THAT FABULOUS FACE IN THE CROWD

I can still see her youthful face as if it were yesterday. Only it was many yesterdays ago. Right here at the corner of State & Randolph streets in downtown Chicago where VJ Day was wildly celebrated the night of August 15, 1945.

Her's was a radiant face, full of youth and gratitude and hope. I never met her, for she was out there on the other side of the surging throngs that were roaring and rippling down State Street's broad bricked way. But I have never forgotten her. About 20 years old with bobbed auburn hair and a kissable pug nose, my mystery lady seemed to personify everything that was good and promising to that end-of-war ovation.

I often wonder. Whatever happened to her. And if she ever noticed and wondered about me. For all I really know, she may be dead or she may be Hillary Clinton! You just can't be sure about things that many yards and years away. Oh, but I can be sure of this. She represented the exhaled rapture following four years of fear. Of dying. Of almost global annihilation.

And yet ....

Those were also years of national pride. Of collective action. Of home front side by side with war front, dedicated to a cause and a mission. America -- and Americans -- really believed back then. With a kind of belief we have not known since. My lovely mystery mistress was cheering as were we all, for she knew what I knew. Everyone had been shoulder to shoulder those four years, rarely toe to toe as we are today some 65 years later.

Sure, the memories of old age can play tricks on you. We tend to remember what we wish to remember. But she and I -- and all those thousands of Chicagoans that special night -- were part of a whole that was astoundingly greater than the sum of our parts.

Does it have to take a war to do that? Does it have to take a war to quilt a population behind a leader? Does it have to take a war to find what's good and best within yourself? I'll be damned if I know, but history seems to tell us: Yes. It would seem only the brutality and bloodshed of war can do all this.

If true, humanity should be ashamed. And soon....!