Isn’t it remarkable how some dates and important events stay within the deep recesses of our minds, just to pop up from out of nowhere, regardless of how old we have grown to be?
It happens to me quite often. We seem to remember happenings of years ago, but can’t remember where we left our reading glasses or the name of an old friend not seen in years.
Reading over my calendar recently and seeing the month of August, I started thinking back to my young teen years.
It was Aug. 15, 1945, and the war in the Pacific was still going on and dad was out there somewhere doing his job as a Navy medic. (He won a Silver Star in the Korean War later for saving lives. Another story.)
Little brother Franky and I were “Victory Pickers,” which I have written about several times.
During summers, with kids from communities all over Seattle, my brother and I rode buses to downtown Seattle, then walked the steep hill to a church parking lot.
After handing in our parents’ permission notes, and holding our sack lunches tightly, we climbed into the back of high, huge farm trucks.
We were then told which area and farm we were to spend the day picking.
Off we would go, standing in the trucks all the way to local farms in Kent, Renton and Auburn, to pick string beans for two-and-a-half cents a pound.
It took a lot to fill one hamper. It really wasn’t much of a money making deal but we were patriotic, doing what we could to help our country besides saving lard and other used commodities.
There just were not enough folks to pick fruit and vegetables because they were either working in factories or in the military.
No one called it child labor, but a necessity.
This one hazy, sunny morning we arrived at the parking lot to greet friends we had made.
We were “full of vinegar,” as Grandma used to say (only Grandpa Bob always added another word we weren’t aloud to repeat).
There was chatter of how our earnings were going to be spent; some of it going to the movies, s perhaps a roller skating rink or the ice cream parlor.
It was a busy morning and we kids were all starving by noon.
We were sitting by the river swapping tales when the farmer’s son, Ronnie, came running down the rise yelling something.
We stood up to meet him and he told the news his father had just heard on the radio: The war had been pronounced over in the Pacific.
The farmer called the pickers to the truck and said we were all going home early to celebrate.
Arriving in the middle of downtown Seattle, we were stuck in stopped traffic with cars honking horns, and buses that everyone had deserted.
People had run outside the stores and shops and into the streets everywhere.
Employees left their counters crying and laughing.
We were by the Woolworth store and could get no further.
People were hugging kissing, crying, drinking, dancing — a sight I would not have missed for the world.
Franky and I held hands looking down from the back of the truck — a real front row seat to history — and said we would never, ever forget this day.
We knew dad was coming home.
The memory is still as clear in my mind as it was then.
If I close my eyes and sit very still, I can hear the echo of the crowd rejoicing with abandonment in those busy Seattle streets.
Our country has never seemed quite the same since those days. People came together in purpose and reacted in patriotism in a way that has not been seen since.
And once again, we thought it was the war to end all wars.
How wrong we were.

Jacque Thornton is a columnist for the Kingston Community News, a Sound Publishing newspaper.