The Civilian War Years

Discussion in 'Travel & Vacation' started by Lon Tanner, Dec 7, 2019.

  1. Lon Tanner

    Lon Tanner Supreme Member
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    #16
  2. Holly Saunders

    Holly Saunders Supreme Member
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    thanks for that Lon...shame they don't seem to be as well tended as we do with our American war cemeteries here .. :(


    btw did you see my last link ?
     
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  3. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    I was 8 yrs. old and had to come in from playing outside because we were at war. In NJ, I looked all around and asked my father, "where?" Well, I was given a lesson in geography, I'll never forget and I've loved map reading ever since.
     
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  4. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    A Day that will live in Infamy.

    But now the Germans and Japanese are our friends and allies. All that will soon be ancient history, as it should be. We can't keep hating a peoples because of what their ancestors did. That is like black people hating all white people because their ancestors were slaves owned by white people. It just doesn't make sense.
     
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  5. Tom Young

    Tom Young Very Well-Known Member
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    How about a "Civilian War Years" thread...WW2... just about what we did, and did without. Like...

    Almost nothing went to the dump... All metal went to scrap... paper and cardboard recycled, and we all had outdoor garbage pails.. (galvanized bucket hanging from the garage corner).All edible waste went there, for Mr. Hickey to dump into his over the shoulder sack and then to the back of his garbage truck. We called it "swill"... and it was ground up an used to feed pigs. Back in the time when the moral conscience would never allow anything bad to go into the garbage.

    We burned all else in a wire burner in the back yard. We also had a "Rag Man" who used a horse drawn trailer. you could hear him three streets away, calling, "EEErayaaaaggs... Mom gave me an apple to feed to the horse, when we knew they were coming. And... a bread man. It was before the age of refrigerators (for us, anyway) and we'd put a little card in the corner of the front window, turned up to show what size ice blocks we needed for our ice box. Big event for us kids, as we'd chase the truck down the road to "steal" ice slivers.... something the iceman would alway manage to accidentally chip off the big blocks.

    Then the coal man... who would lift big baskets of coal, and drop the coal down the window in the basement, to the coal bin. Once in a blue moon, we'd get black anthracite.. the good coal, but being mostly poor, we usually got "coke" ... already burned once in the textile mills in our town.

    And Mr. Andrews... Our insurance man, who didn't have a car, but had customers up and down the streets of our town. Once a month... to collect the $2 payment for my dad's and my own Metropolitan $500 plans. He would always stay for a half hour to talk with my mom.

    Both my dad and my mom worked for the Lorraine Cotton Mills... the biggest employer in the area. Mom was a weaver, and worked days, while my dad was a loomfixer, who worked the night shift. Dad was exempt from the draft, as a civilian who was needed to produce material for the war effort. Later on, he worked for another company making parachutes.

    Remember "saving stamps" ? $.10 every Thursday and when you filled a "book", you got to lead the class in the "Pledge of Allegiance" for a whole week. Gordon Threlfall, led the class, mostly because his family had a little more money, and he would buy two or three "stamps" each week. ..

    Enough now, for starters. :)
     
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  6. Ed Wilson

    Ed Wilson Veteran Member
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    I was born in '42 and I remember all you mentioned but as a kid...coal man, milk man, ice man, rag man etc. Our rag man blew a horn. A farmer came through town in a horse drawn wagon and sold produce off the back. The rag man had a horse drawn wagon as well. Our street was still dirt then. We still had electric street cars to get to the towns up and down Main St. The Saturday movie matinee was 10 cents. My mother gave me 15 cents with the extra 5 cents for candy. My father worked in the mines producing your anthracite and got a job deferment as well. The bread man and insurance man happened to live on our street and were good neighbors. I had saving stamps.
     
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  7. Herb Sutton

    Herb Sutton Very Well-Known Member
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    I was 7 that day when my sister came in and told me "the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. I knew vaguely who the Japs were, but had never heard of Pearl Harbor.

    It was years later that I went to Pearl Harbor. Hawaii was not yet a state, the Arizona memorial had not been built yet.
     
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  8. Lois Winters

    Lois Winters Veteran Member
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    I
    I was 8 and like you, had never heard of Pearl Harbor. I though Hawaii was a foreign country. My father informed me otherwise.
     
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  9. Lon Tanner

    Lon Tanner Supreme Member
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    Paterson sure isn't the same now, but I have fond memories of growing up in Paterson during the 40's.
    I remember being at Hinchcliffe Stadium watching a football game on Sunday December 7th with my dad and cousin when they announced that Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. My cousin was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He reported in and I didn't see him again until 1946 after he had been torpedoed twice and made Full Commander in the Navy. I remember my Paterson Independent news paper route in the primarily Jewish neighborhood where I would turn off or on lights for their Sabbath. And I remember how envious I was of my Jewish friends Bar Mitzvah's, because I would not get one until I turned 13. I remember riding my sled down the snowy hills at East Side Park and riding the bus to downtown to go to the movies. I remember stopping at the Alexander Hamilton Hotel where mom was a cashier at the Sundry Counter and getting some candy to take to the movie. I remember the FBI coming to our home one summer day to follow up on a envelope that I had drawn a Swastika on. I was playing war with some kids in the park and had written a note on the envelope and drew a Swastika. The envelope had our address on it and was addressed to my sister from her husband serving in Italy. It was obvious to most that a kid (me) had written the note but the FBI was following all kinds of leads in those days due to a U Boat sighting off the New Jersey coast. I remember collecting tin foil, cans, bacon grease, pots and pans, and eating SPAM (in a can). Gas and food rationing. Rolling bandages at the local Red Cross Center. I remember going to Greenwood Lake with my best friend whose parents had a cabin there. What a treat to go to Palisades Park, Arcola Pool and Circle Pool. I learned to swim at the Paterson YMCA and was always proud that Lou Costello was from the same town. Those were really fun years for a kid that was to young to go to war but was also very aware of the many that were't coming home.
    I left Paterson with my mother in 1947 and moved to California. I have been back to New Jersey a number of times over the years and though I have these good memories of the 40's I do not miss Paterson.
    [​IMG]
     
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  10. Hedi Mitchell

    Hedi Mitchell Supreme Member
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    Nice story Lon
     
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  11. Herb Sutton

    Herb Sutton Very Well-Known Member
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    I did jury duty in Paterson around 1970. Only time I ever went there. We lived out in the woods at Pinecliff Lake for 5 years, and then we moved to Florida.
     
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  12. Lon Tanner

    Lon Tanner Supreme Member
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    I was watching a football game at Hinchcliffe Stadium in Paterson, New Jersey with my father and cousin who was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We heard the Pearl Harbor announcement on the loud speakers.
    My cousin immediately left for Brooklyn. I never saw him again until 1945 after he had Atlantic and then Pacific Sea Duty and had risen to the rank of Commander.
     
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  13. Shirley Martin

    Shirley Martin Supreme Member
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    A lot of things have changed since then, haven't they?
     
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  14. Bobby Cole

    Bobby Cole Supreme Member
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    I was going to ask you about that Lon and got sidetracked. Thanks.
     
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  15. Mary Miller

    Mary Miller Very Well-Known Member
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    Lon, Isn't it amazing being living history?
     
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