Mamma would take meat, and somehow render down the fat from it and then pour it into an empty Spry can . Spry was a brand of shortening that Mamma used to make her oh, so good cakes, turnovers and pies .
Anyway, once it was filled with fat, she would take it to one of the local stores, and get a few cents for it. Then she'd start filling another can. This was used somehow by the military, and they needed a lot of it. Both she and Daddy saved whatever they could, like the balls of string and newspapers and aluminum foil from cigarette packs, and maybe even the foil from chewing gum packs, and get money from that. Those items, I believe, also went into the war effort.
Scrap iron, and copper and aluminum and steel, too, I think, were used to help the war effort.
Movie stars would stage 'Bond Rallies' , where they would go to certain locations, and start calling out to people walking by, and to those folks who started milling around the stars, to buy 'War Bonds' . I think they were savings bonds, but since any money raised was to be used for the military, they were called 'War Bonds' . Someone even wrote a song for that, which I can still sing today. It went like this ;
Any bonds today ?
Bonds of freedom
Is what we're selling,
Any bonds today ?
Scrape up the most you can;
Here comes the freedom man
Asking you to buy
A share of freedom
Today !
I used to walk around singing that, and another song of the times, called 'Hi, Neighbor'.
It went like this;
Hi neighbor, hi, neighbor,
Whaddya know and whaddya say ?
Hi, neighbor, hi, neighbor,
Throw all your troubles away.
Come on and shake my hand
And let a grin do the rest
It makes you feel so grand
to get your chin off your chest.
I'm shouting Hi, neighbor, my neighbor
Time to stay ( play) and say Hi !
School kids were encouraged to bring money to school to buy bonds...we never had any money, so we couldn't buy any bonds. But we kids did what we could, picking up pieces of metal, and foil and whatever, so we felt we were doing our share.
Lots of movies were made during the war years, most of them were geared to keeping up our morale, b/c we were very afraid, not only that our 'boys' could get killed over there in Germany, France, Japan and the Phillipines, but that we, at home might be attacked . Many people, including some older kids learned to identify enemy planes (and our own, of course),
and they would go up on the rooftops with binoculars, and watch for any enemy airplanes that might come. They were called 'Spotters' , and they were very much needed.
Those of us who stayed in our homes most of the time, except for work and school, had to put up thick, black drapes on our windows, to hide any light, which would make it easier for the enemy to see where to bomb. We had air-raid sirens, that went off at certain times just for drills, practice, to keep them at the ready for use if it was thought that we were under attack . I hated the sound of those sirens going off, especially when there was a false alarm, to scare us out of our wits ! There were also people designated as 'Air-raid Wardens', and they were given territory to walk around, patrolling for any lights showing. Our warden was a family friend, Louie West, a great guy, whom we all loved. He would be patrolling our street, Maywood, and look up when he saw our family friend light a cigarette. That was a n0-no, too, anything that
shone any kind of light, and Louie would holler up to him...'Douse that light' ! and the cigarette would be either put out, or the friend would go and smoke it where there were no windows.
Those were scary times, especially for us kids, but those movies, when we could go, helped allay our fears, albeit briefly. And, of course, having Mamma to give us hugs and hold us close when we were too scared, helped a lot. I remember feeling safe in her arms.
This is as good a place to stop, as any, so I'll pick it up again tomorrow .
I hope you like this stuff about WWII. It's history, and I lived it.
Until tomorrow, then.
D
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