How
I learned about evil from the war.
How I experienced joy when the war was over.
How Mother made do.
In my romantic and adventure novels, in stories we read or heard at school--we were always being shown ideal, even saintlike behavior. I continued to imagine the best, to live in the best world I could, to love the good, to cling to ideals, even when they were unrealistic and imaginary and projected from my own imagination onto others. I idealized everyone, believed that all people were good. In history I knew there were evil emperors like Diocletian who killed the Christians, and demonic forces like atheistic Communism which tortured innocent people. And there was Satan, behind all the little temptations to lie or steal or talk back to Mother. But suddenly the news began reporting a new evil--the Axis powers, and upon the screen of my imagination there erupted and spread an evil so monstrous that it brought out all my fury of hatred . Where does a ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old find in herself the anger and hatred and fury that I felt for the Germans and the Japanese, whose soldiers I demonized?
I was 10 when the U.S. entered the war in 1941 and 14 when the war ended in 1945. I remember hearing the announcement on the evening news about Pearl Harbor -- Roosevelt announced that a state of war existed between the US and the Empire of Japan. I remember hearing on the radio that Roosevelt had died in 1945. I remember V-E Day and V-J Day, and the joy I felt that it was all over.
Although we didn't fear invasion, the wholesale war effort --all the things we did without "for the duration"-- involved the whole family. Gone were our sweets and meats. Sugar, butter (margerine was invented as a substitute), rubber, leather, gasoline, meat (spam was discovered-our lunches included it), shoes, even eggs, were all rationed. Mother felt challenged by the rationing to come up with special substitutes.Her ingenuity was stretched to provide us with substitutes for the bacon and egg breakfasts and meat dinners we were accustomed to. She used to save up our meat coupons to give us Sunday roast or chicken. Our combined sugar coupons allowed us to make fudge or chocolate chip cookies on Saturday evenings. . Oddly, I remember these treats as a benefit of the war to our family. Mother tried to be fair, using her shoe coupons for the one of us who truly needed new shoes. Hardship had a way of evening out the suffering and equalizing the favors. These were special times of family togetherness, watching the pan of chocolate hardening into fudge, making the cookies. I don't remember as many arguments, and there was always the consciousness of something appalling going on in Europe and the Pacific. Dad's architectural practise was interrupted, and he went to work every day as an engineer at the Sunflower Ordinance Plant in Emporia, Kansas, using his gasoline ration coupons for the long drive. Life became scheduled, prescribed, rationed, -- a few days a week when we could go for a drive, or bake cookies, or have meat.
Pleasures were rationed to one day a week when we could go for a drive, or bake cookies, or have meat. I accepted the austerities war imposed upon us. Others needed the sugar or meat or eggs more than I. They went "for the war effort." I could do without them, "for the duration." Rationing became normal life; life was curtailed, there weren't goods to spare. Whoever needed something most should get it. I didn't expect life to offer more. I was not disappointed in later life to find myself in situations where scarcity was the norm. One had to be inventive to squeeze more out of less;
When I went away to St. Mary's College, the prescribed, scheduled and rationed life continued: prayers were every evening after supper; we had to sign out to go off campus. We wore our uniforms until they fell apart. Scarcity was the norm. I had to work at getting more out of less. In the convent again everything was rationed and scheduled; one had to ask permission to get even a new tube of toothpaste. When I left the convent, I was shocked by the easy availability of everything, and the waste. It took me a while to get used to abundance.
Of course, our imaginations were not deprived. We still enjoyed books, movies, movie magazines, and daily radio shows--Jack Benny, Terry and the Pirates, Jack Armstrong, Stella Dallas, Let's Pretend, The Shadow. But the upbeat content of these could not change the fact that we seemed to be losing the war.
After our Saturday morning chores, we were given our allowance of fifty cents and walked over to the 1 p.m. matinee at the Brookside Theater. Each week the movie, cartoon, Movitone Newsreel, and sometimes serial changed. There was only one screen. Sometimes there was a double feature! Basically we went to an adult movie every Saturday. Disney movies were just beginning to come out--one a year. . Only the cartoons were really aimed just at us. But new war movies came out every Saturday and there were no ratings yet to keep us out. There we saw the weeks worth of battles in Germany and the Pacific. We didn't read the papers, but the newsreel showed bombs exploding, cities destroyed, smoldering, leaders meeting. Maps showed the progress of the allies and the battle lines. Names became familiar: Bradley, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton, Churchhill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Montgomery; Hitler, Mussolini, Hierohito and Tojo-Goerring, Goebbels, Rommel. Place names became familiar: Anzio, North Africa, Guadalcanal, Bataan, Midway, The Rhine, the Ruhr, Cologne, Coventry.
How movies made the war seem real to me.
Even more than the
newsreels, the war movies, brought the war home to me. The movies could
recreate what the news couldn't-behind the scenes looks at the enemy and
at the allies. In the movies I felt what it was like to be in a fighter
pursued by enemy fighters. Since the war was still going on, I didn't
see how we could win against Japanese pilots ready to divebomb on battleships.
I exulted in every enemy plane that was shot down.
After A Yank in the RAF (1941) introduced me to the British fliers in
their Spitfires became my heroes. He The American soldier's cocky, upbeat
spirit was engaging, but the Brit's sophistication and wit appealed to
me. Through my brother's drawings and model airplanes, we knew about the
Spitfire, (as well as the Zero with the rising sun, the Messerschmidt
with its cross).We became familiar with the American planes like the B52
flying fortress, and with squadrons like the Flying Tigers, B-25, B-29.
There was a glamour about those planes that modern planes have lost..
Since then I haven't liked war movies, but as a youngster I watched them absolutely mesmerized. I remember hating the Germans, and even the Japanese. My hate and anger were so strong that I remember praying for God to damn the Japanese.
When I left the movie
theater and came out into the bright daylight, I brought the war and my
fantasies with me. I imagined I was the American or British fighter pilot
shot down over Germany; or hiding in the foxhole on Guam or in the jungles
of Burma, looking our for the Japanese. I looked around to see who was
following me.
In our neighborhood we made jokes about Hitler and sang a popular song: "When der Fuhrer says 'Ve is der master race,' we Heil, Heil, right
in der Fuhrer's face," making the salute and holding our a finger
over our lip. A few older boys in our neighborhood went to war. One, Jim
Griffin, was killed when his plane was shot down over Germany.
How I developed a philophy of scarcity and saved for a rainy day.
How I found the Chinese congenial.
In China I found the Chinese congenial. We had the same philosophy. They too expected to do without. They know the standard minimum allotment meted out was very small. To them life is difficult and therefore, everything seems to matter more; the simplest thing takes on a meaning. That meaning, that more is what I seek in life too, because life has always seemed and been difficult for me, and I have chosen a difficult life over an easy one, knowing that I would get more from it. Putting meaning into my life is my chief preoccupation. I always remember the negatives, what I have been through. The positives, while I may grasp at them, float to the bottom of my memory pool and the negatives remain to be strained out and understood.