Having lived on this earth for 81 years I have seen a lot of changes . During world war-2 we could not buy meat, canned goods, butter, cheeese, or even shoes without producing stamps to purchase them. Each family was authorized a certain amount of blue stamps for canned goods, and red ones for meat or dairy products. As I recall, we could have two pair of shoes a year, but most of the tops on ladies shoes were made from cloth, not leather. My dad worked in the shipyard, which was considered an essential job, and he was allowed stamps to purchase gasoline for his car so that he could drive back and forth to work from our home in Hillsboro, Oregon to Portland five days a week. If he carried passengers he received some bonus stamps. We did a lot of walking in those days, and only used the car when it was absolutely necessary.
Dad's real profession was a baker, so when Bob and I were going to get married dad was going to decorate our wedding cake for us. We decided to let the local baker make the cake, but he did not put the icing on it. In order to get him to bake our cake we had to furnish the eggs, shortening and the sugar to make it. We skimped on sugar for other things for a long time prior to the wedding so that we would have enough sugar for all the decorations. Dad raised about 10 chickens in a coop in our back yard, so we always had nice fresh eggs.
As it got dark in the evenings we had to draw all shades on the windows so that no light would shine through. People in the neighborhood took turns being "neighborhood wardens". We would have an assigned section of the neighborhood that was walked every evening, and if we saw a glimmer of a light we would go to the door and alert the residents to get that shade pulled properly so that there was no light shining through. This , of course was so that if any enemy planes were to fly overhead at night, they could not see the cities below.
Most people had minimal training so that they could sit in the air-raid post too. When you were on duty you had to be sure to stay awake, and if you heard any plane fly overhead, you tried to spot it. We had diagrams of the various types of U.S. military planes, and we would try to see how many engines were on those planes for identification. If it was too dark or cloudy, the little building in which we served as spotters had a phone, and we would call in to report the direction the plane was flying so that people who knew what was up there would know if it was enemy or friendly.
I was in high school during those years, and girls in high school all wore anklet socks, never hose. That was because we couldn't find any to buy. One time I went to a senior tea in which we were instructed to dress up in heels and hose. I recall that because I didn't own any hose, I borrowed some from my mom, and she always wore a corset (another thing of the past). On the corset she had suspender-type things to hook onto the hose to hold them up. I was very thin and couldn't wear the corset, so she made me some garters out of elastic. I'd pull up the hose and make a roll with the socks. The elastic band inside that roll was to hold the hose up. I think that miserable experience was what convinced me to never again wear hose. The few socks that ladies would find to buy were made of silk. It was after the war that the first nylon hose came out, and ladies used to line up to get a pair of those beautiful inventions.
If you had a car with worn tires, you were pretty much out of luck. There were no tires to be purchased. That was the case for 2 or 3 years after the war ended, and did become quite a problem for people who needed replacements. That was the time when the retreads came out. You would take in your old worn tires and they would put new tread on them. I can remember seeing the first new car after the war. It was a 1946 Chrysler. Everyone wanted to see and touch that beautiful piece of machinery with so much chrome that when the sun shone on it, it nearly put your eyes out.
Some of you youngsters probably don't even know about what we went through during those days, and many of the older group has forgotten some of the trying times we had. But everyone was very patriotic, loving their country and the military personnel who were risking their lives for us, and we did not complain. We are so lucky to live in the good old U.S.A. and maybe this little story will remind us how fortunate we are .
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