244

                     Chapter Twenty-Five

                                                 ‘Junk’

Loveland, Ohio

8/28/42

8:16 AM

“ Good morning, Pink’s.”

“ ‘Morning, Sarah. It’s …”

“ ‘Morning, Clara.”

“Got a call from Loretta, telling me she’s too busy to call everyone, and for me to pass it on. And then for you to pass it on.”

Noting Clyde and Sharon sitting quietly on the blanket in Ellen’s Hat Boutique enclosure moving little tin armies around. “To pass what around?”

“The scrap drive.” Clara Mott said.

“Oh, yeah…” remembering “… Ellen told me that Clarence Peabody told her that there'll be some kind of a scrap drive.”

“Yeah. Beatrice Malarkey’s heading it up. Even paid a couple of kids ten cents an hour to stick posters up.”

“When is this scrap drive supposed to happen?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll be looking for trucks to pick the stuff up. So, seeing as Pink’s have a truck, no doubt…”

A soft clicking on the phone line telling Sarah there’s another call.

“I’ve another call, Clara, Talk to you later.”

“Pink’s, good morning.”

“Sarah, it’s…”

“ ‘Morning Bernice.”

“Sarah, good morning. I guess you’ve heard about…”

“ ‘The scrap drive’. Of course! And, yes, ‘of course’ we’ll lend the truck.”

“Thank’s. We knew you would. Know of any others that we might not know of?”

Thinking a moment. “There’s Willie Bartock.”

“The coal man?”

“Sure! Why not?”

“You call him for us? And ask if he could ‘please’ hose it out?”

“Of course! When is the drive happening?”

“People can start collecting their junk now and, if they wish, they can just leave it in front of their house and we’ll be picking it up the first week in September: on Saturday the fifth and Wednesday the ninth.”

“Been waiting for someone to tell us something about anything. And if all they’re asking from us is to collect junk, we’re only too happy to oblige.”

“Thought you’d feel that way.” Mrs Malarkey said.

“We do! Tell me! Where do we go with it after we collect it?”

“Herb is making room behind the depot. There’ll be an offtrack boxcar that entire week with a couple of army guys there to separate metal from plastic and the paper stuff, and whatever else there is.”

Throughout the country Americans were asked to:

Search their cabinets, drawers and boxes. Rummage through their basements. Forage their sheds. Comb their attics.

Find anything—anything—that may be useful to the War Effort.

Throughout the country it was collected by:

Adults in cars, trucks, and horse-drawn carts. Children dragging factory-manufactured, or homemade orange-crate wagons and scooters.

There were

Scrap steel of all sort, including junker automobiles. Tons of old newspapers and magazines. Mountains of no longer used or needed bedding and towels, or just plain rags.

Milkweed. ‘Milkweed’? Even milkweed was collected from America’s empty lots to make fillings for life-jackets.

Americans came:

From the country.

From the cities.

From neighborhood to neighborhood.

From block to block.

From house to house.

From room to room.

For the country!

For ‘our’ country!

For America!

Remember Pearl Harbor

God Bless America!

Betty Hutton’s, ‘Frozen Delight Ice Cream Palace’

Sunday, October 4, 1942

1:33 PM

One of those beautiful fall days. Leaves on trees turning to gold and scarlet. The air tinged with warmth enough to feel the warmth and cool enough to feel cool. If one asked to calculate the comfort level in Loveland, Ohio on this day, one might say two degrees above balmy.

‘Pink's Hardware & Associates, Inc.’ had declared this Sunday afternoon an ‘ice cream on Pink’s’ day for all employees.

Ellen and Malcolm, back in Loveland — with Clyde, at least temporarily, still in his clean Sunday go to church clothing.

The Murphy and Kaminsky families considering themselves as one family now refer to themselves simply as ‘The Family’.

The ‘family’, and the Harris family, including ‘Auntie Mildy’, along with — safely buckled into an infant chair — now four month old ‘Jymmi’, whom both Clyde and Sharon absolutely love and look upon as their cousin, that, nearing five year old, Sharon considers Jymmi as her personal obligation; though a totally loving obligation, that other than changing dirty diapers, Sharon, in a sense had become Jymmi’s second ‘mommy’, and even now is feeding the giggling baby small dabs of vanilla ice cream from a spoon with one hand while wiping the stream of white foam dribbling onto Jymmi’s bib. Both into their late sixties, there was also ‘Auntie Elsa’; Ellen’s— when needed— assistant, and Thomas Bellingham, Pink’s shoe repair ‘associate’; all enjoying various flavors and concoctions of ice cream in bowls, tall ice cream soda glasses, or— the choice of Clyde and Sharon, hot fudge sundaes served in deep, wide bowls.

“Sure had some fun collecting all that old junk, didn’t we, kids?”

Tom driving the old ‘27 Chevie long bed truck, with his assistants, Sharon and Clyde seated alongside until coming upon another of the mounds of ‘stuff’ piled along the curbs or at the foot of driveways, when the three would pile out of the cab, and with Clyde onto the long bed receiving and stacking, Tom and Sharon would throw— most of what Sharon threw falling short of the long bed, which Tom would later retrieve and toss to Clyde.

On both of these two days of ‘collecting’, the ‘27 Chevie long bed would make two trips on each day to unload the people of the City of Loveland’s junk and whatever was no longer needed, or wanted, to add to the building mountain of debris growing behind the ‘Ohio Bell Telephone office/post office/train depot’, to later be loaded onto the boxcar, then to be taken to the next city, then to… Who knew?

Why old doilies could possibly be of any assistance in ‘America’s war effort’ was a bit of a question, however.

However...Also mixed within the tons of ragweed and milkweed that had been hacked or pulled from the ground of the hundreds of acres of unattended land and empty lots from across this great nation— to be used for the filling of life-jackets— mixed within those tons of ragweed and milkweed there were also tons of unnoticed, wild growing ‘weed of cannabis’ that ‘had’ to be of some assistance to improve the buoyancy of life-jackets; one might think

Betty Hutton’s, ‘Frozen Delight Ice Cream Palace’

1:42 PM

“Got a letter from Barry yesterday.”

All conversation stopped. All attention brought to Mildred Harris.

Auntie Mildys announcement caused Clyde to move his rapt attention from the hot fudge sundae to Aunt Mildy as, the long-handled spoon pausing mid-way to his mouth, a blob of fudge dropping onto the cherry- and nut-topped mound of whipped cream.

Sharon and Clyde loved their ‘Uncle Barry’! But to Clyde, after all, being a man and his ‘’uncle Barry also a soldier. Clyde’s three favorite heroic toy soldiers all referred to as ‘Captain Barry’.

“So…” Oliva anxiously asked “...what’s my son say?”

“Yeah? What’s Captain Barry say?”Clyde asked.

“He’s all right?”

“Yes…” Mildred said to her father-in-law “...he’s just fine and had some good news, I think.”

“You ‘think’?” Murray asked.

“You know he can’t write too much because they.. Looks like a kid with a black crayon that blacks out what the army doesn’t want him to write.”

“So, what’s he say that might or might not be a good thing that he’ is able to say?”

“Yeah…” Clyde said “...and skip the gooey stuff!”

Waddling alongside, handing Sharon some needed paper napkins.“You folks doing okay here?” Pretty, though having a pudgy round face, at 5’2”, weighing near two hundred ponds, looking like anything but a movie star. “Looks like you can use them.”

Once again wiping vanilla glop from Jymmi’s face. “Thank you.” Sharon said, adding the new napkin to the wet, crumpled t pile before her.

“Your husband…” speaking to Mildred “...he’s okay?” The ice cream lady asked hopefully.

Everybody liking Betty, in no way dismissively because she knew that this kindly lady had known Berry since he was no older than her own daughter— actually doing much the same for her husband as Sharon was now doing for her daughter. “Yes. Thank you.” Looking about the table, her eyes falling on Clyde. “Without the ‘gooey stuff.” Auntie Mildy said.

“You know he’d gone through all the stuff he had to..”

“Like shooting his rifle!”

“Yes, Clyde…” said a bit impatiently “...Like shooting his rifle and how to march and salute and stuff like that.”

Pausing a moment, Mildred’s eyes touching all about the table, including Betty. “A lot of what he wrote …” going on “...was blacked out, but it seems because we… Barry and me ran Pink’s feed and grain store, the army figured he’d be better used as a Quartermaster than a …” once again looking at Clyde “...infantry-man, so he’s been transferred to school to become a Quartermaster.

“Quartermaster?” Sounding relieved. “Then he won’t be in actual fighting!” Malcolm said.

Sharon taking a turn at her own sundae. “Will the army still be sending uncle Berry to some other country?”

Attempting to answer both Malcolm and Sharon. “No… Maybe not. Don’t know. So I went to the library yesterday, to the Encyclopedia Britannica and looked ‘Quartermaster’ up and found most of the men are enlisted soldiers who’d already gotten their infantry training, that are sent to school to learn stuff they call…” looking at a note she’d made “...logistics and supply and property accounting procedures in occupational military specialties.”

“Meaning?” Ellen asked.

Still referring to her notes. “Quartermasters make sure there’s meals for the men… At least when they’re someplace where they can get the food to them…” adding “...three meals a day wherever they’ at. Also, sadly, quartermasters are responsible and in charge of getting the bodies of soldiers killed back to where they can properly be buried.”

Taking a moment for this to sink in. The only sound around the table was Jymmi gurgling her request for more ice cream, causing Sharon to… “Here you go.” ... once again replace her spoon with Jymmi’s.

“They’re also in charge of warehousing and distributing food, petroleum clothing and ammunition, along with combat support and supply, for what ever commanding officers request for what ever amount and kind of ammunition will be needed to be shipped to the front lines.”

“Sounds pretty much like running a ‘really’ big hardware store.” Lester commented to his daughter-in-law.

“Yeah…” still behind Jymmi “...learning all stuff should make Barry a pretty good hardware guy later on.” Betty Hutton said.

Supplying seven million men in both Europe and the Pacific. Sarah’s stocking experience at Pink’s as a spot of dust on an elephant. Unable to comprehend the amount of what was needed, and how to get it where and when it was needed. ‘Staggering’! “Yes, it will!” Sarah said, thinking, Pray the boy gets home alive and in one piece.

____________________________________________

252

Chapter Twenty-Six

Clyde and Aunti Mildy