I‘ve written on this date in previous years (notably here and here), and it occurs to me as I look back over the records I have in this webspace (nearly ten years of them, now!) that it is a bit odd that I’ve only written as many times as I have on the date. As with a similar recent observance, however, I don’t know that I have anything to add to already-existing discussions of the events commemorated today; I’m not a historian whose work covers the 1940s, and I’ve already told my parents “Happy 44th Anniversary,” so that brings me more or less to the end of topical commentary.

Not that that will stop me from rambling on about something else. So much should be obvious by this point.

I have known a few people who took part in the events 81 years past, although I cannot claim to have known them well. Growing up where I did, it was unavoidable; growing up when I did, “known them well” was not something very much available. I cannot say with certainty what many of them would think about today, although I can guarantee that many of them would find much fault with how things are–and I’d even agree with some of them. (Not all, of course, but my curmudgeonly self doesn’t agree with anyone on everything–not even my curmudgeonly self.)

One point that I recall having heard voiced and with which I agree is appreciation that there has not been such a thing happen since as happened then. There have been fights, conflicts, wars since, to be sure; there are still many of each ongoing. But the scale and scope…those have not been equaled, so far as I know, and I do not think that such a thing could be wholly hidden anymore. (Whether that’s a good thing or not, I cannot say; most likely, like most things, it’s both.) That there has not been so large a thing, that so many have not had to face such things at once, I have been told by some who were there is a good thing; I cannot argue the point, and I do not care to try.

I have ideas about the lingering effects of such events. I have not done the work to bear them out fully; I do not have access to the resources that would allow me to do so, and I am not sure how many such still exist or would continue to exist long enough for me to be able to find them. The life I live now has many attractions, but access to research apparatus is not one of them, not for most things, not really. But I know that at least some of those attractions are results of what happened 81 years ago today, just as I know a great many of them result from what happened 44 years ago today, and insofar as those are true, I am grateful for what took place–even as I share the hope that the earlier kind of thing never happens again.

If you like the kind of work I do, have me do some of it for you!

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