Willie Mays and Henderson, Part 2: “Will I Have to Go to War”

Henderson and I didn’t finish the Willie Mays book that morning.  After my awkward attempts to explain why people were so mean to Willie just because his skin was brown, like Henderson’s, he wanted to take a break.  But Mommy, my daughter Karen, continued listening to Henderson read before he went to bed.  All went smoothly until the section in the book where Willie was drafted into the Korean War.

           Here was a new world of contexts unknown to Henderson:  “What does drafted mean?”  It means that men are called up to fight in a war.  “Why was there a war?”  Well, two countries couldn’t settle their differences and got into a fight. “But why?”  I don’t know; they just couldn’t.   Maybe they were fighting over land or money; they could be fighting over many things.   “But you’re not supposed to get into fights.  You’re supposed to use your words.”  How many times had Henderson been told to use his words? 

          The final reduction to absurdity—and to adult hypocrisy—was evident to this eight-year-old.    His inevitable, personalizing, next question “Will I have to go to war?” had no real answer.