“Howard Thomas Throckmorton, the things I do for you,” mutter Emily under her breath.
“I beg your pardon?” replied Karen Switzer. “I did not catch what you said.
“Oh…I said… ‘How are you this morning, I’m happy to see you.’”
‘I’ve got to quit thinking out loud,’ Emily told herself.
“Er… good morning, I am happy to see you, too” replied Karen, who was a little puzzled since it was late afternoon.
Emily and Karen were in the library at Emily’s house.
“What an impressive room,” continued Karen looking around.
The Hinton library, a tribute to Ira Hinton’s reading habits, was packed with books. Tall bookcases lined three walls. An oak desk sat before large windows on the fourth wall. A leather recliner, a small table and a reading lamp occupied one corner. And a long research table sat square in the center of the room.
Emily and Karen were seated at the table with a pile of books and notepads in front of them.
Emily sighed, reached out and opened one of the books.
“I guess we had better get started,” she said with very little enthusiasm.
Karen reached out and opened another one.
“Yes, I guess we had better – that sounds like quite a party you are having for your birthday.”
Now that was something that Emily could get enthusiastic about.
“Yes, we are going to have music and dancing and costumes. It will be fun. You are coming aren’t you?”
Karen nodded her head.
“And is Butch coming also? You know that you can bring a date.”
If Butch came with Karen, then Emily would not have to worry about her dancing with Howie.
“No, I am afraid that Butch and I have broken up. It is so hard to have a long-distant relationship.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said Emily. She was especially sorry if Karen was back on the dating market. She had better keep Howie far away from her.
Casually, Karen asked, “Is Howie a good dancer?”
“NO!” Emily lied ignoring that fact that she, herself, had taught him to dance using baseball moves; “Howie cannot dance a lick. He steps on you toes and leaves you all black and blue.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,”
Emily clicked her tongue and shook her head as though even the memory of
dancing with Howie was painful. “Oh,
look at this.” She added pointing to her book - effectively changing the
subject. “It says that there were two
main obstacles to the surrender of
“I know that the Japanese honored their Emperor and that he was even an important part of their religion. He was not the actual ruler of their nation, but a beloved figurehead. I am sure that if they honor him so much that they would want to keep him that way” added Karen, “but what was the problem with unconditional surrender?”
“Let see,” said Emily. “It says that no one really knew what that meant. Here it says that President Truman was asked fourteen times to clarify what that meant, but never did”
“Maybe the Japanese were afraid that they would lose the ability to take care of their families, or that foreigners would be in their homes,” suggested Karen.
“That’s a good point,” replied Emily. “Write it down.” And she shoved a notepad at Karen. “Look! Here is a picture of a young Japanese mother. She looks like she is our age. Wow, to be a mother when most girls our age are still waiting for their first kiss.”
“Well, I’ve been kissed,” replied Karen. “And when I used to give notes to Butch, I used to signed them with hugs and kisses. See!”
On her note pad, Karen wrote ‘xoxoxo.’ “That means ‘hugs and kisses.’ Os are hugs and Xs are kisses”
“Let me try that,” said Emily and she opened a notepad and wrote ‘xoxoxo.’ That’s neat!”
She was going to send out two reminders of her party – one to Howie – reminding him that he had promised to come as a clown, with a red wig and big ears. And the other to post on the bulletin board at school – reminding everyone to come in the costume of their choice. She would put Xs and Os on Howie’s reminder. She thought that she would give both to Howie and let him post the other one on the bulletin board since his first class was near it.
“You HAVE kissed a boy haven’t you,” asked Karen. “You wouldn’t not want to be sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”
“Sure, I’ve been kissed,” lied Emily. “It was sweet; It was magic; It was romantic,” she sighed.
If she was going to lie, it might as well be a good kiss.
“I thought so. It stands to reason with how close you and Howie are.”
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Emily hedged.
Suddenly what she wanted most for her birthday was to be kissed by Howie. Certainly, he should automatically know that since she wanted it so badly and they were so close. It seemed like they always knew what each other was thinking.
Well, to be honest, she always knew what Howie was thinking – that wasn’t very hard. But did Howie know that she wanted to be kissed. He had better!
“Men are very simple creatures, aren’t they”, she said out loud.
‘Oops,’ she thought out loud again.
“What?” questioned Karen? “Oh, you mean about the bomb. Yes, look at the all the options that they had. The earliest that they could have invaded Japan was November of 1945, but they went ahead and dropped the bomb in early August. Surely, they could have used that time to negotiate a peace. And it says here that making war on civilians was illegal.”
“What? They have laws about making war. Why don’t they have laws about making peace?”
“Look here! It says here that even some of our own military leaders disagreed with dropping the bomb. They argued for a blockade of Japan to cut off food, instead.”
“But, they would have starved the children,” replied Emily.
“Yes, that’s a point – we won’t use it. It also says that there were intelligent people in Japan that wanted to surrender.”
“Intelligent people – that probably means the women.” Emily asked, “Why do men like to fight so much anyway.”
“Didn’t the Japanese start it.”
“The Japanese men did,” said Emily. “Men! Sometimes they all act just like children. And look at how much suffering they caused.”
Emily showed Karen a picture in the book she had opened. It was of the Japanese City of Hiroshima just after it had been hit by the atomic bomb. It looked like total destruction.
Then Emily looked at the picture on the next page and gasped. She was horrified by what was there. She felt as if her own body was melting from the heat of the blast. She could not breathe. And, suddenly, her heart was breaking.
The picture
was simple. It was a close up of a
child’s tricycle. It was taken so close
up that the rest of the destruction of Hiroshima could not be seen. This toy had been horribly blackened by the
terrific blast – except on one of the handlebars – bright and shiny as though
it had been protected from the blast was the imprint of a child’s hand.