Back to School

My favorite time of the week is Saturday morning, when I host a history class/discussion group at the facility. It started out being about local history 'cause there are people living here who come from all over the country and I wanted them to be familiar with what a cool city this is. 

Then we started talking about WWII and I began to learn firsthand about what it was like to grow up during the war. We have residents who served overseas and residents who built planes. We have a resident who was interned and another who was in Hawaii and watched the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. We've got someone whose father was in the German army, and another who witnessed the Allies bomb a factory in Denmark with Nazi officers in it. The Nazis were using civilians as a human shield on the top floor and the Allies managed to take out the Nazi officers on the ground floor. It was a huge success until one of the planes lost control and crashed into a school killing about 100 children. He barely got the story out before he had to get up and leave. 

Another resident grew up in Liverpool. She was eight when the war started and thirteen when it was over. She said there are no pictures of her and her family in that whole time because there was no film available due to the threat of spies. She says there's a five year gap in most English family's history during that dark time. 

Her house got bombed twice. The first time when she was ten. It was before they were given a metal bomb shelter that they shared with their next door neighbor. She said the whole back of the brick house was knocked off and it was mayhem. Sirens blaring, planes overhead, bombs exploding.

The Constable, some old veteran form WWI, came over and started yelling at her father to get the light out on the second floor. It was a blackout and now there was a lightbulb visible that would give the Germans something to aim at. He started screaming at him to "Get that light out! Get that light out!!"

Her father couldn't get past the debris to get in and kill the power, so he picked up a brick and heaved it at the light. He missed, so he picked up another brick and tried again. Miss. He tried a third time and missed again. 

Her mother yelled, "GODDAMIT GEORGE!" and picked up a rock and hit it on the first try. He swore up a storm while everybody laughed and dodged for cover. 

Her father rebuilt the house, and was always a good sport while the family recalled their favorite wartime memory.