remembering the other A-bomb
The Four Most Cataclysmic Events of Human History Occurred In
August 1945...
August 6 first Atomic Bomb dropped on city of Hiroshima
August 9 second Atomic Bomb dropped on city of Nagasaki
August 15 Japan’s Emperor announced surrender of his army
August 16 Diane Kathleen Lewis was born in St Louis, MO.
History surely has a different verdict, but the latter of these events was the most important to my life. You see, my snotty-stinky- spoiled-rotten-daddy-loved-her-the-best baby sister was born when I was all of 672 Days old. The result being I have no conscious memory of when there was no Diane in my life.
More of a natural athlete than me, I learned not to compete with her in most any sport (as did most of her later boyfriends also found). I’ve been told I have a higher IQ, but she was always smarter.
She and my brother were left-handed and they always teased me about being right-handed. I must have been ten before finding out most folks are right-handed. It is nevertheless true that left-handed girls make the best sisters (she told me so).
Known affectionately far and wide as “Aunt Diane”, my sister is something of a kook. But then every family needs an aunt who is something of a kook. We had my father’s sister, “Aunt Mary.” Anytime one of our kids thinks Aunt Diane too much of a kook, I can only wish they had known Aunt Mary.
When I entered first grade my parents solemnly told my brother and I that they had been informed Diane was “retarded” (this was cir. 1950). That is a word which sticks in one’s mind even these 70 years later. It turned out nothing could be further from the truth. How she was treated then, though, might have helped shape who she became.
Earning a Masters Degree in Special Education, for years she taught children whom nobody else wanted to help. With (charitably) low intelligence, many of “Mrs. Wheeler’s” kids were so physically dangerous that at one small school a security guard was stationed outside her classroom.
There have been times, too many times, when I needed rescue from one of my idiocy or another. She was always there for me. For most of my childhood she was my best friend and closet confidant. I would not have survived adolescence without her. She and her husband Bob Wheeler were there for me and mine at my darkest hours. If any good things have come to my family these past 30 or so years, I owe it to them.
I usually call her and sing Happy Birthday -- singing as badly as humanly possible. One time I left my “singing” on the answering machine. This scared an exchange student who played the ‘message’. A couple of times I was “unavailable” to sing to her, and one year had no voice.
Happy 80th Anniversary of the other atomic bomb, Aunt Diane!
