--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> I like the story of her parents' courtship, and the
> scene of the three of them listening to the radio
> together (reminds me of our Darn Kids thread), but
> wonder about the constant "Lay Down Your Arms"
> chant. It really becomes a distraction for me.
>
> <<"Sleep little darlin'!
> This is your happy home
> Hiroshima cannot be pardoned!
> Don't have kids when you get grown
> Because this world is shattered>>
>
> This section of the verse caught my ear...I wonder
> if this is the sort of thing that Joni constantly
> got from her Mom? If so, it would have made her
> pregnancy that much more difficult to deal with.
>
Somehow I get the feeling from that song that it
really isn't Myrtle talking at that point, but maybe
Joni putting words in her mother's mouth. I don't
know why, but somehow I just can't imagine people of
that generation talking that way about Hiroshima - at
the time anyway. Maybe years later, after they
realized the full impact - I'm not sure how much
detail people would have had initially. That may be
just because my own parents (my Dad in particular)
never did talk much about the war. It wasn't until we
were much older that he'd tell us stuff and I just
don't think he liked talking about it, or its
rightness or wrongness. I do recall him once saying
that Hiroshima was a terrible thing but that it may
have been the only option at the time (not that I
necessarily agree with that and I don't think Dad was
trying to justify it, maybe just explain it in terms
of what people knew then, what people thought then).
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