Archive for August, 2008

Candy for the Berliners (repeat)

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

This past week, Stephen Colbert had as one of his guests Andrei Cherny, the author of The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour. In spite of the silliness of Colbert's interview, I did learn something about the period following World War II when Russia placed ...

A Weekend in the Mid-West

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Recently I had the opportunity to visit friends of many years who have moved to the Mid-west. Rachel has advanced Alzheimer’s disease and lives in a nursing home; Bill is slowing down somewhat and lives alone in an apartment. They manage, thanks to caring communities and because of the loving ...

Memories from a small town

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Janet was a high school student in a small town in central Pennsylvania during World War II. On a high hill outside of town, the Civilian Air Patrol (CAP) had a station set up to detect possible enemy airplanes. Her dad was a carpenter and tended the family victory garden. Her ...

War Comes to the West Coast (a repeat)

Monday, August 18th, 2008

For some time, I have wished that I had some wartime stories from the West Coast. I still don’t have any first-person accounts, but a friend did suggest I might want to write about the Japanese balloon bombs, which actually landed on the West Coast of the United States. I ...

It Wasn’t Fruit Juice

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Roger, the brother of my friend Ellen, has provided a detailed account of his war experiences in Europe during 1944 and 1945. He was involved in some very heavy fighting, but he also included some incidents of a less serious nature. While attached to a British unit, he recalls getting up ...

Girls’ Sports

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Since our eyes and ears are very much focused on the Olympics these days, I thought it would be a good time to think about girls’ sports during the early 1940’s. First of all, I checked to see what was happening with the Olympics back then. Not much. The 1940 Olympics was ...

Some Responses

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

2 Responses to "Wartime stockings" I learned about the tan coloring on legs last year in social studies. I think that’s really interesting. - Colleen My mum who lived in Dublin, Ireland, often told me about colouring her legs with gravy browning and using an eyebrow pencil to draw on the line for ...