PAIN AND MEMORIES

I was greatly saddened to read in elementary school about the disassembly and reassembly of ancient Egyptian monuments to escape the rising of the Nile River in the building of the Aswan Dam. This was in the early 1960's. I read it at James Milton Turner School in Meacham Park, Missouri, St. Louis County. I read about it in the "Weekly Reader," a grade school newsletter. Why, I asked myself, would there be a need to destroy the integrity of these thousands of year old structures, simply in order to generate more electricity? Could they not have done something else, instead, of destroying antiquities? I was hurt by this knowledge, but I was also gratified to know about it. And, because I was hurt, by the knowledge, I remembered it! At around the same time, I saw a World War II movie at the 66 Drive-In, with my family, starring the "rat pack"--Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, etc. I was again hurt, when Sammy dove on a German hand grenade that had been thrown into their midst! He, the only black guy, died to save them. They avenged his death by killing those Germans, but Sammy was still gone, dead. And I was saddened, hurt, so I remembered. There is an association with pain and memory that transcends time and space and the circumstances;doubtless the same is true with pleasure and memories for each of us..