The War

Jean and I have been faithful viewers of Ken Burns' "The War" on PBS these past two weeks. It has been chillingly mesmerizing. The images and the verbal descriptions have been riveting. Never having been in war I can not imagine what those guys went through. I have been watching to see if my dad, who spent 32 months in the South Pacific as a SeaBee, is shown in any of the photos. He was in 7 island invasions, but the islands they took offered little or no resistance. I still look a little more carefully when pictures of navy guys are shown. I was quite surprised to see a picture of our little town taken July 4, 1941. They used it to show small town life on the 4th of July during the war. A photographer employed by the WPA or another of the make work programs took a large number of pictures on the 4th of July 1941, and those photos are in the Library of Congress. Our little local museum has copies of them in an album with the particular picture displayed on the wall. The picture shows people in a cafe looking out the window at the parade passing by. The word "Cafe" is reversed because the view is out the window with "Cafe" painted on the outside. Gave me a little thrill.