Dispatches from Home – A Day That Will Live In Infamy.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy! This Pearl Harbor Remembrance appeared on my December 6, 2014, Facebook Memories. It evoked precious memories, so I’m posting it again:

I have two remembrances of this day, one from a dear lady in my church, Gulfport’s First Baptist Church, and the other from my dear mother. Here goes: December 7, 1941, dawned cold and wet along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The temperature outside and inside the homes of many Gulfport residences was cold as well. Why? The main gas line providing natural gas to those homes had ruptured.

One of those homes was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Reese Bickerstaff, located where the Federal Courthouse now stands. I rented rooms from Mrs. Bickerstaff from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Many a morning, she would regale me with stories of life in Gulfport from days gone by. The morning of December 7, 1941, was one of those stories.

Mrs. Bickerstaff told me their cook prepared breakfast for the family that morning. Because of the broken gas line, their house was “freezing cold.” When the cook asked if the family would take the morning meal in the dining room, Mrs. Bickerstaff said, “Heavens no! We’ll freeze to death! We’ll eat in the kitchen!” Why the kitchen? Their stove was not gas but electric, producing just enough heat for that room. As his family dressed for church, Mr. Bickerstaff ventured into his study to get the morning paper. He turned on the “wireless,” and then, over the crackling airwaves, he and his family first heard the devastating news about Pearl Harbor.

Those same crackling airwaves brought the news to D’Lo, Mississippi, too. Mother said that she, my sweet Granny, and my Uncle Ellis were also getting ready for church. My Uncle turned on the radio, and the clipped voice of H. V. Kaltenborn issued forth. It was then that my family first heard of the history-changing events that had taken place thousands of miles away in a sleepy lagoon called Pearl Harbor.

Little did my dear family or the Bickerstaffs know, as they listened to the horrific news, that nine Mississippians had already been killed aboard the USS Arizona during the attack. An attack that “Will Live In Infamy.”

Let us forget the sacrifices of those young Mississippi men and the many others who lost their lives 72 years ago today (Now 82 years ago) so that our dear country would remain “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”