Grandma's Good War Remembered Today

We are battling a virus, Covid-19, today which many refer to as "war." I'm reminded of WWII that happened during my childhood when significant sacrifices were required of all who lived during that time. My book, GRANDMA’S GOOD WAR, A Verse Retrospective of the Forties, published during the Great Recession of 2008, provides a point of identification with a period of reoccurring history that has become an important part of our modern life. One reader wrote about this book, “wherever we lived in this time our lives seemed to be almost identical, even to the knitting for war victims.” The title poem of the book recalls sacrifices of that time reminiscent of today's war against Covid-19 and the hopeful feelings we will experience about victory over this pandemic.

Grandma's Good War
I was a child during World War Two
burdened with adult tasks to do,
in backyard plots planted row after row of garden seed,
cleared away clump after clump of coco weed,
collected scrap iron by the wagonload
and stacks of newspaper, crinkled and old,
the iron to be melted for weapons of war,
the paper recycled and sent afar,
bought war stamps and war bonds from Uncle Sam,
savored lunches of Vienna sausage, tins of Spam,
complained about rations of chocolate kisses and coca-cola,
played thick, black records on an ancient Victrola,
sang “Off We Go” and war songs galore,
in air raid drills, lay stiffly on oily wood floors,
loved to say aloud “Tojo, Hitler, and Mussolini,
Okinawa, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima.”
On V-J Day, celebrated war’s end in a dancing crowd,
ignoring the shadow of a mushroom-shaped cloud,
was proud to be a patriot who loved the victorious USA,
remembering WWII as the period of a better day,
at armistice, believed all wars would cease …
and the world would bask in the sun of peace.

Grandma's Good War is the only book among 52 I've written that contains rhyming poetry. Stay vigilant, stay well. Plant a Victory Garden.

COMIC RELIEF

The little strip above is one created by Paul Schexnayder of New Iberia, Louisiana for a book entitled The Kajun Kween that I wrote a few years ago about Petite Marie Melancon who became the superheroine in a comic strip.

I’ve loved comic books since The Golden Age of Comics (1930-1950) during my early childhood. I did my share of trading them on the front porch of my home on Birch Street in Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and, of course, Dagwood and Blondie. And when I was six, Archie appeared. Wonder Woman hung around until 1953 during the Silver Age of Comics, but probably my favorite comic strip featured a character to which my Dad introduced us on Sunday mornings – Popeye. To this day, when I hear the word “hamburger,” I automatically think of Wimpy, the character in the comic strip who loved hamburgers, which my father called: “catheads.” I’ve even written a book of doggerel about my childhood that includes a poem describing my father reading the Sunday comics. The poem appears at the end of this blog.

Actually, comic strips were banned by many of my elementary school teachers. They regarded them as presentations of violent characters and felt that the reading matter was so abbreviated, it wasn’t enough to educate young minds. Several teachers vetoed characters like Captain America who punched out the Nazis. However, at school assemblies we sang all the WWII songs and followed the fighting on large maps with pins showing major victories in Europe. I can’t remember any pacifists during my childhood. And Little Orphan Annie even fought Nazis who appeared in the comic strip about her WWII activities.

A revival of comic book superheroes has exploded due to the film industry creating films about Spider Man, Batman, and Super Man, but Wonder Woman hasn’t kept pace with the male superheroes. I might be seeing just a comic book bubble, but I’m betting on the continuing popularity of comic books because there’s a shortage of superheroes in the postmodern world.

Unfortunately, I don’t have one comic book in my library to pass on to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but once they see their first superhero movie, they’ll probably be among those haunting the bookstores and news stands, searching for a comic book about the archetype characters who appeared in the Golden Age of Comic books.

Here’s the promised poem about comics from my book of poetry, Grandma's Good War, entitled: 

READING THE SUNDAY “FUNNY PAPERS”

He could press 4,000 pounds and sometimes 36 tons,

and enlisted in “the mighty Navy” in 1941,

muscled arms riddled with tattoos, arch enemies he’d foil

in “arful” battles designed to impress his girlfriend Olive Oyl.

Each Sunday at the oak dining table my father read aloud

the adventures of Popeye the sailor man, a character he avowed

could handle any enemy who dared to invade the States,

a spinach-eating hero to all his admiring shipmates,

father shouting at the end of each strip, his own “zap, pow and bam,”

quoting Popeye’s “I yam what I yam, that’s all I yam,”

affirmation of my father’s individuality, a message belying the cartoon,

with Popeye, he was ready to battle Sea Hag, Bluto, and Alice the Goon;

His somber voice deepened, describing the cold cruel world he knew

as that of Little Orphan Annie, another comic icon of WW II

who formed Jr. Commandos and blew up a German U-boat,

enlisted us to collect scrap metal to keep the US Navy afloat.

On her arm, Lil Annie wore a band with “JC” inscribed upon it,

called herself “Colonel Annie” and demanded we do our bit,

“Gee Whiskers,” my father’s voice would sometimes resound,

“She’s left Daddy Warbucks! Poor girl’s on shaky ground.”

Alley Oop in the Kingdom of Moo who traveled to the moon,

Prince Valiant, the Nordic Prince who fought the hated Huns,

Dagwood, Blondie, Lil Abner in the Golden Age of comic strips

where our father took us on astonishing Sunday morning trips,

life served up in weekly installments of strange cartoons,
his voice ascending on floating word balloons.

CORNER OF BIRCH STREET

Back in 2008, Border Press published a verse retrospective of the 1940’s by me entitled Grandma’s Good War, a collection of poems reminiscent of a time when people felt that WWII was a “good war” because it would end all wars. I enjoyed writing the rhyming verse that I called “doggerel” —rhyming verse that I haven’t felt the need to write again, since free verse is my preferred way of expressing poetry.

Recently, I expanded the idea of a Forties retrospective in a collection of poems that is a mini-memoir of a close-knit southern neighborhood during the 1940’s. It’s entitled Corner of Birch Street and was intended to inspire feelings of nostalgia for young love, games of marbles, paper dolls, five-cent Hershey bars, and Mom and Pop groceries in readers who grew up during this period of American history. Inevitably, the poems also show social changes brought into focus by laws forbidding segregated movie houses, bullying among children, and child molestation.

Poets often mine their dreams for subjects, and many of the poems emerged from dream consciousness. They showcase memories of growing up on a city street where “gangs” of the offspring of blue collar workers instigated outdoor games that had nothing to do with drug wars and street murders.

An excerpt from “Birch Street:”

We were an elemental diversity

Stuck on a plain of asphalt,

Street urchins bonding during WWII,

Security and chauvinism operating

In the shadow of the Big Bomb,

Incaution riding the waves

Of a cold war headed our way.

The artwork on the cover of Corner of Birch Street was designed by my grandson, Martin Romero, and depicts the infamous Ford coupe that carried my family off to Diddy Wah Diddy (California) with … “one last look in the rearview mirror/at a street I will not walk again.”

Available on amazon.com or by ordering from Border Press, P.O. Box 3124, Sewanee, TN 37375, borderpress@gmail.com.

THE PRIME OF POPSICLES

While reading news on the Net this morning, a bit of trivia sent me into major nostalgia about a treat on which I spent my weekly allowance during the 1940's. The trivia was about the origin of the popsicle, or ice pop, a treat of my childhood when the ice cream cart traveled the neighborhood circuit in Baton Rouge during hot Louisiana summers.  For five cents we could buy a frozen orange or strawberry confection on a stick, and if we tired of the flavor, we could switch to a fudgsicle, a frozen, chocolate confection also on a stick. Somewhere in my files of old photographs, I have a photo of me and a friend named Pattie Jo sitting on the front steps of my family home on Birch Street, licking a popsicle and looking down woefully at rivers of orange popsicle melting on the steps and streaking our feet.

This morning's news trivia revealed that the first popsicle was made in 1905 when Frank Epperson, an eleven-year old boy, left a glass of homemade soda on his porch during a chilly night in San Francisco, California. The next morning when he went outdoors to get the soda, he found it was frozen with the stirring stick intact. He pulled the frozen soda on a stick from the glass and sampled it, declaring it delicious. The confection was a favored dessert of Epperson, and seventeen years later, he served the treat at a fireman's ball. The popsicle became a sought after treat, so he started a small business, selling them at Neptune Beach in an Alameda California amusement park. He patented the Epsicle ice pop in 1924, then later renamed it Popsicle. The story doesn't have a happy ending as Epperson sold his rights to the Popsicle to a New York company after he had liquidated all of his assets. Eventually, Good Humor Company bought the rights to this popular flavored ice on a stick, and the ice pop has morphed into many variations of the original popsicle.

Popsicles are still marketed around the world, but I don't think they hold the same allure as they did when men dressed in white uniforms pushed ice cream carts and rang their bells to announce the arrival of these summer treats. Sometimes we waited all morning in the humid Louisiana weather for the vendor to show up. And if it rained, we went up on the front porch to watch and wait, hoping that he would have the courage to make an appearance in the summer downpour—such was our yearning for the taste of orange and strawberry ices. In Grandma's Good War, A Verse Retrospective of the Forties, I included a piece of my doggerel about popsicles entitled "The Ice Cream Cart, 1943":

"Asphalt, black and pliant, in rising heat

lures us to the bubbling city street

where we make dark tracks on the sidewalk,

squares marked with hopscotch chalk,

waiting for the morning ice cream cart,

a white ambulance carrying ices of every sort;

Pattie Jo on the top step, smiling wide,

nuisance sister Sidney Sue at my side,

tricycles braked, listening for the bell,

the arrival of popsicles, an easy sell

of stickiness melting in a stain that lingers,

the sweet indelibility of orange fingers.

The three of us, as listless as the deserted street,

safe from brothers' torments, in quiet retreat

from peashooter battles and marble marathons,

starched pinafore lambs stitched on our uniforms:

the red appliqués on bodices primly flat

as we wiggle our bare feet and chat,

toes curled around summer liberty

in the innocent peace of pre-puberty."

MORE DOGGEREL

Zip Greenlaw

I don’t own a dog. At the age of 50, just when I thought I was getting over the hump called mid-life, I developed an allergy to animal dander. Now, in my family ancestry, dogs are considered one of the staples of a happy life; and if not dogs, cats. So, in a sense I’m a black sheep among a clan of dog and cat lovers; namely, my Scots ancestors, the Greenlaws,  from whence my mother came. Growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, we always had dogs around, tunneling holes in the backyard, sitting on the back porch barking all night, and, finally, one cocker spaniel named “Tee-Nap” that accompanied the family in a crowded Ford coupe all the way to Diddy Wah Diddy, my father’s name for California.

Great Uncle Ed Greenlaw was the consummate dogologist and ‘though he wasn’t a misanthrope, he was fond of quoting the maxim, “The more I know of man, the more I love my dog.” He immortalized his fox terrier in a pamphlet published on his own printing press entitled Zip Greenlaw, Autobiography of a Fox Terrier, that is now in the archives at Louisiana State University. Zip was a regular terror of a dog who often fought with the cat next door named Kitty Gamard and was taught to squeeze a water pistol loaded with water at grand nieces (mostly me) when Great Uncle Ed didn’t want to be disturbed. Great Uncle Ed also suffered from a disease called “children intolerance,” sorta’ like W. C. Fields. The water pistol incident is the only live memory I have of  Uncle Ed and his dog, which I immortalized (?) in a poem that I published in Grandma’sGood War: A Verse Retrospective of the Forties.

I try to avoid dog licks, pounces, and other shows of affection because such expressions usually cause me to sneeze, get teary-eyed, and itch all over. However, in cases of emergency I’ve been known to get within barking distance of short-haired hounds, namely dachshunds. These hounds exhibit a certain intelligence that Great Uncle Ed would appreciate and write about if he were still alive.

For example, the other day I visited a friend in my official capacity as a deacon in the Episcopal Church (an office which Great Uncle Ed wouldn’t have respected because he was an agnostic and spent an hour every Sunday parked in his Cadillac, waiting for his daughters to emerge from an Episcopal Church in New Orleans, Louisiana... or on some Sundays, he simply watched the trains go by until decent folk emerged from their Sunday pews, when he’d say “They’ll be all right on Monday”). Anyway, one Thursday, I put my Communion kit under my arm and took Communion to a close friend who has been confined indoors for a spell. Her constant companion is a miniature dachshund named “Gus” (oddly enough, the name of Great Uncle Ed’s cook!). Most of the time when we visit, Gus climbs into a basket in front of the hassock where my friend stretches out her legs and after playing “Man’s Best Friend Is His Dog” on his squeak toys (shades of the old water pistol), he goes to sleep for the duration of our visit.

On this particular Thursday, while I'm  preparing my miniscule altar and placing the vessels on it, Gus pulls the blanket over his head, I suppose, so that he doesn’t have to listen to the prayers – or maybe, smart dog that he is, he’s going into his closet and praying like Jesus enjoined us to do. I finally reach the part where I lift the paten with wafers on it and announce, “The gifts of God for the people of God.” When I moved to put the Communion wafer in my friend’s hands, Gus burst from his hideaway under the blanket and came over to the hassock, panting for his turn to commune. The most irreverent laugher ended our home Communion service. My friend explained to me that Gus appears at the card table on cue when the ladies put down their cards and bring out the dessert tray because they always include treats they’ve prepared for him. I had committed the sin of dog omission!

I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out of the Eucharistic Feast, even dogs to which I am allergic, so this morning after Eucharist at St. Mary’s, I asked for an increased supply of Communion wafers. Dogologists that the Sisters are, they approved an extra wafer for my next visit with Gus. I could hear Great Uncle Ed laughing up yonder.

Here’s a portion of the bit of doggerel from Grandma’sGood War:

IN DEFENSE OF DOGGEREL

It began with Great Uncle Ed who called himself a dogologist,

a man who perhaps needed the help of a skilled psychologist,

Great Uncle Ed whose favorite quotation

was the maxim of long duration,

“The more I know of men, the more I love my dog,”

a sentiment reinforced by the writing of a daily log

that became autobiography of a dog named Zip Greenlaw,

a fox terrier that would hold a water pistol in his paw

and douse children if they came near Great Uncle Ed,

more evidence that Uncle meant what he said

about not liking humans as much as those canine,

claiming Greenlaws could speak Dog, a language more divine

than, for instance, his son-in-law who spoke with vigor

about work toward a Ph.D., short for “post hole digger.”

“If one made a hole to let something out,”

Zip wrote, “then without a shred of canine doubt,

one has also made a way to let something in,”

citing his backyard hang-out as evidence of this spin.

Zip claimed that a Ph.D. impeded rather than protected,

that man could live a life more inner directed

without advanced degree, a hole in the yard being a feature

he could wiggle into but also be forced out by larger creature…”

That’s only a portion of the piece of doggerel, but you can imagine the rest of the dialogue. The above essay about dogs is what happens to poets on a rainy day on The Mountain, but doggone, it’s the closest I can get to a creature that the One Whom None Can Hinder keeps from my “spoliation” by endowing me with an allergy to our canine friends.