|
My mother and me, in the snow, some decades ago at my grandparents’ home. I wonder who took this picture.
Perspective: My students are the same age, or older, as my mother is in this photograph.
Further perspective: When she was my age today, my mother had a 15-year-old son learning to drive. Frightening.
How she did it I’ll never know, but all of the things a mother must do, she did well. She’s a special lady.
And I don’t feel a day older. Just don’t stare at the silver in my hair, OK?
Santa paid a visit to the Special Church Christmas party. The guests lit the advent candles, ate cake, got presents and sang songs, including perhaps the greatest song ever written “Cowboys and Coyotes.” It involves a lot of howling and noise making and you would not believe how good or catchy this song is.
What was cute were the people coming up to Santa saying, “I believe in you, Santa.” And they really, really do.
“Smile, Santa!”
“I am, you just can’t see it through my beard!”
This is a project of my mother-in-law’s, because she’s just an awesome lady. She runs this program. It isn’t even her church. And she has a special inside connection to Santa, because she’s an awesome lady. Special Church is the neatest thing. I’m glad we get to be included in it from time to time.
We had dinner at Tutti’s. This is in one of the reviews on Trip Advisor: “We got the worst table in the place, a two top, which is almost in the kitchen and we didn’t even care.”
I cleaned my plate. I got the gold star. Just insanely good.
Late into the evening we visited a family friend. We were in the house of a man who has been featured in Sports Illustrated. I think that might be a first for me. He may have been on the short list for casting of the most interesting man alive campaign. The man celebrated Christmas as a child on Old McDonald’s farm.
An angelic choir.
It was only a matter of time, really, before the truth came out.
These are from a place called the Historical Christmas Barn. It is a store shaped like a barn. It is 20 years old. They also had Halloween displays, which look ancient in December.
And then we visited the Christmas house tonight. It was full, just chock-full of Christmas decor that a woman pushing 70 has been collecting her entire life. She buys all of these things at yard sales. She has ancient ornaments, old kid’s ornaments, an entire historical collection of Santa images, more snowmen than you can possibly imagine. Every surface of her house is covered.
She said it takes her a week to set everything up. And she has to take pictures each year to make sure her things don’t wind up in the same places every year.
She showed us her guest book. She has a huge Christmas Eve party and the book has been signed for more than a quarter of a century. Great stuff.
This is about 45 seconds after the day’s best light has passed through the library. The sun is very fickle just now, but we can still have beautiful golden tones in short bursts.
A few minutes later we went out for an afternoon walk. It flurried on our walk two days ago. It is merely bitterly cold this evening. We stopped by the drug store and then the grocery store on our walk. One lady at the grocery store said she’d noticed us as she was driving in and wondered at our long walk.
Another woman stared very hard. She was thinking the same thing.
We brought home fish for dinner from the grocery store. It froze on the walk back. We had hot chocolate when we got back inside, and now we’re all warm again.
The house is clean, the laundry is done, the walk has been made. Now to bend back to my reading and notes.
Just the sporadic Monday history feature today. Everything else was spent up in uninteresting things like studying and laundry.
Dean E. Hallmark was an avid athlete, adventure seeker and U.S. Army Air Corps pilot. He was born in 1914 in the small west Texas town of Robert Lee. He was a standout football player, ultimately making his way to Auburn University on a football scholarship. He played there only one year, quitting school in 1936 to take flying lessons before becoming a civilian pilot.
In November of 1940, Dean was recruited by the Army and he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After training he reported for duty with the 95th Bomb Squadron, 17th Bombardment Group stationed at Pendleton Field, Oregon. One of the first men to fly the North American B-25B Mitchell medium bomber, he caught Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s eye and ultimately flew with him on his raid of Japan in April of 1942.
This was the first offensive strike at the Japanese mainland, meant to shake the Japanese faith in their leadership and a morale boost back home after the surprise of Pearl Harbor and bad outcomes elsewhere in the Pacific.
Doolittle and his raiders had to launch from their aircraft carrier early after being detected by a Japanese ship. (The launch was actually the first time a B-25 had ever used a carrier deck. All of the practice runs had been on land.) Hallmark was the command pilot of the sixth B-25 off the aircraft carrier. He was 28-years-old.
He flew to Tokyo with the rest of the raiders, dropped his bombs and made his way to China. Dean’s bomber ran out of fuel and he ditched his plane about three miles from the coast. The two enlisted crew members on board drown. Dean and his two fellow officers were hurt, but survived the crash. Dean was catapulted through the windshield, the pilot’s seat still strapped to his body.
The officers made their way to shore, linked up the next morning and evaded the Japanese for eight days. Finally they were captured, and along with five captured crew members from another bomber, were tried by the Japanese on what are now considered phony charges of killing innocent civilians.
They were tortured and malnourished. Dean came down with beriberi and dysentery. All eight were sentenced to death. Five of those sentences were commuted. Hallmark and two officers from the other bomber — 1st Lt. William Farrow and Sgt. Harold Spatz were not so lucky. On October 15, 1942 Hallmark, Farrow and Spatz were executed by firing squad.
The bodies were cremated and located by American officials after the war. Today, Hallmark’s remains are at Arlington National Cemetery where he was interred in 1949.
Dean’s military awards and decorations include:
USAAF Aviator wings
Distinguished Flying Cross (awarded posthumously)
Purple Heart Medal (awarded posthumously)
Prisoner of War Medal (awarded posthumously)
American Defense Medal
American Campaign Medal w/ bronze star
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal w/ bronze star (awarded posthumously)
WWII Victory Medal (awarded posthumously)
Breast Order of Pao Ting (awarded posthumously by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China)
China War Memorial Medal (awarded posthumously by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China)
Other memorial honors include:
Greenville, Texas celebrated Dean Hallmark Day on April 28, 1943 in conjunction with the Second War Bond Drive
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4011 in Greenville, Texas, named their lodge after Hallmark
Auburn University dedicated a plaque to Dean’s memory in the Letterman’s Lounge in Jordan-Hare Stadium
Study carrel 4431P inside the Auburn University library was named in Dean’s honor.
Six decades later he was front page news once again.
I’m going to write a little piece on Hallmark next month, for his birthday, this is just the beginning of the notes.
