We are the world...we are the children...we are the ones...

There is a certain innocence in the defiance of children. A certain purity in the simple notions of right and wrong that translate into those first steps of activism.

Never short of words, my Dad is, perhaps, a bit too fond of telling stories about his childhood growing up in Pacific Beach, a San Diego beach community. The time he let his parents drive away from a gas station when he know his toddler brother was still in the bathroom. The time a pretty girl rear-ended him, scratching up the back of his car and he told her not to worry about it, just because.

One of the recurring cast of characters in Dad's childhood myths is the Bottom Boys Marching Band. My Dad and Uncle(the one left behind at the gas station) both played french horn in this Boys Band that traveled around the country.

One time all the boys brought baby alligators back home from Florida. When some of the buggers fell out of the overhead compartment on the plane, it gave the stewardesses quite a scare.

More than one time, they played in Rose Parade.

And, one time, a bunch of these boys coming-of-age in 1950s Southern California decided to use a "Colored Only" bathroom in Georgia. "Don't use that one," an attendent shouted after them; but, as my Dad remembers the day, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

...............

I've been reading a young adult novel that was favorite of mine in middle school when I spent many lunch periods holed up in the library. A coming-of-age novel, The Year of Impossible Goodbyes, follows a young girl growing up in Pyongyang as Japanese colonial rule comes to and end and communist rule begins.

I stumbled across this passage. World War II is coming to an end as the Japanese make their last ditch efforts, drafting Korean school girls into the war effort:

"My class was ordered to sharpen these small pieces of glass and rock to throw at the white devils[Americans, duh]. Unhi and I tried to work side by side. When Narita Sensei told us how to make the pieces extra sharp, Unhi and I looked at each other, smiled, and nodded our heads in silent agreement. We bent over our heads over our work and reveled in our secret. We rubbed the pieces of glass and rock against the bricks and made them smooth and round...in our small way, we felt that we were doing something good."