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BACK THEN by Archie P. McDonald  Some time ago management at Red River Radio, a National Public Radio-affiliated network with headquarters in Shreveport that broadcasts to Louisiana, East Texas, southern Arkansas, a smidgen of Oklahoma and Mississippi, and as the announcer says, “streams around the world”—which is internet-ese for the benefit of those whose hair is the color of mine—let me have five minutes of a Friday morning to comment on whatever bemuses me. From the beginning most of these brief pieces addressed the way people lived “back then.” We turned some of those memories into a slender volume with just that title—Back Then—and I understand that State House Press has plenty of them left, in case you are interested. Anyway, here are some samples of the way we lived, Back Then. I got started in November 1935, but real memory commenced a few years later, about World War II time. The first of the “Where were you when…” questions I can answer concerns the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. I had just begun the educational process at Averell Elementary School in Beaumont. That big Philco radio that focused our living room prior to the advent of television told us that war had found us. I remember my grandmother crying softly and the strained countenances of my mother and aunt, though I really did not understand why. The next four years provided more vivid memories of WWII. Do you remember: Ration books issued by the OPA necessary to purchase such commodities as shoes and sugar. No ration stamp, no purchase—at least legally, but of course some unscrupulous individuals participated in a “black market.” The purchase of meat required “red points,” dime-sized red plastic disks that equated to so many points per pound allowed; 29 “A” or “T” stickers in auto or truck windshields, indicating the amount of gasoline allowed for that vehicle. And gasoline cost about 15 cents per gallon; War Bonds, Series “E,” the $18.75 deducted from Daddy’s paycheck that purchased a document worth $25 in ten years, and 30 “Back in the Day”: Reflections on Times Passed War ration book and stamps the little books we school kids filled with a savings stamp every week, ten cents a stamp, until we, too, had helped pay for the war and put a little nest-egg aside. We didn’t care that this was the government ’s way to finance the war and slow inflation, but we did anticipate the agonizingly slow compounding of the interest; V-Mail, or victory mail, letters received from servicemen overseas that had been photographically diminished to lessen the load of hauling so many letters from America’s millions of men in farflung duty stations. And marvel of marvels, traveling all that way without a postage stamp; Scrap drives of everything from rubber—the first—to all metals, newspapers, even animal fat saved from cooking. I remember pulling my wagon door-to-door collecting newspapers for reprocessing, but I don’t remember ever hearing the word “recycling.” I also remember searching for discarded cigarette packages so we could separate what we called “tin foil” used to seal the pack for freshness, roll it into balls, and turn it in. I also remember lines outside stores on the one or two days per week that cigarettes were available for purchase; Blackouts—when the siren sounded, lights were “cut off” and if any had to be illuminated, blankets covered windows lest the airraid warden, usually a neighbor empowered to patrol the area, knocked to issue the warning that we were aiding feared but neverappeared German bombers. What I don’t remember is much complaining about these inconveniences. America had a different vision, then. * * * For a kid, the last day of school seems a thing of joy. This is more social suggestion than a genuine feeling of relief, at least for elementary school scholars who mostly like school and their schoolmates . Still, every year now in May I see youngsters on the news who swarm out of the schools as if they had just been released from a dentist’s chair. I think they stage these escapes for the benefit of TV camera operators who wish they could have the summer off from work. Within days, kids across America will be complaining that “there’s nothing to do.” Back Then 31 Back in time a ways, there was. It was called Vacation Bible School, and...

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