Clyde drawing pictures in pencil or crayon: A B-17 Flying Fortress with its bomb bay open. Having learned to whistle. Whistling... “Bombs away!” Bombs falling on the ‘bad guys’: on Germany, on Japan.
A New Road To Woodstock '69
Snippet 17
Woodstock: The iconic American rock festival of the twentieth century
Authors Notation: Other than those that were actually a participating member or members of the Woodstock Festival, all others are fictitious characters and situations created for dramatic effect, and especially at this author’s whim.
Further Notation: I have no intention of repeating my nineteen part Woodstock series as first submitted on Tuesday, July 26, 2022, but digging further into the earlier lives of Sharon and Clyde and her Polish immigrant parents: 'Murray and Sarah Kandinsky and his Irish immigrant parents, Malcolm and Ellen Murphy.
Ellen Murphy and the second of her three shifts of sewing ‘Rosie’s using the last of the five foot long, fifty pound bolts of olive green fabric given her by Corporal Tanner along with a five page requisition for five thousand Army fatigue caps.
“That’s it!” Sixty-three year old Bertha Peabody said, tossing the cap into the large cardboard carton.
About three hundred short of the requisitioned five thousand, but out of material. “So what do we do now?” Asked seventy year old Lucy Hammond.
Studying the requisition and instructional papers given her on December Ninth. “Guess I’d better call.”
“Who?” asked Bertha.
“The only telephone number here seems to be the armory.” Ellen said.
At the time, Captain McLaughlin had issued ‘Ellen’s Hat Boutique’ written instructions for the use of the die machine and sewing instructions for the completion of the finished cap, but nothing about what to do when she runs out of marital or had completed the requisitioned five thousand.
2:28 PM
“Loretta, you think there’s anyone left at the armory that I can talk to?”
“Don’t know, Ellen…” the Loveland ‘Ohio Bell’ switchboard operator said “...since the troops left hardly anyone calls there anymore.”
“Got all these caps I don’t know what to do with.”
Hearing a jumble of background voices within the Loveland Train Depot/U.S. Post Office/Loveland, Ohio Bell Telephone Company and recently, the U.S. Army Recruiting Center.
“Holy Moses…” Loretta said more to herself than to Ellen “...can hardly hear myself think.” Asking, “Want me to put a call in, see who’s there?”
“Yes, please.”
One… two… three… four rings. Answered on the fifth ring. “Yeah, hello…” A sleepy voice said “...’Army’, Cincinnati.”
Sounding anything but military like. “Who am I speaking to?”
“Bush.”
“ ‘Bush’?” Ellen questioned.
“Yeah, private Joel Bush!” belligerently asked. “How can I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to someone in authority.”
“What for?”
“What do you mean ’what for’ ‘private’. Is there an officer there?”
“Yeah, I guess. Hold on!” Leaving the room and walking four doors down. Not knowing if he might have female company with him. Pounding the door three times.
“Yeah? What the fuck you pounding for?”
Opening the door, stepping into an empty room smelling of rectal gas.
Got a broad on the phone, wants to talk to who's ever in charge here. Guess that meas you, huh?”
“Yeah. Guess so.” Hitching his trousers to above his waist, following private Bush down the hallway. “Yeah, hello! Corporal Kline here.”
“You the officer in charge there?”
“Lady, it’s only me and Bush here.” Tightening his buttocks to hold the gas back. “What can I do for you?”
Looking at Joel, shrugging his shoulders, corporal Kline farted.
Knowing this person knew nothing and possibly would be of no help whatsoever. “It’s about the caps.”
“ ‘Caps’? What caps?”
“Here…” Ellen said “...I’ve a requisition from a Captain McLaughlin for five thousand fatigue caps dated December nine, nineteen forty-one. But we’ve made only forty seven hundred before we ran out of material and want to know what to do with them.”
“Don’t know nothing about no fatigue caps, but…” thinking, Gotta shit! “...give your number to private Bush here, and we’ll look into it, and get back to you.” Shoving the phone into Joel Bush’s hand, Kline took off for the nearest toilet.
“Yeah, okay, lady…” reaching for a pencil and the pad of paper on the desk “… first thing, whats your name?”
“ ‘Ellen Murphy’.” Thinking this a really stupid person. “M-u-r-p-h-y.”
What a bitch! “Your phone number?”
Issued her own phone when ordered into the hat project. “ ‘ Five-Nine-Seven-Five’.”
“So, what’s the problem lady?”
Annoyed at this young punks attitude. “My problem is that the U.S. Army had me make five thousand of your fatigue caps, and me and a lot of women here have been working on it for four months and now don’t know what to do with them… That’s ‘my problem’, ‘private’.”
Shove ‘em up your ass! “Okay…” private Bush said “… ‘Murphy’…” sarcastically “…M-U-R-P-h-Y! Telephone 5975! Right?”
Holding her temper. “Yes.”
“I’ve got it all down and will get it to someone that’ll help you, that’ll get back to you later.”
“Thank you!” Ellen Murphy broke the connection to the all but abandoned Cincinnati National Guard armory.
In the all but abandoned Cincinnati National Guard armory, shrugging his shoulders, crumpling the sheet of paper, private Joel Bush tossed it into the waste paper basket.
5/21/42
9:24 AM
“Loretta, any one else you can think of for me to call?”
“No word from them yet, huh?”
Tired of waiting. Wanting to be rid of, and out of her forced fatigue cap manufacturing requirement. “No, Nothing!”
“Want I should ring the armory again?”
“Would you two stop that!” Grabbing Clyde’s arm as he chased Sharon around his mother.
Annoyed at even the thought of having to speak to either of those two idiots left behind to watch the armory. “Yeah, guess so.” Ellen reluctantly said.
Plugging into the switchboard, Loretta dialed a number.. Coming back to Ellen. “Number’s been shut down. Guess they’ve closed it.”
Morning sunshine streaming through the window. Turning her back.“Any other ideas?”
“Why don’t you talk to Clarence Peabody, the guy over at the Draft Board. Maybe he’d know something.”
The government had established a draft board in Loveland. The purpose to establish which men were or were not qualified for military duty.
Males were required to register and complete a physical and a written exam as part of their screening. After testing was completed, men were placed into various ‘categories’.
Category one was the best-qualified while Category four indicated a male disqualified for reasons such as too old, too many children, flat feet, or poor eye sight.
The draft board issued notices to report for classification, medical exams, and induction to be conducted at the Loveland Medical Center.
Murray Kaminsky, besides having bad eye sight, was too old, and Malcolm, besides being too old also, still had the stigma of being Irish.
Apparently the army had never gotten wind of the special ‘field enlistment’ given him by Captain McLaughlin for the three weeks needed to prepare those fifty Willy’s Jeeps for war. So, in a way Malcolm Murphy felt he had, in his small way, contributed to the war effort.
Lester Harris was, of course, too old also.
Lester and Olivia's son Barry, however, was not.
Sharon and Clyde’s beloved ‘Auntie Mildy’— now in her ninth month of pregnancy, appearing as though she were ready to ‘pop’ at any moment;— Along with all of the extended Pink family, were terrified at Barry’s notice to appear at the draft board on June First.
9:28 AM
Gesturing to the eighteen year old boy before his desk. “Hold on.” Answering the telephone: “Draft Board: ‘Peabody’.”
‘Morning, Mister Peabody, this is Ellen Murphy over at…”
“Hold on a second.” Handing the young man an application. “Fill it out there.” Gesturing to a long table where two other men were sitting, filling their applications out.
“Morning, Ellen. I know who you are, Bertha’s my wife.”
“Yes sir, your wife, Bertha, is a very nice lady…”
“She loved helping out, and feels the same about you.”
“Thank you...” disengaging Sharon and Clyde once again “… but I have a problem about the caps we worked on, and hoped you’d be able to direct me to the right place.”
”Ellen, hold on a minute.” Handing another young man an application. “Go there and fill it out.”
“Ever since ‘Doolittle’ it’s been near non-stop here.” Holding his hand up. “Hold on there, will you!” Back to Ellen.” How can I help you?”
“You sound really busy there…” watching as Sharon chased Clyde up and around two aisles “...should I call you back?”
“No. Hold on.” Taking the young man before his desk by the elbow, turning him towards the door while gesturing for the two others behind him. “I’m shutting down for a couple’a minutes, you three wait outside.” Closing the door, returning to the telephone.
9:33 AM
“Ellen, how can I help you?” Clarence Peabody asked.
9:37 AM
… Noting the line of men and boys building outside. “And nobody got back to you?”
“No, sir. So we don’t know what to do with all these caps, and that machine thing.”
“I’m acquainted with Cincinnati ‘CO’, General Staneson. So give me some time to get to him, and I’ll get back to you soon as I talk to him.”
6/2/42
12:03 PM
Draft Board closed for lunch between 12:00 and 1:00 PM.
No longer in the fatigue cap business, now back to — at least temporarily— ‘Ellen’s Hat Boutique’.
“Sorry it took so long getting back to you, Ellen.”
“I know you’ve been busy Mister Peabody.”
“Yeah. But it wasn’t just me, getting to the general that proved to be a problem…”
“At this time, the war and all, I can understand and sure it was.”
“Yes…” Taking a bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, then washing it down with a gulp of milk before going on. “Then, after I finally got hold of him him and told him what you had told me, it took a couple days for him to check it out.. Anyway…”
6/2/42
12:04 PM
At this same time, Barry Harris along with fifteen other local new draftees were boarding the noon train to Cincinnati, where they would transfer to another train with about fifty other draftees bound for Fort Bragg, Georgia.
As fate would have it, at...
2:02 AM
that very same morning, giving Barry Harris, at least the chance to meet his new daughter — ‘Auntie Mildy’— Mildred Harris gave birth to a seven pound, three ounce baby girl that Barry and Mildy named ‘Jymmi’ after Colonel Jimmy Doolittle.
12:07 PM
Clarence Peabody going on: “Then, after I finally got hold of the general and told him what you had told me, it took a couple days for him to check it out.. Anyway…”
“Could you please hold on a minute….” Calling to Malcolm. “You might want to hear this.” Waiting until he was alongside. “Okay, thanks.” she said to Peabody.
Finishing the last of the sandwich and milk. “Okay. So it seems — the general said, those two guys you spoke to in the armory were a couple of deserters that hid out when the troops left and… He guessed they thought it was a pretty safe place to hide out, in a deserted armory with all the comforts of home. You know, electricity, water, even telephone service…”
Calculating. One of those split second thoughts: Troops left on 12/27/41, I called on 5/5/42.“Wait a minute!” Ellen said. “You mean to say no one knew those two were hiding out in the armory for five whole months?”
“Yeah, that’s what the general thought also. They had all the comforts of home: a secure place to live where, if careful, they could come and go as they wanted, and, as it turned out, every now and then rob a gas station or small store for enough money to pay for food and, uh… General thinks that’s probably why the one’a those guys answered the phone when you called, thinking it was maybe a, uh… You know, ‘a lady of the night’ .”
“Police got them now?”
“Thank’s to your call, Military Police got them and they’re on their way to Fort Bragg to join the rest of their troop; by way of the Fort Bragg stockade.”
“Good! That’s good!” Ellen said. “But what about all these caps I still don’t know what to do about?
“It took a day or two for General Staneson to check it out…”
Anxiously asked. “And?”
“Nothing!” Peabody said. “He could find nothing about a requisition for five thousand fatigue caps, or about why you…” adding “..and my wife would be making them.”
“How’s about Captain McLaughlin? The general find anything about McLaughlin?”
That entire division shipped out to…? The general couldn’t say. But he knew nothing about your Captain McLaughlin, or ‘any’ orders to you!”
Ellen quiet a minute digesting this, and the work it took to comply with McLaughlin’s order. “So, what do I do now?”
“Staneson said, if they’re in your way, to move them somewhere where they won’t be a bother, and to just wait to see if anything from the Department of the Army comes through to you about the disposition of those caps.”
Feeling she was back in time to the time after Pearl Harbor when no one seemed to know what to do.
“Okay, I’ll do that; have Malcolm haul the cartons to ‘Pink’s’ storage room.” Sighing. “And then what?”
“Orders are coming through to collect ‘scrap’.”
“ ‘Scrap’? What kind of ‘scrap’?” Ellen asked.
“Don’t know…” Peabody said “...’whatever’ kind of scrap: steel, plastic, paper stuff, ‘cause they don’t know what they’ll need, so we’ll be told to collect all kinds of scrap.”
“Okay. At least we’ll be doing something, I guess… Thank you!”
2:41 PM
Malcolm Murphy lugged three cartons containing four thousand, seven
hundred, U.S. Army fatigue caps to be stored in Pink’s storage room until notification from the ‘Department of the Army’.
Authors Notation:
At times when in need of extra storage space; within time, those three no longer noticed cartons would be shoved further and further towards the rear of the large room as the next twenty-seven years rolled by.
Until...
August, 1969
Looking for some article of clothing a bit more the ‘hippy’ style; wondering why and how they were there— discovered by thirty-four old Clyde Murphy when, opening one of three cartons, removed two of the old ‘World War Two’ fatigue caps, to be worn by his wife and himself during their five day trip to Bethel, New York and ‘Woodstock ‘69’.
6/7/42
The closest, and only local manufacturing company producing any type of needed war time material was a knob factory— everything, both in peace and war needs knobs, don’t you know — on the south-western outskirts of Cincinnati was soon overflowing with anxious ‘Rosie’s’ wanting to do their part for the war effort.
The war effort in Loveland, Ohio
To children it was quickly produced movies or the radio where ‘The Good Guys’ were American, that always won."
Clyde drawing pictures in pencil or crayon: A B-17 Flying Fortress with its bomb bay open. Having learned to whistle. Whistling... “Bombs away!” Bombs falling on the ‘bad guys’: on Germany, on Japan.
Clyde drawing a rendition of a ‘Lockheed Lightening’ with its white- and blue-winged star.
“Off we go, into the wild blue yonder…” learned from a continuing radio serial, with Sharon singing along “...flying high into the sky!”
Children. American children.
For those children in Loveland, Ohio the war was far away, a distant, romantic montage of movie shadows and radio sounds.
“ RATATATATATAT! “
The staccato burst of machine guns.
Two kitchen chairs laid onto the floor, seat to legs
In seat number two: “Tail gunner to pilot!” Clyde Murphy called.
Sharon, in seat number one urgently replied, “Yeah, Joe?
“ There goes another good Jap!”
The Japanese Mitsubishi Zero, fire and smoke spewing from its engine, spiraled madly towards earth— So shown a Saturday afternoon movie.
“Yeah, good shootin’, Joe!”
“Say hello to Tojo, Nip!”
8:20 PM
Sharon and Clyde lay in their warm, clean beds.
10:15 PM
Murray and Sarah, and Malcolm and Ellen following soon thereafter.
Burrowing a little deeper in their blankets, soon all were asleep.
Thin, wispy clouds scuttling along the peaceful mid Ohio sky.
The wind blew, rustling dead and dried leaves.
At 575 Placid Street all was quiet... Day was done.
_______________________________________________ 244
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The One Week Writing Workshop shows you how to write a book step by step through a series of motivating writing activities. Working with your own creative ideas, you’ll learn a 7-step novel writing method to use now and on your future novel projects.
