Wednesday, August 21, 2013
We finally get to hear about the Big WAVES 1 year anniversary party. It looks like it went really well or else Grandma would have been more enthusiastic. She barely reports on the dance/drill, saying only, "It came out swell and everyone clapped real hard." No mention of the Admiral or anything. She does mention that a squadron of 8 airplanes dove over the city in the WAVES honor. That must have been somethin to see!
You know, there's always that running joke in 50s movies and TV shows where this undesirable guy asks a girl out, she denies him, and her excuse is, "I have to wash my hair." I never understood the reality of this excuse until Grandma recounts her almost 15 minutes of local newspaper fame. She misses a reporter coming into her barrack and taking photos of her and her bunkmate because she had to wash her hair. "The man didn't come and didn't come and so I went and started washing my hair and just a soon as I did he came. Marvel got her picture taken but I didn't. I was surely mad." What was the complicated process that took so long to wash your hair in the 40s and 50s? Did shampoo come out of some magical spring under the earth? Did riddle telling fairies guard the magical shampoo fountain? And how do I get to know these fairies? Please somebody explain these magical shampoo hoarding jerk fairies!!!!
But I digress...
WWII made the world such a small place. Grandma ran into a Navy Ensign on the street in Miami and realized she had grown up with him in Missoula. By the way, a Navy Ensign is a junior commissioned officer that usually goes straight to a warship. So, she's going to, "get together...for a good old chat on Missoula." Can you imagine being tossed to the wind like that? Everything changes in a second and you don't know if you're ever going to a see a friendly face again. Then you see a friendly face but maybe that friendly face gets shipped off to the Pacific and he could never be seen again. You live in the moment in that world, but how do you ever go back to Civilian life?
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