My cooking is so bad my kids thought Thanksgiving was to commemorate Pearl Harbor.
Some calamities - the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 - have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.
The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 completely crippled our Pacific Fleet.
The lesson of Pearl Harbor ought never to be forgotten, and of course the motto that came from that, 69 years ago, the war which my dad fought, was 'Remember Pearl Harbor, never again.' We need to keep that to mind.
My father pulled into Pearl Harbor four days after the bombing, and he said, everything was still burning. He said they never told the public how bad it was. It was really bad.
Pearl Harbor was the defining event in my life. It shaped who I am, and all of my hang-ups and my drives, I think, stem from that.
The alarm bells sound regularly: cybergeddon; the next Pearl Harbor; one of the greatest existential threats facing the United States. With increasing frequency, these are the grave terms officials invoke about the menace of cybercrime - and they're not understating the threat.
I myself was born beside a river - the Avon in Sarum. So when I first encountered New York's great harbor and the Hudson River as a teenager, and came to understand their historic canal and railroad links to the vast spaces of the Midwest, I felt both the thrill of a new adventure and a deep sense of homecoming.
After the Battle of Midway there was a week in a rest camp at Pearl Harbor.
I never forget. I never forgive. I can wait. I find it very easy to harbor a grudge. I have scores to settle.