Featured Articles
Return to Pearl Harbor
by Paul Golde
Liv Fun: Vol 7 – Issue 1
On December 7, 1941, my father was a handsome, lanky 18-year-old enjoying the new film Babes on Broadway, starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. He was a typical New York City kid who loved to sing, so an afternoon off from working at the family bakery to enjoy a musical with friends was nothing short of heavenly … until someone ran down into the front of the theater to shout out the hellish news of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Like many youngsters of that time, Harold William Golde (“Hal” to his friends) knew what was happening in Europe and how England was starting to buckle under the incessant attacks by Nazi Germany. He knew about the hundreds of German warplanes bombing London for 57 straight nights in attacks that continued until May 1941. But the United States had remained neutral up to this point, not wanting to get involved in another war, with the trauma from WWI still painful.
One day later, when the United States declared war on Japan, Hal went to the recruiting office to sign up as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. After initial testing showed he was color blind, he was instead assigned to the 40th Infantry Division, Mechanized Calvary, where he shipped off to basic training and then on to Hawaii and Schofield Barracks, near Pearl Harbor, where he would endure jungle training before joining his outfit in the Pacific Theatre.
Hal would eventually be assigned to General MacArthur’s forces as a radio man and later as the chaplain’s assistant, a role in which he found true purpose during the liberation of the Philippines in October 1944. Hal’s father Fred was a huge supporter of “Mack” and so very proud that his eldest son was serving with the famous five-star general. Sadly, Fred would pass away while Hal was still serving in the South Pacific and would not get to see his son in the background of the famous “I Have Returned” photo.
Liv Fun
by Leisure Care
Spring 2018
View Table of Contents
Our Bodies
by Tammy Kennon
We are living into our 70s, 80s and even 90s in relative comfort. Advancements in science and healthcare are responsible for giving us these bonus years, and scientists have not abandoned us now that we’re here. They continue to explore our brave, old world and are finding relatively simple, proactive ways we can keep our bodies well-tuned and flourishing.
The Naked Truth
by Skye Moody
The gorilla stands 10 feet tall, or so it seems. He’s a giant, anyway. I’m five feet tall and weigh in the vicinity of 85 pounds, fully dressed. The gorilla is naked — which is the point of this story — and weighs, I’d guess, 600. There we stand in our clothed bodies, free of iron bars, to come and go as we wish. There he stands behind those bars against his will, yet in a sense freer than all the gawkers combined.
Return to Pearl Harbor
by Paul GoldeOn December 7, 1941, my father was a handsome, lanky 18-year-old enjoying the new film Babes on Broadway. He was a typical New York City kid who loved to sing, so an afternoon off from working at the family bakery to enjoy a musical with friends was nothing short of heavenly … until someone ran down into the front of the theater to shout out the hellish news of the Pearl Harbor attack.