Wow, Drew, you are SO BRIGHT! [Guys, talk to your daughters; show them things; be a friend. I got the silent treatment from my dad, and I went to bed with a LOT of men just for the good talk.] I hope you have a bright spouse who listens and you two have a good exchange. . . . Oh, yes, all of that. When Pearl Harbor happened, I was my mom’s first full-term pregnancy living in Los Angeles. People feared the Japanese would come on over to bomb the mainland. I was born a month later which means I’ll be 81 on 12 January, which for a female vet feels like 38 if she is active and eats right, which — yeah, mostly. So I think I got a lot hearing my elders talking. Hard-working sort of angry Scots-Irish sitting around with cups of Texas coffee (black as night, strong as love, and hot as Hell!) and saying, “By gar!!!) talking about Truman and Roosevelt and Eisenhower, the new roads and prices, all the post-war opportunities. . . . Yes, prejudice lingers. No, white people think we can tell which Asians are which — but we can’t. I can’t. . . . For a marvelous long very intelligent novel, read Kiana Davenport’s “Song of the Exile” — Hawaiian mixed-race young people make a child living in Paris. She is gorgeous and — he is very dark Hawaiian and passes for black when he travels to our Deep South with black musician friends. He is a world class jazz trumpeter. I’m tingling just describing this book. The book goes all over the world — the two are separated — and describes the pitiable state of the starving Japanese officer who takes our heroine. The book ends well, and there is a supplement at the end describing the author’s research about comfort women. I listened to this book sometime after my Vietnam vet husband crashed his motorcycle, lingered head-injured for two years and his family — well . . . he died. This book gave me hope of somehow bouncing back and living happy and productive again. Yes, we do recover much. . . . I lost my car key last Sunday somewhere around the car or in one of the bins. The locksmith wanted to get all the blood out of this little turnip! I told him my income is $1300/mo. He was Russian Israeli, 22 years in Israel and 5 in the U.S. I’ve been to Israel! I’ve traveled and lived in big cities. Anybody think I’m not prejudiced for sure now my last credit card is maxed for $375? He made two keys and tried again to sell me two for $600! He thought I was a tough lady! No,– yeah, Capt USAF, but I knew my card limit was $389! So life is interesting. Russians are tough; Israrelis are tougher. Lots of lessons. I’m fine. I’ve got Macy’s and food stamps, another payday on the 21st. And my Bible and a heritage of family stories reaching back to Grizella Ledford who sailed here from England. . . . There’s good stuff on Wikipedia for people not up for college tuition and all that. We can dig for truth. Sending much love for the holiday.