Pearls of wisdom fading fast

   Now that I'm reporting and executing camera-work again I get to meet interesting people. When I first started out in the business I edited a weekly: the most difficult and rewarding professional experience to date.
   While newspaper design is a faster pace and you have to improvise and compromise as you play 'beat the clock,' unearthing the news gets you out of the building and down some roads you never knew existed.
   You never get out of the office doing design work and after years of it you become a little numb to the real world: you work at night, your schedule is completely contrary to the vast majority of society, and yet as an editor you try to make decisions and offer content that reflects the majority's interests.
   In any event, I'm ecstatic to get out and find these folks.
   This past week I felt honored to interview a Pearl Harbor survivor and his bride of 68 years.
   Phenomenal people.
   He survived the attack with a broken leg. Months later he was shipped back out to sea in time for the Guadalcanal campaign where his ship, the USS Helena, was hit by three torpedoes and sunk.
   The survivors floated for three days before arriving at Vella Lavella island where natives cared for them and hid more than 200 of them from the Japanese until the US Navy came to their rescue 10 days later.
   This man I interviewed was 89, joined the Navy at 17, bombed Dec. 7, 1941, at age 18.
   His wife, a Rosie the Riveter gal, worked on installing floor sections of C46s six days a week for 90 cents an hour. She was 18 at the time. She earned an extra nickel an hour by working the night shift.
   I couldn't detect a hint of self pity from either one of them. Not a wisp of a hint. You did it to support the country.
   Listening to these two made me think of how tenuous our connection to those over 80 years old has become — there are fewer and fewer WWII vets around and it is an amazing generation that's slipping away from us.
   They lived though such uncertainty, I can only imagine how stressful it was for soldiers and family alike and they could only communicate by post or telegram.
   Now how frustrating would that be to our current crop of young men and women who are so plugged in that they obliviously wander into traffic as they talk or text one another about minutia?
   So if you get a chance to thank a WWII vet or Rosie do it sooner rather than later 'cause they won't be around that much longer.