War and Remembrance

So in the winter, Jim bagged groceries at Safeway for $2.50 a day. In the summer, he caddied at the Denver Country Club, where he was disgusted to learn that the wealthy were the cheapest tippers in town, griping about having to shell out just 65 cents a round. Meanwhile, the duffers at the public course paid a buck.

His favorite job was selling peanuts and pop during baseball games at Merchants Park. He loved baseball and, like most kids of that era, could cite every major-leaguer's batting average. But his favorite player of all wasn't allowed in Major League Baseball. Satchel Paige was colored, and only whites played in the majors. Still, Jim got to witness Paige's prowess on several occasions when he came to town to pitch for his Negro League team. On one particularly memorable afternoon, he watched Paige pitch an entire doubleheader, winning both games.

It didn't seem fair that Paige wasn't able to take on guys like Babe Ruth, but that was how things were. So Jim didn't really understand why his father got so mad over a sign he'd spotted in a restaurant window in Brighton, then a farming town. "No dogs or Mexicans," the sign read. "Who do they think would pick all that produce up there if it weren't for the Mexicans?" his father had said.

Jim thought it was just the way of the world -- sort of like his parents making it clear that the kids were to marry their "own kind," Irish Catholic. Neighborhood friends -- Catholics with last names like Bernardino and Rodriguez -- who were welcome to raid the Sunderland icebox after school knew better than to ask Jim's sister Dorothy for a date.

The Sunderlands were involved in local politics, and they impressed upon their brood that being an Irish Catholic Democrat was second in importance only to being a member of the one true church. But the politics of the Catholic church were never discussed. Not at home, not at school, not in church. No one talked about abortion. No one argued about the death penalty or complained when the New Jersey State government executed Bruno Richard Hauptman in 1936 for the kidnapping and murder of "the Lindbergh baby."

When he entered high school, Jim was already 6' 2"-- but it was his personality that stood out. He was always happy, smiling, cheerful. He loved Regis, the friends he made there and the gentle Jesuit priests who taught the classes. Once the Germans invaded Poland in 1938, Father Hugo Gerleman, his Greek teacher, devoted half of every class to discussing world affairs. The students knew all about the collapse of France and the Battle of Britain; by the start of Jim's senior year, General Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Corps were overrunning Africa. Still, the world seemed pretty far away. Jim stayed busy editing the school newspaper and playing football.

On December 7, 1941, an unseasonably warm day in Denver, Regis was playing St. Joseph's High at home for the Denver Parochial League Championship. Undefeated all year, they were ahead at halftime, thanks largely to Buddy Uchida, the son of a Japanese-American father and a mother of Greek ancestry. During a break in the action, the announcer came on the public-address system and informed the spectators and players that Pearl Harbor had just been bombed.

The boys on the field didn't know what to make of the announcement. They turned their attention back to the game and at the end, their perfect record was still intact. They celebrated the win -- only one more to go for the state championship -- and then headed home, where they found their families glued to radios, listening as the reports came flooding in. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Americans had died in the sneak attack. Americans were also under fire in the Philippines.

The next morning, the school was abuzz. Are we going to war? the students asked their teachers. The priests didn't know. Such things should be approached carefully, as violence only begat violence. But the United States had been attacked, and even some Catholic teachings, such as the writing of St. Thomas Aquinas, argued that countries had a right to defend themselves.

That morning, there was a citywide Mass for high school students at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The priests and the congregation prayed for the soldiers and sailors in Hawaii, as well as for peace. But any question about what America would do was settled when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan. They were in it, like it or not.

In the days that followed, the news grew grim. Italy and Germany declared war on the U.S. More than 2,000 people had died at Pearl Harbor alone -- one a Regis graduate -- and God only knew how many more in the western Pacific. The U.S. fleet was severely damaged. There were rumors that the Japanese would invade Hawaii, possibly even California.

The boys at Regis were spoiling for a fight. The Japs had started it, but America would finish it.