Food was a central reality during the war.   All of us were urged to plant a Victory Garden.

Over and over we were told we must not be wasteful.

Even Donald Duck urged us on.

In addition to growing food, we were told both to cook with care and to preserve.

Food preservation presented problems.  The house Dad built was very, very small. Although canning was a major undertaking in such close quarters, Mom still managed the first year to put up jars and jars of food.  She soon ran out of space to store them.  In the next years she found a different solution.  She froze food.  We of course did not have a freezer at home.  In Walnut Creek she found a place that rented lockers.  They were in a huge room.  Rows and rows of lockers, some large and some small.  Although we had a small one, Mom managed to put dozens of little freezer boxes of food into it.  Especially string beans.  She’d blanch them in hot water, cool and then pack.  We had string beans for months.

So summers would go.  I’d play my part, grubbing along in the dirt.