My Life and Thoughts

The experience on Granddad’s farm ended as suddenly as it began, and the next thing I remember is when we were on a train heading out West to rejoin Dad and Mom. By modern standards, I suppose the idea of sending two kids, six and eight years old, alone on a cross-country train trip would be considered parental negligence, but the world was different then and nobody seemed to be concerned about it. That train ride made a big impression on me and I am sure it contributed to my life-long interest in traveling to faraway places. The train stopped in many towns and this allowed us to get off and run around for a while. Passengers were coming and going but, at some point in the trip, the train essentially filled up with military personnel, mostly soldiers. I imagine many of those men were marines who were heading to the West coast where they would be shipped out to fight in the Pacific. They seemed to like my sister and me because many stopped to talk to us. Although many details have faded, my remaining memory of the trip is very positive. I don’t remember anything about how we finally made our way to wherever it was our parents collected us but everything worked out somehow. My next vivid memory concerns a winter day somewhere in Nevada. I woke up early one morning with a sore throat (and I got those a lot when I was a kid). When my mother came into the room that morning, to get me up for school, I told her how awful I felt and she became convinced that I should stay home and stay in bed. She told me that it looked like a major storm might be blowing in from the north, and the snow fall had already begun, so I should be sure to stay inside and in bed. For the first couple of hours, I was really happy to be home and snug in my bed, but I had noticed that the wind had increased. It got stronger and stronger, to the point where the howling turned into screaming, and the house began to vibrate against the force of the wind. By early afternoon, I became scared and began to imagine that someone was trying to break into the house, or alternately that someone was hiding under the bed and would grab me if I tried to get out of bed. The storm was relentless, but all I can remember now is that howling wind and the fear that gripped me as I stayed in bed with the covers pulled over my head. Although I don’t remember the exact year, I know we were back in Arizona before the end of the war. I distinctly remember a small cross-roads community where there was a saloon, a small grocery store and some scattered shacks, and we lived in one of those one-room shacks. My Dad always went to the saloon every night, at least as I remember it, and that was a pretty rough and ready place. The war was ongoing; the men were poor, young, and prideful; so once some alcohol was added to the mix, a fight was almost certain to break out. One of my Dad’s brothers, Frank, visited during that period and he was apparently the tough-guy type who was just as happy to fight as he was to talk. Nevertheless, he was a favorite with the women; at least he claimed to be. He had been discharged from the Army and spent some time in Leavenworth for killing a man with a stool in a bar fight. It must have been late 1944 because I remember Uncle Frank talking about President Roosevelt. At the time, there was a very popular advertisement for a brand of cigarettes known as Lucky Strikes, and the advertising slogan became well known as LSMFT, which meant “Lucky Strikes Mean Fine Tobacco.” Uncle Frank said that LSMFT meant “Listen Sucker My Fourth Term” because President Roosevelt had recently been elected for the fourth time. Because of Roosevelt, future presidents were limited to two terms, by constitutional amendment.