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Baby Talk: The author as a toddler.
Photograph courtesy of Cookie Curci-Wright
Remember When
58 trips around the sun
By Cookie Curci-Wright
To me, old age has always been 20 years older than I happen to be. As a teenager, I thought 40 was old; at age 40, 60 seemed positively ancient. Now, as I approach my 58th birthday and take my place on the sunny side of 60, I prefer to think of myself not as old, but as a 1940s classic.
Not unlike those resplendent automobiles from the same era. Sort of a cross between the Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, the Dusenberg S.J. and the four-wheel-drive Ford Jeep: durable bodies with strong chassis, enduring lines and timeless styles.
I remember an old axiom Grandpa used to say when I was young: "Forty is the age of the youth, fifty is the youth of old age." I didn't really understand the meaning of his words back then. Today they are crystal clear.
As with all things classic, I've been around awhile. I was born at the height of WWII, and like most of my generation, my family was touched by the prevailing wartime atmosphere. The rationing of goods and materials was in effect. There was scarcity of food products, metal, oil, rubber and gasoline. Every household had to budget its supply with rationing stamps. Everything from machine washables to bobby pins and ladies' nylon stockings were used as material in the war effort.
I can't remember many things about the war years, but I do have a crisp memory of those frightening weekly air-raid blackouts. How the shades had to be pulled and all lights extinguished, until a wailing siren and the air-raid warden assigned to our neighborhood gave the all-clear.
During wartime, my family was temporarily living with my grandparents in San Francisco. The U.S. was still recovering from the shock of Pearl Harbor. Grandma, as were so many San Franciscans, was terrified the enemy would invade in submarines and initiate an attack on our Bay Area shores. This may sound silly now, but for those who lived through this time, it was a very real consideration.
President Franklin Roosevelt himself mentioned the possibility of such an attack during his March 2, 1942, press conference. His words scarcely sank into the public's awareness when the West Coast, on guard and tense along 3,250 miles of shore, received the first attack on continental U.S. soil.
A submarine emerged from the sea seven miles north of Santa Barbara and for 20 minutes lobbed shells at an oil refinery. One shell went over Highway 101 and exploded in the foothills.
Grandma, God love her, after hearing about the attack, worked out a defense system all her own. Each night, she spread crisp newspapers over her front and back porch. She believed if the enemy tried sneaking up to her door, she would hear the rustle of their footsteps on the crinkled newspapers and therefore have enough time to grab the children and escape through a side window to safety. Armed with the evening Chronicle, Grandma performed this nightly wartime ritual throughout the duration.
Price Administration announced the first wartime rationing. No sugar would be sold during the week of April 27. One member of every household must go to the nearest local elementary school and register name and address, height, weight, number and relationship to others in the household--and the amount of sugar in the home. They were then issued a sugar book for each individual in the family good for 65 weeks.
The floodgates were open now, and the rising tide of shortage was under way: hair curlers, nylons, wigs, lawn mowers, girdles, sugar, quinine, and tea--anything that was needed for the war effort. Gone for the duration was the production of toasters, waffle irons, mixers, washing machines and dishwashers. Out went the children's tin toy soldiers and electric trains. Tire and gasoline rationing kept many motorists at home.
Families were now staying close to their radios. The country's morale was lifted by President Roosevelt's fireside chats, but our spirits were raised by the comical antics of radio's Fibber McGee and Molly.
With memories of Pearl Harbor acutely fresh, the hit song on everyone's lips that year was "Remember Pearl Harbor," as was "This Is the Army, Mr. Jones." Others included "There's a Star-spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" and "There'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover." The biggest of these hits was a song called "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition."
This was my favorite recording, and one I played again and again. The lyrics were based on a chaplain's words in the heat of battle. But the most remarkable song of the year was Bing Crosby's recording of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas." It broke all records ... the longest-running song ever on "Your Hit Parade."
Other hits of '42 included "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else but Me," "Dearly Beloved" and "When the Lights Go Out All Over the World." Because of shortages in raw materials, thousands of these excellent recordings were recycled and melted down during the patriotic "shellac drives," rendering those that survived pricy rarities.
The year 1942 gave birth to the wartime cinema classic Casablanca, a film that captured the political battles being fought in foreign countries and the eternal struggle of good versus evil. Before the U.S. seizure of Morocco the city of Casablanca was just an exotic location. But war changed that, and soon the city was known to European refugees as a desperate whistle stop on the underground railway.
No other film of its time more keenly reflected unfolding world events as Casablanca. America was in need of a movie that inspired patriotism, heroic commitment and loyalty. Casablanca had it all: Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), an expatriate in self-imposed exile who likes to snarl, "I stick my neck out for nobody."
But when his old flame, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) returns, she rekindles his high ideals and beliefs. Ilsa sacrifices personal happiness for her husband's noble cause; Victor Laszlo (Paul Henried) is Ilsa's husband and a resistance fighter, who's pursued by the Gestapo; and Louis Renault (Claude Raines) is the police captain whose political allegiance is never quite clear until the crucial final moments of the film. Add a few Nazi villains, assorted riffraff and an exotic locale, pepper generously with patriotic motives and liberal amount of fine acting and directing and you have the ingredients of the 1942 cinematic classic.
In the past half century, I've jitterbugged to Dorsey, bobbed to Elvis and rock & rolled, discoed till dawn, bumped bottoms in the slam dance craze and did the lambada all night long. Saw the bomb shelter fad, owned a hula hoop and a Pet Rock. I've squeezed myself into Capri pants, poodle skirts, bell-bottom jeans, metallic tights and platform shoes; played hopscotch, Pac Man and truth or dare.
I cried through movies like How Green Was My Valley and was scared out of my wits by Halloween, rounded up the bad guys at the Saturday matinee with Roy and Hoppy, and soared through the universe with Star Trek: The Movie. I've worn ID bracelets and mood rings, worn my hair in bangs like Mamie Eisenhower and donned pillbox hats a la Jackie Kennedy; been swept away by Perez Prado's Cheery Pink and Apple Blossom White and listened endlessly to the Beatles sing "Yesterday."
They say old age is a luxury not everyone is fortunate enough to enjoy. And although, in my senior years, I still possess a desire to occasionally "swing for the fences," I'll have to agree with Grandpa's advice on the subject: "It's better to be a young June bug than an old bird of paradise."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
