Pearl Harbor Day

This is the day when America was forced into WWII...and my grandmother's birthday.  My dad served in the Army.  He drafted when he was 30plus with two little girls..he could have gotten a deferment but felt an obligation to serve.  I don't remember his leaving..I was two when he left and he came home right around the time I turned five.  He was probably home on leave before he was shipped overseas...the European campaign...but I don't remember that either.  I do remember when he came home...my mom borrowed my grandma's car (we didn't have a car while he was gone; we walked everywhere and milk and groceries were delivered back then) and drove to St. Louis to get him.  When he came home, he was in uniform; we lived just two houses down from where my big sister was in school...second grade.  Daddy lifted me up on his shoulders and we walked down to get Judy at school.  The kids were all out for recess and started shouting.."your dad is home!" We walked up the stairs of the school to go tell her teacher that we were taking Judy home early.

My memory from that date on is very vague until I was starting first grade a year later.  I know we still lived in a small, one bedroom apartment for that time period; I think Judy and I slept on a pull out couch in the living room.  So I think I blocked out that time because this strange man had displaced me...mom, Judy and I had all slept together in the bedroom before then!

I do remember a trip to St. Louis...that was the largest city near our little town in Illinois...and I remember riding the escalator...the magic stairway!  Escalators were very new then...a friend of my mom's gave me a  book entitled "The Magic Stairway" which is about a department store with an escalator...I still have it...a real antique now as it would be nearly 65 years old!!!

Tomorrow is Kathleen's surgery...hard to think of anything else for now.  We are all on schedule for getting Colin where he needs to be...school, home, swim practice.

I am loving the new computer but have a lot to learn...nothing like windows at all!!!  I have downloaded some pictures, but haven't figured out how to post them here.  Will need a little daughter tutorial on that process, I think!!