When I was a very small girl, several times a day for months huge squadrons of U.S. military planes flew over my house. I was always in my bedroom when they woke me quite early in the morning or late at night. Some days they came both morning and night. The planes also came during the day as I played outside.
My Boston wood triple-decker house in Mattapan had always felt safe, especially my back bedroom. It was filled with dolls, toys and heavy soft quilts. The windows framed the narrow driveway, old wood garages and huge mud puddle that was my view since the day my parents brought me home as a newborn. But when the planes came, the huge pink cabbage roses on the wallpaper of my room became shadows of ogres. When the planes came in the middle of the day and darkened the sky it was scary, but not like when they woke me suddenly. A little girl was no match for what seemed like millions of planes that seemed to never stop.
One night as I was falling asleep the dreaded clamor started in the distance. I stiffened as it grow louder and closer. Then the squadrons were over my house. I felt deep vibrations from the sky in my small body and cried in terror, “Mommy! Mommy! Make them stop the noise! Mommy! Mommy!” It felt like a long time for my mother to come to the back of the house to me; a minute was an eternity as I trembled.
She stood by my bed and said, “Lila, they’ll go away soon.” But the droning and thunder grew louder as a second squadron flew over us. It was impossible for my mother to comfort her hysterical child. I cried and screamed and although she hugged me, the noise pierced her arms around me. There was no safe place.
Unlike all the other times, my mother relaxed as she let go of me and said, “I’ll call the operator on the phone right now and tell her to make the planes go away.” Then she smiled, I remember. It was her epiphany, I see in retrospect. She had taught me how to dial that precious zero to reach help in an emergency.
I stopped crying as I watched her lift the old heavy black receiver on the table just outside my door, Then she spun the rotary dial all the way to the end and back again. “Hello? Operator?” she said. “My little daughter is very frightened by the planes. Please make them go away. You will? Thank you very much.” The noise stopped and I went to sleep.
After that, my mother made many calls to the “operator” for me. Looking back, I see that she spoke slowly to the phone and always finished in the time it took for the squadrons to pass. After a while I was less fearful when the planes came and just asked my mother to “call the operator.” No doubt she had her finger on the off button as she spoke. I really did think that she got the operator to stop the planes for me.
I pray now that all those brave pilots went and came safely. They were my best friends, although I couldn’t comprehend it then. The U.S. Air Force flew military exercises during the Cold War from bases in the New England region which included my back bedroom.
