World War II Headlines - America Survives the Great Depression and A Costly World War

Jimmy and my dad in front of the family car. My dad liked to put stickers on his cars of the places we visited. Imagine six people getting in this car and driving from Chicago to Gholson, Mississippi. We left when it was dark and when we got there it was dark. We didn't stop in restaurants or fast food places or motels. We drove straight through. There were no limited access roads. Highway 45 drove through every town small and large and you stopped at every red light. Cars did not have air conditioning back then. And Mississippi is HOT. The bathrooms along the way were the bushes. Water came from a pump. We never got pop. Still, I loved those trips, I loved my family.



My brother Johnny and his second wife Carol much later than this picture was taken. He is only sixteen in this picture. Here we are at Lake Zurich, Illinois.




Mary Mary quite contrary. We fought a lot. We played a lot. My mother let us take baths together until I said something about her private parts. We played school in the back yard and of course Mary was the teacher. She got me to go with her to classes to become Catholic. I kept going, she didn't. Mary, you could go now. Please. You too Adam. Please.




I hung with Johnny a lot. But in many ways he was a bad influence. I didn't follow his example most of the time.




A pleasant look down the street we lived on. At one time I could name every house on it and who lived there.




My dad took pictures of everything. This was older than the other pictures shown in this blog, but I thought you might find these headlines interesting. War with Germany was over but the war in the Pacific continued. In my history classes they always overlooked how many Russians were killed: over twenty million. Why? Why wasn't Hitler stopped before he got started?




The war begins against Japan, Germany, and Italy. We weren't prepared for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, but why weren't we ready for the attack on Manila?




The war against Japan is over. The neighborhood I grew up in was a mixture of Germans, Italians, Jews, Japanese and Polish - some refugees. These were people who were themselves or had relatives from the countries we fought. We kids all got along. Prejudice and hatred are learned. We hadn't yet been taught them.




Men have an inherent love of cars and guns and sports. I do.