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Happy Christmas!

John Lennon sang it and I suppose it has been my Christmas wish since I was in the 4th grade.

I remember our teacher, Ms. Newland, telling us that the US was at war in the Persian Gulf. She showed us the day's newspaper and my stomach fell to the floor - "current events" was a new subject in class and this was a pretty big current event. I was confused and scared. Our teacher told us not to worry because the war wouldn't come to our shores. I had read about WWII and Vietnam in our 4th grade US history book, and our teacher assured us, those wars were a very long time ago and we won anyway (understandably, there was no need to discuss the complications of the reality of war with 4th graders... or to bring up the more recent conflicts in Grenada, Beirut or the invasion of Panama.) I asked permission to go to the restroom.

In my young 9 year old misunderstanding of our history book, I thought the Statue of Liberty meant that we never had to fight a war again. I looked at myself in the mirror of the restroom. I was wearing a light blue uniform shirt and shorts - my hair was in a ponytail.

I stood there and stared blankly at myself for about 5 minutes.

"I never thought there would be war in my time."

I don't know why I said it aloud or why I phrased it that way in particular. Probably because it's what the kids on TV would do and probably how they would have said it if they were ever forced to deal with such subject matter on Full House.

I remember my world crumbling a little that day. I was 9 years old happily sheltered in Orange County believing that war was something old people remembered. From that day forward the world was not quite the same. Every time I blew my candles out on my birthday or saw a star fall, or saw 11:11 on the clock, I asked for the typical kid things, and always tacked on "but most importantly I wish for world peace."

Silly I guess, but I still wish for it whenever I get a chance.