THE MESSENGER OF WORLD WAR II

I am proud to have been in the service of my country during World War II as a MESSENGER in the Civil Defense Corp. (CDC). Dad was the Warden Captain in our area of Arlington, VA. That may be why I got the job, but I like to think it was because of my bravery at night on my bike. I must admit I was armed with my big slingshot, the one that propelled large rocks, bolts, aggie size marbles, and five-eighth inch nuts, and my white pearl handled cap pistol. In 1941, I was 12 years old. I was large for my age. Under Dad there were block wardens for several blocks around. My job was to ride my bike from one to the other when needed and to take the official report to Arlington County Courthouse where the CDC office was located.

The CDC members were issued of a WW1 steel helmet painted white. It had a CDC insignia with the job description lettered under it: Captain Warden, Warden, and Messenger. We also had a white armband with the same insignia and title as the helmet. I thought that if my head got blown off, they could tell who I was by the armband. We also got a flashlight with a yellow lens only used if we encountered a car driving toward us without lights.

I remember the first trip to the courthouse as being exciting. There I was, riding down Wilson Boulevard all by myself alone in the dark in the middle of the road with that humongous and stupid steel helmet on my head going to the central command of CDC at the Courthouse to give the report. I did find the office easily and then the trip back up the middle of the road all the way I never saw another person, car or light a very eerie feeling. I was glad I was armed.

When the air raid horns went off, you were to go inside and turn off the lights if you did not have blackout curtains. If you were caught out in a car you had to pull over turn off the engine and lights and wait for the all clear. Our job was to go throughout the neighborhood during the air raid drills to see if we saw any lights. If one were found the offender was told and it was fixed. Everyone took the blackout very seriously, and the sky over the US mainland was dark. With the reduction of civilian use of electricity, more was diverted to the war industry.

We civilian Americans were on constant alert for the enemy, and there was a mandatory blackout all along the coasts both Atlantic and Pacific. All major cities throughout the nation had to turn off their lights on all stores and buildings. All streetlights had to have reflectors to keep the light down. Houses had to have shades down or curtains drawn on all windows. No outside lights could be on unless they were reflected down. Even the cars had to drive with lights off in lighted areas and never put on hi-beams. There was a good reason for the national blackout. The Germans put their subs along the coasts and with the land glowing in light any dark ships could easily be seen against the light. They sank a lot of ships before Chicago went dark. We also expected the Germans to shell the coast and there was a possibility of bombing. Germany did land spies and saboteurs by submarines along the coast in North Carolina, but local townspeople and shore patrols caught them immediately. A lone Japanese sub once did fire a few shells at California’s West Coast and, if I remember correctly, they shelled uninhabited land. This incident went unknown until years after the war had ended.

The blackouts continued till the war was ended. They changed the sending of messengers after a few kids got into accidents on the way to the Courthouse. I guess the steel helmets tipped them off their bikes, or their armbands were too tight and the blood stopped flowing and they got gangrene in their fingers and died. More likely their mothers complained and said their kid was to young too go into battle.

Air raid alerts were few after we sank most of the Krout and Jap subs and the war turned in our favor. The emergency horns used for the alerts were retired to the junk heap of history in 1994. From 1941 until 1994 those horns sounded everyday at noon.

Checkout http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=11 and notice how the news media has changed since WW2. Not reporting news saved lives.

PRICE OF BEAUTY

Really TORTURE before World War 2

Once upon a time in a country far away in a time without air conditioning, pantyhose and mass transit, women wore body corsets. I had no idea why they did but they did. As a small boy I remember a woman, known as a corsetiere, coming to my house to measure mother for a new corset. I also remember corsets hanging on the line drying after being washed and they were ugly to see and they were even worse to wear, I was sure. Mother wasn’t fat; she was mother. Boys don’t compare mothers, only fathers.

Corsets were made out of a very tight woven skin-color material that was held together by thousands of little hook and eyes in the back. About every three inches a stave, called whalebone, was sewn in from top to bottom to make it even stiffer. It probably was real whalebone in those days. Around the bottom of the garment were elastic ribbons hang-me-downs with stocking hooks attached to hold up silk stockings. A full bra was included in this instrument of torture.

All the mommas I knew wore corsets. A body hug by those mommas could break a small boy’s bones and take the skin off your cheeks if you were squashed into a bone stave. It was a little like hugging a knight in armor without the iron gloves. Some of the mommas had rolls of chub pushed out the top that made it impossible to get their arms down by their sides so they always had their arms in front with hands held to push the chub roll to the back. A little like a basketball under each arm.

I never saw anyone getting into one of those monsters and even now I can’t picture how it was accomplished. Surely it required a very strong person to hook it all up under such extreme tension caused by applying a small garment to a larger person.

Summer heat waves were the test for survival of the fittest. Those were the days when women fainted with regularity, and smelling salts were in everyone’s medicine chest and purses. On those hot days, Mother would come home from work on a hot bus after a hot days work in a hot temporary building located on Independence Avenue in DC. Mother was exhausted to the point of being sick. The first thing she did was to go directly to the bedroom and take off that girdle. She would have a full body rash that itched and she was miserable. She took a cool bath and then put powder on the rash to prepare for a repeat the next hot day. All summer long women put on that body armor and ventured out into the heat of the day to suffer just to look thinner than they were. Even Englishmen and dogs didn’t go out in the noonday sun on a hot day.

One of the benefits of World War 2 was the end of girdles.
“Rosie the Riveter” couldn’t wear a girdle on the assembly line. When those mommas would lean over or stretch, the chub would be pulled out from under the girdle and never go back on its own. (You think your life is hard?)

The rubber used in making girdles went to the war effort. I have given it a lot of thought, and my conclusion is that the corset garment industry made parachutes out of that tightly woven material. I do remember mother was happy not to wear a corset again. The silk stockings went to war also. No stockings and no girdles equaled bigger size dresses all around.

The next garment of torture, with the advent of nylons after World War 2, was the garter belt and panty girdle to hold them up. The belt was very simple. It consisted of a thin waist belt with the elastic hang-me-downs and clips at the ten, two and six o’clock possessions on each leg to hold the stockings in place. The panty girdle was a wide band made from a rubberized parachute material with the hang-me-downs (no staves or hook and loops) that they stepped into and pulled up to cover the hips to the waist. A friendly pat on the bottom could fracture your fingers or even a whole hand! For those too young to remember, panty hose are a new invention and they did away with the need for hang-me-downs.

I check out all the newest Victoria's Secret catalogs to see if any of the above-described garments have made a comeback. To my delight, they haven’t (as of the last catalog). They do advertise a skimpy corset-type thing in black lace, but I am sure it's not intended for street wear.

I will keep checking with Victoria and keep you posted. No reason for you to bother.

YMCA’S CAMP LETTS

When Bud and I were little shavers, we were sent to a basic training camp for city kids for two weeks in August. It was the thing to do to little boy kids in the 1930s. I guess it was a rite of passage or something like that to pry us away from our comfortable homes with flushing toilets and friends just to stick us out in wood cabins with small windows and no door in a dirty, hot and stuffy mosquito and tick-infested woods and open fields on the Chesapeake Bay.

I remember taking Bud to the YMCA building on I Street near 17th Street in Washington, DC, to meet the bus for Camp Letts. Mother cried as he got on that big bus for his two weeks at camp. I was sure I would never see him again, but he was happy going. He had to write one letter home a week (camp rules) and Mother wrote him every day. In those days mail only took one day to deliver. Two weeks later we met him at the same spot. Bud loved Camp Letts with a passion. He just glowed with anticipation for the next year. Canoes, swimming, camp fires, spooky stories at night, Guitar sing-a-longs, water fights, crafts, hiking in the woods, lots of new friends-but most of all he had no one to tell him to slow down, take a break, stay out of the sun, and the like. He could just run all day long and collapse at night. Then get up early the next morning and do it again. Brother Bud talked all year about his two weeks of fun and had a lot of real neat projects to show. I liked the woven neck lanyard with the hook on the end and the Indian bead bookmark with his initials, P.R.R. in red in the center.

The next summer I would be going with Bud to Camp Letts. There was an age limit of some kind, probably two or three years old at the minimum. I wasn’t sure if Bud could be trusted with his enthusiasm or had he given me a line of dribble. He was very good at getting me into trouble and well over my head on many occasions by his enthusiasm. I didn’t trust him.

Next summer soon arrived like an arrow shot from a bow. I was always shocked how slow school months passed but summer was a blink. We were loaded into the car for the trip to the bus pickup on a Saturday morning that was going to be hot and humid. That bus was the biggest bus I had ever seen and Bud was really excited, but I was apprehensive or maybe better described as fearful about this whole deal. I had never been away from home alone before. Being older Bud didn’t even sit with me on the bus but found a friend from last year right away and forgot little brother then and there.

We arrived at camp before noon since the busses would take back those campers whose time was up. I thought I might just get back on the bus and go home, but they scooted us off to the mess tent for the dividing into pre-selected cabins by age. That was the last time I remembered seeing Bud except every now and then I got a glimpse of a white headed flash going through camp.

We met our cabin counselor and I liked him immediately and he liked us. We unloaded our suitcases and went to lunch. I don’t remember how the food tasted but it must have been OK or I would have remembered. We were kept in groups by cabin mates for all activities and we were busy doing all kinds of wonderful things. I started my lanyard with a hook in the craft tent, and we swam with the crabs and nettles every afternoon. As usual I got sunburned the first day and spent the next few days in the shade of the craft tent making my lanyard.

The campfire at night was just as Bud had said and the stories and songs were fun too. Each night we had to cold-water shower with soap and stripped for our counselor to search us for ticks with a flashlight. That took a little getting used to but our counselor was quick and thorough and didn’t laugh. We found so many ticks in bed with us, so we would check our beds before getting in. No one needed to be rocked to sleep at night.

I wanted to go in a canoe, but we were too young. The older boys talked about going to the YWCA camp across the river by canoe at night. Our counselor and some of the others had girl friends in that camp, so they crossed over every night after visiting hours. I had no idea why they would want to do that. The older boys had more things to do than us little kids. They even had horses to ride and could go fishing in the Bay.

All of a sudden, it was Sunday and we had to dress in clean shorts and shirt for the sunrise Church service at the Chapel. The Chapel consisted of a clearing in the pinewoods with a tall wood cross. I don’t remember any more about that service. Sunday lunch was the last meal for the day in the mess tent. Sunday night we would cook our hot dogs on sticks at the campfire. I was having fun and was sorry the first week was finished.

The next event that I remember was waking up in the medical cabin with big screen windows that looked out into a pinewoods. I felt terrible and wanted to go home. I remember Bud coming to see me and I was really glad to see him, but he wasn’t Mom and Dad. I think I had a case of food poisoning. All I knew was I had chills that wouldn’t quit and I really didn’t care where I was, who I was or if I was. I was very confused about the whole thing but wanted them to close the windows so I could get warm. My fun camp stopped in that medical cabin. I soon was so sick I didn’t care if Mom and Dad came or not.

The third day I awoke with Bud by my bed and he said Mother and Dad were on their way to take us home. He had gotten all our stuff together and we were ready to go. I should just hang on a little longer. I really didn’t care one way or the other at that stage. Dad arrived and he was hot to trot to think they had not called sooner. I had seen Dad mad to the point of outrage only a very few times and that was one of his best. That speech of Dad’s while he carried me to the car got my attention as sick as I was and I remember thinking that I was glad it wasn’t me he was talking too. The whole camp knew my Dad that day.

I have no idea what caused my illness or even what it was, but I do know I was one sick pup. I was glad to be in my own bed and out of those piney woods. When I started to get better I couldn’t find my neck lanyard with the hook. I had not finished it at camp but brother Bud had finished it while I was recuperating. It was beautiful but I didn’t have time to make my Indian bead bookmark with my initials. Dad found a Boy Scout Indian bead kit with a frame and millions of beads as a present for us. Bud and I made bookmarks for everyone in the family for Christmas presents.

Bud said he had tried to call home the first day, but they told him I would be fine in a day or two. There was a rule at camp: no phone calls home. He checked on me four times a day but I was never awake. He got so worried about me that he threatened the Director with walking out of camp to phone home.

The next summer nothing was said about going to Camp Letts and that was fine with Bud and me.

ps.
www.campletts.org

I may apply next year. I see they are coed 8-16. No need to cross over in canoes late at night after TAPS. Hummmm? The world has changed since my pup days.
Is this progress??

THE UGLIEST OF THINGS

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." —John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

HOME CURES

Phenol Sodique was a patent medicine that cured everything from cuts, infections, fungus, sunburn, dandruff, earaches, acne, and any other problem with the exterior of the human body. It came in liquid or powder and was sold in every local drug store. A drug company in Pennsylvania manufactured it and had gold medals printed right on the label from the Royal Court of England and the 1900 Worlds Fair in Paris. We knew it had to be good with medals on the label. Dad said it was a miracle cure, as did the Pennsylvania Aunts and Uncles. We mixed it 50/50 with water for a mild demand like small cuts and scrapes but full strength when there was an infection like gangrene.

We used it by the gallon and the powder by the pound in our house while growing toward adulthood. I preferred the powder for knife cuts while I learned to use a pocketknife. I got quite good at fixing my fingers in those growing years. Gauze and adhesive tape were all there was before Band-Aids were invented. It was a lot more difficult than peeling of today’s Band-Aid. One had to cut the adhesive tape, cut and fold gauze, put on the powder and then put it all on a cut finger without bleeding to death or getting blood all over the bathroom. Phenol Sodique power was so good at healing a wound without pain that I use to put it on a cut, sit down and watch the cut heal before my eyes. Dad had an ax slip off a frozen log and hit himself in his right shin. The ax cut though his boot to the bone. I never saw so much blood. He drove himself home for the Phenol Sodique and did his own repairs. It was deep and long for my young eyes. Mother wanted him to get stitches but he said it would do just fine with a wet bandage of Phenol Sodique. The deep cuts took a little longer to heal.

I had an ingrown toenail removed in the sixties and the doctor could not get it to heal with exotic salves and drugs. He said he would have to open it up to get the infection if it didn’t heal by the next week. He gave me a prescription of a new salve to try. I went home to use Phenol Sodique and in two days it was well. I never told him about our four gold medal cure-all.

The FDA decided to wipe out the patent medicines from drug stores by requiring the manufacturers to provide documentation of test results to ship across state lines. Phenol was proven to cause cancer in rats if they swam more than ten laps in the stuff. I have been sorry I didn’t get a 55-gallon drum of it before the deadline. We now have to use BFI powder, which cures cuts without pain almost as fast. BFI doesn’t have four GOLD MEDLES from The Royal Court of England and the 1900 Worlds Fair.

Brother Bud and I never had whooping cough, which was a killer of small children until a vaccine was discovered. We were put through an old Pennsylvania Dutch preventative ritual. On a night of a full moon you stand a kid with his or her back against a maple tree, bore a hole in at the height of the kid, cut a lock of hair, stuff it in the hole, plug up the hole, and when the kid grows above the hole he or she will not get whooping cough. It works because not one in our Pennsylvania Dutch family got whooping cough did we?

To remove warts on my hand and my leg, Dad put the sap of milkweed on them and gave instructions not to wash for 24 hours. I got out of a bath and washing dishes that night. In two days the warts had gone to wart heaven.

Dad had the best cures. Mother’s cures consisted of castor oil, rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, and her two favorites were Milk-of-Magnesia and Vicks VaporRub. When brother Bud and I got flu or colds, we were rubbed raw on the back and chest with Vicks. An old sheet was placed over the raw skin and Vicks which stuck to the body like glue, then came the pajamas, then in under the covers with the nose under to inhale the fumes. After we were in bed the windows were opened to freeze us as we slept so we wouldn’t get TB. All night long we were stuck to the sheets and even the bed. One didn't take baths until one was well so we could be Vicksed for days with the flu. It’s a wonder we lived through childhood.

Our two oldest girls got the treatment while my mom was keeper of the flock during the funeral of Shirl’s Dad. We found them all stuck by Vicks to a ripped bed sheet under their pajamas. Their long hair matted and smeared sticky to their faces. They looked like they had been sick a long time and near death. We thanked mom for taking good care of them. Took them home to scrape off the Vicks and put them in a hot bath to soak and a shampoo. The girls were happy to get rid the Vicks. The next morning, after a nights sleep in a clean bed, they were well and feeling great. I am sure the girls, as we never used Vicks in our houses for flu and colds for kids. I'd rather be sick than go the Vicks rout. BUT Vicks will cure toenail fungus. It's better than losing a kidney using the prescription drug Lamisil being advertised on TV every night during dinner hour showing the ugly little critter lifting a toenail before your eyes. Just keep rubbing Vicks on the affected toe until the new toenail grows in. May take months or years depending on how fast your toenails grow. But you will have your kidneys.


Hot tea bags placed on the eyes cure sinus and allergy problems in a matter of minutes. In our previous life before retirement, our next-door neighbor, John was sitting on his front step looking like a lost man with a stuffy nose undergoing a sinus attack. He had been on prescription drugs for a few days with no relief. Shirl told him to put hot tea bags on his eyes, and within an hour he was back looking his finest with clear sinuses and thought Shirl was a miracle worker. He was right Shirl is just that?

Vicks will cure that fungus under toenails. Just rub some on the affected nail and keep at it until a new nail grows out. May take a few months but you don’t have to take Lamisil that has a tendency to destroy your kidneys.

Think you have gone through a poison ivy or oak patch or have athlete’s foot? Then we get to use the Clorox. Wipe the skin with Clorox and soak the feet in a strong solution and violá all is well. It will sting open scratches but will definitely remove the itch and the area will be clean for the Phenol Sodique.

There were many more cures in those days, and I haven’t ever mentioned WD-40.