple of PBS documentaries on the minority experience of the war. I think it is augmentation of the Ken Burn's series on World War II. She is featured in an article in "Common Ground" coming out this week and the SF Chronicle has a story this week as well.
Here's her blog! She told me that she has been feeling overexposed. She was telling me that an unexpected by product of all of these opportunities to tell her story and to help to facilitate the telling of others' stories, was that she was becoming uncontrollably angry. There have been occasions when she has just lost it at public events. She expressed her concern about it. There is a gala evening coming up and she is afraid that she might have to open her mouth about something and spoil the occasion. I told her that he has dealt with the realities of the past intellectually, but that the emotional charges were still there and now that she has an opportunity to address past wrongs more directly, it was likely that the emotions would emerge as well. She likes to be in control, so, I think that it frightens her. She stuffed the memories for many years without an appropriate place to express them.
She reminded me of my father's story of the war.He was a senior at USF and enlisted in the Navy. At Fort Lewis, Washington he was assigned to the Great Lakes where he learned that he was to become a Messman. He protested because he joined the Navy to fight for his country and he was given an honorable discharge. It was expressed that, since he was used to being a leader, others might tend to follow him. He wound up in the shipyards, as a helper, since he could not belong to the union, because he was black.