I’m on a guy’s email list, he sends old white guy stuff. I myself am an old white guy but not the sort afflicted with compulsive liberal rant spasms. I browse his emails to see how his condition’s coming then usually delete; once in awhile I stick in a word.
He recently emailed an amazing collection of WWII postcards, allegedly from a dusty little Virginia country store where the aged owner said the rack went back to his father’s day and he’d never changed the price from a penny. So the guy bought all 300, rack included for four bucks, he said. I’m going to pretend it’s all true and that postcards normally have multiple fold lines and newsprint tears and magazine datelines.
At the end of the email he waxed nostalgic about real patriotism and how “70 Years of Progressive Education” had chased responsibility, integrity and honesty clean out of the country.
I thought it noteworthy that he’d learned the term progressive, saved the best jpgs and began to move on, but a memory popped out and I wrote a response to the dodgy old white guy.
(My mom died three years ago and I miss her awful. I’d like to think she’d approve this message.)
A fantastic and wonderful collection.
An era of unquestioned and unquestioning patriotism, when freedom’s meaning was pitted against the darkest, most dire threats in modern history. There was nothing ambiguous about Fascist atrocities, Axis barbarities or the pure evil that America fought against. We went all in and there wasn’t a single American who didn’t know the stakes. Victory was imperative for the very concept of civilization.
When the boys came home, they were cheered, but we gave them more than lip service; we re-assimilated them with GI bill educations, affordable housing, healthcare, employment opportunities.
I grew up in those Eisenhower years. My dad’s ptsd (not yet a term) made him occasionally so unhinged we feared for our safety but that was not unusual in those times, nor was it what I most remember. I remember the sense of “normalcy” that post-war period gave; a sense of community and communion and pretty much universal thanks for a day-to-day peace that was palpable in my parents’ and all adults’ manner (mom was also in the service, she was a WAVE).
That calm began unravelling with the Cold War. I was too young to understand McCarthyism but I sure as hell remember having the bejesus scared out of me with drills in school hallways, my head tucked into my crotch; the flickered expressions in teachers’ eyes that said how useless this all was if a big one really hit. And I remember the expression too, in my mother's face that night when she stopped cooking dinner to watch Ike’s departure speech. The one that warned about the Military Industrial Complex.
It was half-greek to me, all I knew was the President was saying something that mom—a stoic Missouri farm girl and the least political housewife on the block—was very alarmed about. When it was over, she turned and said to my father, “Chuck, did you hear what the President said?”
Sure, he'd heard it. We'd all been watching on that little black and white Magnavox screen. Me and my brother and two sisters turned expectantly to see what dad would say, but then we all went still as rabbits at his expression. And my mom caught our fear and returned a look that said it's all right. We didn't budge and we didn't flee. Dad's fists knotted and his face went red and his veins bulged but mom held us there with an almost supernatural calm. There was no challenge, threat or showdown my dad would not rise to, but this was none of those. This was just a question: did you hear what the President said.
Hand shaking, he rose from his chair, threw down the paper from his lap and without a word went down to the basement. We were all fastened on mom as she watched him go with a look I cannot describe nor ever forget. She then just turned to us and said, “Now you kids set the table and wash up for dinner,” and returned to the kitchen.
I see these postcards and get the merest hint of what my parents’ generation endured, sacrificed and died for. I get a small inkling of their vivid fears and immense courage and I am still awed and proud that America's great heart provided for her returning warriors and chose to rehabilitate her enemies after that World War. I have since watched that departure speech of Eisenhower's many times and never cease marveling at its prescience. He described the world we now live in.
I remain an Eisenhower Republican in my heart.
I cannot stomach the Republican party today.