I went to only one grade school, Roosevelt Grade school – the same school my dad attended. It had 8 grades so we didn’t have middle school. You went right from grade school to high school. I remember in grade school that every morning the students would line up in the hall outside of the classrooms facing the American flag and say the pledge of allegiance. The Second World War was declared when I was 10 years old. I remember President Franklin Roosevelt came on the radio and said that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. It was December 7, 1941. The United States had declared war on Japan and Germany. That was such a frightening thing to hear. We had so much rationing then. Each person had a ration book with certain stamps in it so certain things were not available unless you had a stamp in your book for it. Gasoline was rationed so you could only get enough gas for you to go to work. There was no gas for just driving around. Also, you could not get tires for your car as the rubber was needed for the war. Also, everyone collected any tinfoil they could find and made it into a ball to be used for the war effort. We could only buy one pair of leather shoes a year. The shoes you had to buy if you didn’t have a victory stamp were terrible. I don’t know what they were made of but they just fell apart after a few wearings. Living in the war years was very frightening for everyone. My Mother and Father were getting a divorce during this time so my mother had to work and take care of three kids. My dad worked for the Wonder Bakery at this time and that is where he met my future stepmother, Daisy. Our family had a lot of turmoil and heartbreak then. I won’t go into the specifics of the divorce and the fact my dad left his three kids and wife and took up with this woman. Incidentally she worked at Wonder Bread also. In later years I did make up with my dad and got along with Daisy but only for my dads sake. They moved to California after the war was over and I did go visit them once. I took my brother Harold, with me and we rode the ElCapitan Santa Fe train. It was an express train so you didn’t have to get off until you arrived at your destination. Dad and Daisy met us at the train station in Los Angeles. I was a big movie star fan at that time. My idol was Van Johnson. One day a daughter of one of dad and Daisies friends and I took the bus to Hollywood to see some movie stars. Paramount and another studio, I can’t think of the name, were there next to each other. If you stood outside the gates of the studio you could possibly get some autographs of some stars. We both had our autograph book and we got several stars autograph and I have pictures of me with some of them and also several autographs of some of the stars of the time. I am sure most of the stars would not be well known now but I knew who they were. I still have my autograph book so if you are interested in who I saw, just look it up. We stayed there all day and later in the day my friend wanted to go home. I wanted to stay. I told her to go on home and I would stay and go home later. We rode a bus. She went home without me and I went home later. I didn’t have any trouble getting to dad and dasies place but I have never seen my dad so mad. My dad had a very even temper but when he got mad, he got mad. Now I can understand why he was so mad but at the time I didn’t. After that little trip he would never let me go out with my friend.
