December 3, 1953
Last night the Women’s Welfare League put on a grand party. We ate, played Bingo, and there was a floor show. It was a scream. Afterwards we danced. Then we all went into town.
The fog has been horrible here for the last 2 days. It hasn’t lifted a tad even during the day.
December 6, 1953
Friday night was “crying hour” once more and a fine time was had by all.
Saturday morning at 0500 we had a ride to Nurnberg with Capt. Ruff. We had to go up and get our cholera shots. That night we sat around downstairs and then we all went down for roll call.
Today I went to church. Then we played ping pong and went bowling. Tonight we went to the boxing matches. Then we went downtown for a while.
December 13, 1953
Friday night Tank Company had a party at the NCO Club – steak dinner. Had a very good floor show. Had a grand time. Afterwards we went out on the town.
Today a whole bunch of us went out to Charlie Platkin’s house for dinner – fried chicken and grits. Sho’ enjoyed it. Then all of us went bowling.
Last Thursday one of the boys was killed in the guard house. They were seeing who could draw their guns the fastest! Wow – what a headline to then just leave us hanging. Who was involved? How did it unfold? What happened afterwards? Mother would definitely not have made a good investigative journalist.
This time next week we’ll be well on our way.
December 20, 1953
Friday was the last day of school, thank goodness. (No kidding. This woman was definitely not into the teaching aspect of why she was in Europe. J) I opened my presents from home Thursday. Then Friday opened the ones from my children. We also had a party Friday night. Felt like I had a couple of Christmases.
Then yesterday we had a party in the afternoon. Then Willie Moore, Paul Otis, and I went over to Pat and Noble Clark’s. Then we came home and changed. Last night they had an egg ring party at the Club, and we went. Afterwards there was a dance and then ham and eggs. It was a wonderful party. So, was Willie Moore a date? Just another one of the boys that tagged along? Did Mother dress a little more carefully because he was going? Put on some powder and lipstick? I wish we knew more about the “courting” phase they went through. Was she sad to know she was getting ready to leave on a trip? Was she worried that he might lose interest while she was gone? Did she analyze every single thing she did or said around him like I always did around a boy I liked?
We were supposed to have been in Munich Rome Athens Italy and Austria Austria
Every time we cross a border about umpteen guards check our passports and at least two stamp them. I have never seen as many customs officials in my life. It’s most interesting.
I really started this trip off in my usual way.
Maybe this is why Mother always tried to be so organized on trips. If we were going a long distance, she would send off for a map from the Amoco motor club. I loved looking at the routes they would select – typically one “scenic route” and one “direct route”. It was fun to see where we might go. She was also particular about what we would see and where we would go.
Traveling in those days usually meant that we were going to visit family. And that was always a car trip. Which is probably why I hate car trips. L The usual m.o. for a trip was to start off at night. Daddy would blow up the air mattresses and put the seat down in the station wagon so that we could all sleep in the back. He and Mother would trade off driving. Whoever wasn’t driving would snooze in the passenger seat with a pillow. I rarely slept on these trips. If I did it would be for short periods of time and then I’d be awake. I still have that problem on a long trip. When I fly to Europe, the flight over is overnight. No matter what I do or what part of the plane I’m in, trying to sleep is impossible. If I get 2 hours of sleep, I’m lucky.
We almost never stayed at a hotel. My parents were too cheap plus they always thought we would “act up”. Also why we rarely ate out at a restaurant. My memories of the few times we got to eat out were sitting in the car at a Shoney’s drive in. We did stay at a motel in Cherokee, NC once and it had a pool! That was the big deal for us whenever we did stay anywhere.
Riding in the car. It felt like I spent my entire life riding in the car. And I think that, because of that, I grew over time to despise riding in the car. It’s a little better to be the one driving, but to have to ride in the car for more than about 3 hours is a little like torture to me. And then to top it all off, I was riding in the car with my 3 younger brothers. Good times.
We always had a station wagon. Sometimes it had that way back seat that faced out the back of the car. The last one we had, had the seats in the back that opened up to face each other. I hated having to sit in the way back. First of all, I get a little nauseous when I ride in the car. So sitting anywhere but the driver’s seat is sort of problematic. But sitting way in the back, where the air doesn’t circulate as well, and sitting facing where we’ve just been, well, it’s just not pleasant. And then to have to deal with brothers who want to pretend to puke in a bag or just act up in general made it even less fun.
My mother, I think, was also not a fan of riding in the car with us. So on the longer trips, she would give us Dramamine. Whether we needed it or not. And often she gave us 2. To knock us out. She even said so!! The good news about Dramamine was that it did make you sleep. The bad news about Dramamine is that it made you feel pretty cruddy when you woke up. She only gave us Dramamine on the daylight portions of the trip. Maybe if she’d given me one at night I could have slept….
My brothers often brought toys and things with them in the car. George frequently brought a little piano which he would play incessantly and sing songs about his dolls, Johnny West and Chief Cherokee. John and Paul brought army men and then spent much of the trip yelling about all the places they saw - “keeno place to play army!!” Because of my carsickness, I couldn’t read or even spend a lot of time looking out the window. I had to sit with my head back and my eyes closed. If only we’d had noise-cancelling headphones or iPods back then….
Inevitably there would be yelling at each other and fighting and that’s when Mother would say that she was going to have Daddy pull off on the side of the road and she was going to drop someone off. Nice. Secretly, however, I was usually praying for just this kind of outcome. J
Mother always brought a cooler full of snacks and drinks. God forbid that we should stop anywhere and actually eat at a restaurant. Sometimes we got to stop at McDonald’s, but that was rare, since my brothers wouldn’t eat a hamburger the way it was made. McDonald’s is NOT the “we do it your way” place, so in order to get hamburgers with no pickles (couldn’t just take them off) or no mustard or no onions, you had to wait for them to make a new order so that they could make a few that way. So Mother brought soft drinks and sandwiches and raw vegetables for us to eat in the car. Or maybe stop along the side of the road and eat at a picnic table. (Hurry, get back in the car and drive off before John knows we’ve left!! J)
I had a time warp experience a few years ago when I went to Huntsville, Ontario with my brother Paul and his family for a vacation. They own a little cottage up there on Fairy Lake, which is a wonderful vacation spot. We left after work on a Friday and drove until we hit the NC-VA border, which was in the middle of the night. Thankfully, we got to sleep in a hotel the rest of the night. Then we drove from VA to just south of Buffalo, NY. As we drove, we played with the radio and picked up the TN Volunteers radio network broadcasting the Georgia-Tennessee football game. It was staticky and, of course, too pro-Tennessee, but we were able to listen to most of the first half. My nephews were asleep and Paul was in the way back of the minivan and he kept urging us to turn up the volume. We finally lost the station about the time that Georgia picked up a fumble at the one-yard line and ran it all the way back for a touchdown. Go Dawgs!! Luckily we got to the hotel in time to see the end of the game. Big win for Georgia that year. J Day 3 was a shorter drive from Buffalo to Huntsville. But it brought back the old memories of sitting in the way back and trying to catch a nap and my nephews, who were almost 3 at the time, talking and yelling and crying and fighting in between watching DVD’s of Bob the Builder and Jay Jay the Airplane and Thomas the Tank Engine.
