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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Don't Believe All You Hear in Wartime (Bell Syndicate WNU Service.) Km; arafef JFe began to prepare to blackout the living room, kitchen and pantry. By the light of one candle that belonged on a birthday cake we pinned and nailed things into place. By KATHLEEN NORRIS WHAT do you know personally per-sonally of the brighter side of this war situation? situa-tion? It's everybody's business busi-ness today to find that side, and pass along to his neighbor neigh-bor whatever tends to lift our hearts. For there's a black shadow over the world, and until it passes we must help one another to see shining thrpugh it the same old guiding guid-ing lights of faith, hope and charity. Here's something that may save some of the women who live far inland in-land some hours of anxiety. My home is on the Pacific coast, between be-tween San Francisco, on the north, and all the many army and navy bases that are strung along down to San Diego, on the south. After Pearl Harbor we had a bad scare, and we leaped into action with that passion of patriotism that stirred the whole country. Pearl Harbor's tragedy was on a Sunday; on Monday night, just as a family dinner got under way, we had our first wild siren call for a blackout. Two minutes later the town lights were extinguished and everything went pitch black whether anyone liked it or not. It was a balmy December night, with stars. Everyone rushed out of doors and voices were heard at all the gates and gardens in neighborly fashion, and since many of these voices were young, I may as well admit that most of them were excited ex-cited and laughing. People talked to one another as they never would do in broad daylight; a few women expressed ex-pressed uneasiness, but they were few, and the general tone was rather like that I remember at the time of the great earthquake of 1906. "Gee, something's happening! Let's get into it!" Gaiety in Blackout. After awhile we all went indoors and each in his own house began to arrange a blackout room. We selected se-lected the living-room, kitchen and pantry. In no time, by the light of a candle that belonged on a birthday cake, we were standing on chairs pinning and nailing things in place, and going into gales of laughter as the unaccustomed inconvenience of total darkness began to make itself felt And after awhile the lights came on again. The next blaekout, a night or two later, imposed upon each household the necessity of complete darkness. And again the street was filled with friends chattering and laughing and looking up at the December stars. Newly appointed wardens made their rounds; husbands asked wives in undertones whether it would be all right to light a cigarette. To see a dim glow in a neighbor's house became a sort of game. "There's a light in your basement" "Look, George, not a glimmer from the kitchen! " We've had one blackout since. It was brief, to cover rumor said later lat-er troop movements. We have wardens war-dens now, everybody is doing something, some-thing, everybody is ready, but I have known only one woman to be really scared. She is anyway, and has been raising bogies to frighten herself her-self for years. Years ago she selected a cook because be-cause she was a big, strong woman who would keep poor Elise from being be-ing attacked in the night But when a terrible case was described in the papers of a single man who went into a house where six persons were peacefully playing cards, and killed tlie lot, Elise moved her family to a hotel. Now she's moved them again, from the second to the fourth story, which, rumor again says, is U 1 I the safest story in the ten-story building. San Franciscans aren't discussing air attacks, nor worrying about them any more than to be prepared in every way for any and all unpleasantness. un-pleasantness. Life goes on in the nation's most cheerful city, in the usual way. Life Is Unchanged. I'm giving this in some detail because be-cause good friends of mine in the East and in the Central states are convinced that we are living here in one jitter of terror, clinging together togeth-er in dark cellars at night, shuddering shudder-ing through frightening days as we watch the menace of the skies. Nothing Noth-ing could be further from the truth. "May God help you through these hours of horror," writes an old friend of mine from Detroit. "If you could come to us with one or two of the precious grandchildren we would do our best to obliterate from your heart memories that must be frightful. Persistent and incessant fear is a destroying thing, and God knows we would relieve you all of some of it if we could." Well, one can't exactly laugh at sympathy as sincere and distressed as that, but it is impossible to keep from laughter when such a letter is read at the week-end gathering of the clan. Pearl Harbor naturally smote us all with consternation, and for a few days there was some flurry of apprehension; again it was like the earthquake, immediately after which people did rush about frantically franti-cally asking, "What shall we do? What's coming next? What will happen hap-pen if if if" But within a few days almost a few hours everyone settled down to help, to serve, to philosophize and yes. to enjoy the crisis. God forbid that anything should be termed "enjoyable" in war. War is all bad. But we are fighting for what is good, good for everyone, and if neighborliness, sharing, service, serv-ice, courage are born of it let us not minimize their eternal values, values that will long outlast the war. My hope is that if states in our own country can have so exaggerated exaggerat-ed an impression of things out here, some of the other atrocities reported of life everywhere, in England, Russia. Rus-sia. China, in the oppressed and conquered countries, are less in actuality ac-tuality than we fear. We hear frightful fright-ful details, and alas! some of them are true. But remember, when you feel your heart heavy, as you think of it all, that many of them are not true. So take for your motto the familiar prayer, "sursum corda," which means, "lift up your hearts." The great war may be like our first California Cali-fornia blackout; a brief confusion, a sudden sound in the night of neighborly neigh-borly voices and young laughter under un-der the stars, and then suddenly, the blessed light again. |