What's Your Name? [antikvár]

PREFACE With the rest of the world, we Americans find ourselves neck-deep in the exigence of our times. It is forcing the complexities of our civilization to new highs—and the end is not in sight. For about two years now, since the fall of France, but particularly since Pearl Harbor, we have taken many steps calculated to meet the onrushing, unpredictable future. Among other things, we as individuals have been lining up and registering and reporting for all sorts of things. We are filling out all sorts of forms—applications, questionnaires, statements, depositions. We are required to show birth certificates and other documents attesting to our beginnings. We must have rationing cards. We are obliged to appear before boards and commissions in sudden authority over certain matters pertaining at once to our personal existence and to the national emergency. Right and left, we are being asked, "What's your name?" In June, 1941, in This Week magazine, Sunday supplement of a number of large newspapers, I published the short story of Kobotchnik and his dog Nurmi which is the first chapter in this book. In April, 1942,1 received a letter signed Joseph Pedrotti: I am twenty years of age and a 1941 graduate of - College here in Pennsylvania. The week I graduated I chanced to read your article about Kobotchnik, not realizing at the moment that I would soon be faced by a problem akin to his. , . .