Days of Infamy

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and for members of the ‘Greatest Generation’ yesterday, December 7, was a date that will live in infamy.

For people of my generation, however, today, December 8, was also an infamous date in history.

The ‘Greatest Generation’ is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw and refers to the generation that grew up during the depression and went on to fight in World War II.  Yesterday marked the anniversary of the United States entering that war, after the Imperial Japanese Navy, without warning or declaration of war, attacked the U.S. Naval base in Hawaii. Pearl Harbor.

Today, everyone who is 75 years old or older remembers where they were that day, and how the public opinion of staying out of the war changed overnight.

December 7, 1941 was the original 9/11.

Thirty-nine years and one day later I was living in Rhode Island, watching Monday Night Football. The New England Patriots, my then-girlfriend Terry’s favorite football team, were playing the Miami Dolphins, my favorite team (the ‘Fish’ as we called them practiced on my college campus so we saw and interacted with them on a daily basis).

With less than a minute left in the game, Howard Cosell interrupted the broadcast to announce that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside of his New York City hotel, the Dakota, where he lived.

December 8, 1980. John Lennon was just 40 years old.

Lennon was a hero of mine and I had just bought his latest album, Double Fantasy. 

The murder was senseless and shocking. How could someone kill such a peaceful and talented artist? 

I was just a child when JFK, RFK and MLK were assassinated, and didn’t really understand or feel the pain that the adults did. This was the first assassination of someone who I had strong feelings for. It hurt.

I remember driving to work the next morning with my headlights on, as the local radio station had suggested, to show support and pay homage to Lennon. Even though it was a bright, crisp New England morning, there were more cars with their headlights on than not (and this was before cars had headlights that automatically turned on).

Lennon’s death triggered an outpouring of grief around the world. The following Sunday I was one of millions of people around the world who paused for ten minutes of silence to remember Lennon. Over 225,000 people gathered in New York’s Central Park alone. Every radio station in New York and many others across the county went off the air for ten minutes that day, in Lennon’s honor.

Although these two days of infamy, December 7 and December 8, were both marked by unspeakable violence, the victims could not have been more different.

At Pearl Harbor the majority of the 2,400 Americans killed that day were military.

John Lennon was about as anti-military as a person could be. He often wore a green army jacket as part of his biting sarcasm.  His songs said what he was about: Give Peace a Chance, War is Over (Happy Christmas), I Don’t Want to be a Soldier, Imagine, Mind Games (Make Love, Not War), Power to the People, and when he was with the Beatles All You Need is Love, Come Together and Revolution.

These were all songs about changing the world in a peaceful manner.

My wife Terry and I had our own Day of Infamy back in the spring of this year. A day that changed our world.

April 11, 2014. It was the fifth anniversary of my father’s death. I remember saying a few prayers to him that morning, to see if he could pull a few strings for us, put in a good word for us.

It was a Friday, the week before Good Friday. I guess you could say it was Bad Friday for me and Terry.

That was the day, after two weeks of testing, that the doctors at the clinic confirmed that Terry did in fact have Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

Like those stationed at Pearl Harbor and like John Lennon, this was an attack we were not prepared for. It came out of nowhere. And it was fatal.  Or at least will be in the not too distant future.

The events that took place on December 7, 1941 and December 8, 1980 affected millions of people.

The news that Terry and I received on April 11 of this year affected only a few dozen people.

But Alzheimer’s affects millions. There are more than 5 million people living in the United States right now with Alzheimer’s. Only 200,000 of them, however, are under the age of 65.

My wife Terry is only 55.

I always knew she was one in a million.  But I also always knew that we so looked forward to growing old together.

When I get older losing my hair

Many years from now.

Will you still be sending me a valentine?

Birthday greetings bottle of wine.

If I’d been out ‘till quarter to three

Would you lock the door?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I’m 64?

Paul McCartney sang those words, but it was Lennon who wrote them.

I only pray that Terry and I will still be together when Terry turns 64.

Until next time, hope none of your days are infamous.

Bud