The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As president, this makes me feel mad and impotent. My people are looking to me for guidance and assistance to resolve our nation tragedy. It's a sad day, the only to resolve the attack on our land is to go to war. So, I did what I had to do. In the wake of all this I have taken a very long look at my life. Have I lived a good life? Was I a good Senator, secretary of Navy, and president? Was I good father, husband, son? Have I made the right decisions in life and for my family and country? These questions have been going through my head all day long. .
I started of thinking back to when I was a small boy growing up in Hyde Park, New York; this is in Dutchess County. I became extremely fascinated with birds. I loved to watch them and look at them in all their beautiful colors, and how each of their feathers where precisely placed perfectly on their body to create fluid graceful movement. I had become so fascinated with the creatures that I had asked for a gun for my eleventh birthday to begin a collection of birds native to Dutchess County. By the time I was in college I had collected and identified about 300 different species of birds native to the county. I had preserved the birds by means of taxidermy. However, bird collecting isn't my greatest accomplishment. .
At the age of three my education had begun. I was privately tutored at home and abroad for about ten years. Then in 1896 I attended the very prestigious Groton preparatory school in Massachusetts. Being from a very high social class, going to schools like Groton wasn't uncommon. After attending Groton, I attended Harvard and received my B.A. degree in history in three years. After I attended Harvard I decided to attend Columbia University and study law. In 1907, before finishing at Columbia, I decided to take the bar examination, fortunately I passed with no problem and left school without my degree.