Hello, everyone. Reading the above, it has just dawned on me that I haven't introduced myself.
My name is Marilyn and I live in Southern California where it's warm and sunny...most of the time. A few weeks ago, we had four straight days of really serious rain and I was beginning to feel waterlogged.
I was a kid in WWII and remember certain things from that point of view. I also had an uncle who fought in Italy and ended up in Austria. That's about all I know because once he came home he wouldn't talk about it and we kids were strictly forbidden to ask. Hence, I don't even know his outfit. I thought for awhile it might be the 36th but as I read more history about the Italian campaign, I'm inclined to think he was with the 34th. Why? Because bits and pieces of family talk say he fought all the way up the Italian Boot and, so far, my readings indicate that the only outfit to do that was the 34th.
Growing up, one's worth with the other kid's on the block was measured by how quickly you could spot and identify the planes being ferried across the sky on a clear day; whether you'd seen Thirty-seconds Over Tokyo and how well you could remember the lines because once home, the plumb roles of reenacting were taken by the kids who could best remember those lines. Seniorty was also given to those kids whose fathers/uncles outranked the other kids'. Since my father was too young for WWI and too old for WWII and, anyway, just ran a gas station - oh, the humiliation of it all! - and no one had seen hide nor hair nor even heard from my uncle once he went in - it fell upon me to take the bull by the horns. As we rarely stayed in one neighborhood longer than the length of one school year, I took it upon myself to promote him. From 1943 or thereabouts, he got promoted from private to major - quickly, and shamlessly. Had the war not ended when it did, I'm sure he would have made Colonel.
Every Tuesday was Stamp Day at school and I made sure that I had my dime to buy a stamp to paste in my Stamp Book. Once the Stamp Book was filled, you got a $25 War Bond. Everyone was urged to buy a War Bond. It was either that or prepare to speak German.
Rationing was everywhere; sugar; meat. I don't remember it all. Regular gasoline cost 14 cents/gal and ethyl cost 16 cents/gal. What else do I remember? Hiroshima.
The day they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I remember the stunned faces of all the grownups once the news was announced. It was the first time I'd ever encountered a situation where the grownups didn't seem to be totally in control. They were just...speechless. They all just looked at one another. What could one say? To think that one bomb could do all that. I remember not liking the feeling of grownups not seeming to be in control. Kids dream of independence and freedom from control...but at six? I went off to play by myself and when I came back, Dad was pumping gas and my mother was greasing a car and everything seemed normal again. The bomb was gone. For awhile. - Marilyn