Daddy is sitting in his comfortable lounge chair on a damp and mild night in December 1957. The living room is warm and I am alone. Mommy has just gone to bed. I am whiling away the late hours watching an old movie on TV. And glancing through the papers that proceed this … smiling to myself at the antics of my little sons … and wondering what the future has in store for them. I think a silent prayer. May God protect them and abide in them. I think also of our unborn third child. It is due in May … four and a half months yet!! I think another prayer. Frankie will be four years old in February. Michael will be three years old in April. And, what are these times like, when my children are still children? Well, two months ago, Russia launched the first Earth satellite and with it the age of Man’s dependence on his mother earth begins to come to a close. When I was a child “Space” was the fantastic imaginative idea of comic strip writers. Today, I am only 33 and imagination has begun to assume its real dimensions of reality. There is a large can in our cellar which I intend to fill with clean fresh water. We know it is possible at any time that we may have to survive an atomic attack. The can is our emergency water. For 1957 is another year in the so called ‘Cold War.’ Russia , her captive countries and the East form one armed camp … half the world. The United States Western Europe and the countries of the Northern Hemisphere form another armed camp. The conflict seems to resolve itself down to this … Communism and its aggressive expansion, vs. freedom and the wish of the democracies to maintain their integrity. God grant that these two systems will learn to live together in peace, and that someday in the time of my children, they can learn to work together for the common good of all mankind. And yet, even in the contemplation of somber possibilities, I am optimistic. I believe man will find his way through the darkness.
Part of a note Herman wrote to mark the end of 1957 for me and our children.
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