Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

What started with only a tiny spark became a roaring, scorching flame — -for in a moment of anger Cassie had unthinkingly unleashed forces she could not control I turned, startled. He was leaning back on his elbows, looking at me with a lazy smile. "What do you mean?" I asked. very young. After Lee and I were married, though, I forgot all about them. Being a wife to him and making him happy were all I wanted, or would ever want. And then came December 7, 1941. I guess that day changed the lives of every person in our country, maybe in the whole world. Nothing will ever be like it was before Pearl Harbor. It changed my life because Monday morning Lee enlisted in the Coast Guard. We'd talked it all over that Sunday. I wanted him to go as much as tie wanted to. He was young, he was strong, he was an American. A.nd I could go to live with his family. I think the deepest humility and the fiercest pride I've ever known was on the day I first saw dim in the uniform of the United States Navy. When we learned he was to be stationed right there on the coast EPTEMBER, 1942 near Keeler, our joy knew no bounds. That meant he could come home nearly every week. His job on a patrol boat was hard and dangerous, and I knew anguished hours in the night when I could picture him out there in icy waters hunting submarines. But somehow being able to see him every once in a while, being able to touch him and feel his arms around me, made it easier to bear. It seems to me, in wartime we can steel ourselves for the big sacrifices. We make ourselves brave enough to give up our husbands and sons and sweethearts. But we don't prepare ourselves for the small things. The irksome tasks and re-adjustments that fill our day-to-day lives — those are important, too, because they seem so commonplace we forget about them in the larger necessities. And those are the things that nag at our nerves, and make us a prey to weakness. Living with the Allins is the sort of thing I mean. I was fond of them and they of me, but we hadn't known each other well when Lee and I were married and now they were taking in a virtual stranger to live with them indefinitely. I was no financial burden; Lee saw to that, out of his pay. But there were other things. Mrs. Allin was an old-fashioned, domineering sort of mother and she had to rule people. "You shouldn't wear those ridiculous high heels, Cassie. You ought to wear sensible heels, like me." Or when I was helping her in the kitchen, "That's not the way to ice a pake, Cassie. Do it this way." She seemed to disapprove of every single thing I did. I tried to be patient, I tried to keep my temper, but I was used to a home of my own. Here I felt uprooted and not part of anything. Mr. Allin was a talkative, gentle soul, dominated by his wife. He was worried about the war and business conditions, and at mealtime he would repeat word for word the bulletins we'd all heard over the radio or the news we'd all read in the papers until I thought I would go crazy. Bill, Lee's fourteenyear-old brother, was just a noisy little boy who kept Buck Rogers and The Lone Ranger blaring over the radio and was addicted to flying toy airplanes all over the house. Maybe it sounds as if I were complaining about nothing. But, as I said, it's the small things you're unprepared for that nag at your nerves the most. 27