Oh, for Christ's sake. I thought, what was wrong with these people? What was it all for, anyway. Who was this kid to be wearing a German helmet? Who were they not to know what it was?
They began talking about where they had been when the war began and then began arguing about when it had, in fact begun. These people were at college with me, they were my college mates. I was furious with them and filled with a bitter sarcasm and I got up to give them some lessons about American history when I sat down again.
They had been 8 and 9 when one war had begun. Children at little desks they cleared away for creative play time in elementary school. This fast had it come, they were here, another generation upon us. I was history to them already, silent, and invisible behind the pillar.
They had come but they haven't yet arrived because '50 has not let go. This strange class.
Not yet, let go.
But they tell me time will see to that. We'll see. We shall see.
Robert Crichton '50 is a writer living in New York.