Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea of change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell
Ding-dong Hark!
Now I hear them
Ding-dong bell.
http://fullfathomfivethyfatherlies.auriea.org/
Franz Kafka's letter to his father]
by Alan Sondheim on syndicate
don’t blame the father for the sins of the young. my father ensured i
would never get over my father. my father screamed at me constantly. could
i win with my father. i never could win with my father. my father ensured
that. my father ensured i would never challenge my father. the screaming
of my father ensured i would never have a world without screaming. the
nightmare of my father ensured i would never have a night without
nightmares. the violence of my father was only the language of my father.
the language of my father ensured the violence of language. i will take
language apart and there will be no violence. i will challenge language
and there will be no father. my father will write this and my father will
ensure my father will write this. my father ensures that my broken
language will scream at my broken language. my father ensures that i will
always sin against my father. i will always sin against my father. my
father battered my mind until my father was my mind battered by my father.
my father makes me ill. my father fills me with hatred. my father ensures
i will die hating my father and hating my mind.
“In like manner tear sheddings, &c. are held to come from the mind’s being
melted [--not pained--].” (Sahitya-Darpana.)
how to reduce a human being to an artist
the litany
“don’t sins
blame of
sins ensured
young. blame
ensured for
i would father.
never my
father
over screamed
father. me
screamed would
at never
win win
with with
that. i
challenge screaming
screaming
world
without father
screaming. ensured
nightmare ensured
night my
nightmares. father
violence only
was my
only father.
language the
language. language
will my
take
father
apart be
and no
there violence.
be will
no challenge
violence. language
write there
this will
ensure write
this. that
ensures ensure
that my
broken
will.
scream
always i
sin will
against always
battered was
mind mind
until battered
by mind
makes me
ill. hatred.
fills ensures
hatred. makes
die my
hating father
mind.”
i will see my father dead.
Indpls Star, December 8, 2005
Survivor’s memories of Pearl Harbor vivid
Only 1 veteran of attack attends remembrance
By Will Higgins
December 8, 2005
William Harvey was the only Pearl Harbor survivor at the Heslar Naval Armory’s annual Pearl Harbor remembrance Wednesday, but he wasn’t one of the speechmakers.
“He isn’t one to really broadcast it,” said his friend Edward L. Harris Jr., a fellow member of American Legion Post 249 and veteran of U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam.
The memories of Dec. 7, 1941, however, remain vivid in Harvey’s mind.
“I was with the USS Sacramento; I was a cook,” the 83-year-old Harvey said before Wednesday’s ceremony.
He was on the ammunition ship’s deck hoisting a flag when the Japanese planes came into view. “We thought they were U.S. planes,” he recalled, “until we saw the big red sun on the wings, and they began to bomb and strafe.”
Harvey broke into one of the ship’s arms lockers and grabbed a rifle, a five-shot Springfield left over from World War I. It was no match for the state-of-the-art Japanese airplanes, though Harvey is confident that another sailor and friend, Curtis Stephens, hit a Japanese pilot. “We saw the pilot raise up, and he sort of peeled away,” said Harvey.
Unlike so many other Navy vessels in port that Dec. 7 morning, the USS Sacramento was not damaged.
Stephens and Harvey, who had been pals at Attucks High School in Indianapolis, enlisted in the Navy together. Both returned to Indianapolis when the war ended. Stephens died in March 2004, at the age of 80.
In past years, the Pearl Harbor tribute on the banks of White River has been attended by as many as 100 people. Joining Harvey at the ceremony Wednesday was a smaller group of about 30 people, mostly military veterans, who braved frigid temperatures to mark the 64th anniversary of the surprise attack by the Japanese.
After several brief speeches, the ceremony culminated with Harvey helping to toss a wreath into the river, which was frozen.
Harvey said he’d seen several movies about the attack over the years and dismissed them as “glamorized.”
“Believe me, there was no glamour at all,” he said.
Harvey, who has been to a number of Pearl Harbor remembrances, noted that attendance seems to be decreasing. “The ones that were there are dying off, and we as a country tend to forget everything fast,” he said.
The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, founded in 1958, estimates there are fewer than 9,000 survivors living. About 5,800 remain members of the group, down from a high of 18,000 in 1991; the members’ average age is 86. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates more than 1,000 World War II veterans die every day.
Indiana is home to about 90 survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack, said Paul Kennedy, the Indiana PHSA chapter president. “We buried four this year,” Kennedy said.
On Wednesday, Kennedy and about 25 other survivors and their wives met for lunch at a cafeteria in Greenwood to mark the occasion.
Kennedy, 85, still can picture that day: sailors swimming for their lives in the oily, burning waters – while Japanese pilots fired on them.
He is occasionally asked to talk to high school classes about World War II and is amazed at how little the students know about it. “I’ve seen history books where World War II is a page and a half. That’s disgusting.”
Harvey sees the same problem. “We as a country don’t hold to tradition,” he said.
One student did attend the armory ceremony. Twelve-year-old Fredrick Boyd III was brought to the event by his mother, Elaine Boyd. She home-schools him. “I figured this would be his history lesson today,” she said. “Being African-American, we learn a lot about the Civil Rights movement, which is good, but some of the history is neglected.”
After the ceremony, she and her son looked for Harvey to get some history firsthand. But by then he had gone.