During WWII there were a great number of activities for those of us on the Home Front, by which contributions were made to the war effort giving us the sense of participation, of doing things useful in fighting the war. Some of these activities enabled even children to make their contributions, things like peeling foil from gum and cigarette pack wrappers, rolling it in a ball and turning it in to a scrap metal collection center. I would help grandad flatten tin cans with hammer and anvil for the same purpose. Many children were also turning in metal toys for the war effort, most of which would command a very high price today as “collectibles.”

 Few people today would think about wire clothes hangers being hard to come by, but even such a mundane though utilitarian item was scarce at the time, so grandad made them.

Grandad being a jack of all trades, building our house, the church and grocery store in Little Oklahoma (Southeast Bakersfield) there were construction materials around the place before the war, and having a roll of wire on hand grandad fashioned a jig out of a board and nails, then cutting the wire to the proper length he would twist it around the jig and voila; a wire clothes hanger. Grandad was always doing things like this that made him my idol; grandad could do things, really fascinating and useful things, and he took the time to teach me to do things as well.

In so very many ways those of us living the events of WWII were made to feel useful in the war effort; we were making a contribution to defeat the Axis powers. Rationing was hard on many, but more were making jokes about it than complaining. After all, our boys overseas were fighting and dieing; what were the hardships on the home front compared to that, especially when those small flags with gold stars in the windows of homes in the neighborhood reflected the reality of the ultimate price being paid by so many?

You could depend on the funny papers, The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s Magazine having cartoons about rationing; but very little of poking fun in such a way was of “gallows humor.” Most certainly there was no humor to be found in those fighting and dieing overseas. Any such attempt at humor would have been met with an army of home front folk bearing tar and feathers.

Even Bill Mauldin was sensitive enough to know better than make light of the actual grim realities of what was happening on the front lines, though we all blessed him for the humor he was able to convey through “Willie and Joe” in the face of such grim realities. Which makes it all the more to be wondered why anyone would attempt “humor” in any fashion concerning 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the war Israel is fighting?

Much in the way of the preamble to Gone With The Wind, the way of life in the America of my generation of WWII is quickly passing away never to be seen again, a time of the Greatest Generation of a Norman Rockwell America where people believed in virtue, believed crime did not pay, that honesty was the best policy. These values were taught in the homes and schools throughout that America. We trusted our leaders to have the best interests of America in view at all times in making decisions, passing legislation and making policies; it was a time when the courts had more concern for victims than for criminals, a time when any hint of politicians refusing to secure our borders when America was threatened would have been met by disbelief at the very least and more likely shouts of TREASON!

Notwithstanding the legitimate faults and weaknesses that are to be found, my generation was a time reflecting the values of our Founding Fathers, whom we still held in the highest esteem, still reflecting the best of Christian Western Civilization in our schools and society. Little did We the People realize that even at the time when Kate Smith’s “God Bless America” brought a lump to the throat the America we loved and believed in and sacrificed for was already being sold out and betrayed by the universities and their product politicians.