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Table of Contents
15. The Library14. The El Rey Theater13. Chickens12. The Calf that Peed11. Alcatraz10. Victory Garden09. Grocery Shopping08. Rationing07. We Move to Walnut Creek06. The Enemy05. Pearl Harbor04. Kindergarten03. Gassing the Car02. Aunt Jerry’s Stove01. Milking the Cow The Library / … Continue reading
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15 The Library
I always went with Mom when she shopped for groceries. Usually while she was in the El Rey market I’d go to the library. It was on the corner just across the street. The library was a place of enchantment. … Continue reading
14 The El Rey Theater
The El Rey Theater took on a timeless quality. It had always been there. It would go endlessly on, before the war began and after it would end. I spent either Saturday or Sunday there–sometimes both! With luck it became … Continue reading
Posted in childhood, Uncategorized, World War II
Tagged films, John wayne, movies, Walt Disney, war movies, WW2, WWII
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13 Chickens
For various reasons, chickens became extraordinarily important. Not long after we moved in that spring, Dad and Mom bought two dozen baby chicks. They put a large cardboard box on the floor of the little shed attached to the house. … Continue reading
Posted in chickens, childhood, humor, Uncategorized, World War II
Tagged baby chicks, flower pot
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12 The Calf That Peed
Dad soon realized a way to expand our rationing coupons for gas and tires and such. He found and bought a Buick as a second car. I think it was a Buick. It was old and tired and rusted. … Continue reading
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11 Alcatraz
Over time a complicated family economy came into being. It didn’t really “develop.” More than anything it simply seemed to happen. It began with the chickens. As soon as they were big enough, we began to eat the roosters. We … Continue reading
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Tagged Alcatraz, eggs, electric train, mobility, nudity, rationing, Sally Rand, Worlds Fair
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10 Victory Garden
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. … Continue reading
09 Grocery Shopping
It never occurred to me to question the fact that the same building housed the El Rey Movie Theater and the El Rey Grocery Store. It seemed part of the natural order of things. I never wondered where the name … Continue reading
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08 Rationing
As a child I accepted the world as “given.” It is the way it was because that’s the way it was. That’s how I related to the world in which I found myself. I was on the “home front.” I … Continue reading
07 We Move to Walnut Creek
Mom and Dad’s response to Pearl Harbor was amazingly swift. Fear haunted the house on 11th Avenue. Fear of a followup attack by the Japanese. By the spring of 1942 they’d sold the house in Oakland and bought a lot in Walnut … Continue reading
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