Post-WW2 Joy (too good not to share)

[VOX]

20. DemoTex, I would like to thank your parents for all they did.

Over the years, some picky folks have scoffed at the “Greatest Generation” label, but good lord, look at your parents’ accomplishments— plus, kids! All that time spent in service to others, which, sadly, we have precious little of today.

My dad was older at the outbreak in December, 1941, pushing 40 (in the 60s, I was the only kid around whose parents’ age matched the decade). But they were drafting up to age 45, so he enlisted in OCS for the Air Corp Technical and Training Command (“We Keep ‘Em Flying”). His orders: the dangerous Santa Monica, California theater, attached to the Douglas Aircraft plant there. Laugh now, but not one Japanese plane made it past the lifeguard stations. And that’s where he met my mom, who assisted GIs with finding places to live for the duration. She kiddingly called my dad’s paddleball injury “Purple Heart.”

Hailing from El Paso, Santa Monica beach looked like paradise to my dad, so they bought a house nearby in 1947 for $11,000, paid for with the help of a GI loan.

They did well.