A Year on the Devil's Backbone

December 8, 1941 was the worst day of my life. You might say that it was a bad day for a lot of people. You are probably right. My problem, however, was not the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Not exactly. Mr. Patterson, the balding, uptight Principal of Sandy High School had just received an intelligence report that Sandy, OR, was to be the next Japanese target as they marched across the Pacific. It was the only explanation I could think of that made any sense as to why basketball practice had been cancelled. The city kids were more than happy to go home and miss a day of running and monotonous dribbling and shooting drills. I did not live in the city. My parents, like their parents before them, had set up a homestead on The Devil's Backbone.