Today’s brand of patriotism as opposed to 40s version, are virtually unrecognizably incomparable
Those who love their country were unashamedly demonstrative from the first day of the war
The nation was galvanized in their support of that young generation, as they left home, and were trained to become soldiers
The fact they had no other choice was not lost on the general populace
The draft age was between 18 and 45

Over 13% of young men , not including volunteers, were removed from their cities and towns, and shipped out to God knows where, from a population of 132 million
This is a form letter that was sent to one of 10 million future American G Is

ORDER TO REPORT PREINDUCTION PHYSICAL EXAMINATION ISSUED TO: JOHN JOSEPH DOBROWOLSKI, ORDER 2729. The President of the United States, GREETING: You are hereby directed to report for preinduction physical examination at American Legion Hall, Clairton, PA at 8:00 A.M. on the 8th of February, 1944

Comparitively, the number of active duty voluntary men and women in the U.S. armed forces as of Jan. 2003 is roughly 1.5 million from todays population of roughly 282 million, or roughly ½ of 1%

In retrospect, looking back at our generation’s concern and personal sacrifice and unabashed gratitude to the soldiers, I personally am offended and deeply disappointed, in the tone of our patriotism, while our boys are in Iraq, and Afghanastan

Our president, after 9/11, chose to assuage the country to not worry about our troops, and to just go out and carry on as usual. He and his supporters predicted a slam dunk, and our boys will be welcomed as liberators
Later he then signed a bill, which was passed into law, known as the The Patriot Act, which reads in part:

The Act expands the authority of U.S. law enforcement agencies for the stated purpose of fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad. Among its provisions, the Act increased the ability of law enforcement agencies to search telephone and e-mail communications and medical, financial and other records

An apparent clever, easier to swallow, misnomer and manipulation of the word, to further a neo con agenda of nation building, abusing the War Powers Act, and weakening civil liberties, all in one fell swoop

All in the name of patriotism
http://www.helium.com/tm/104954/current-fiasco-presidents-bushs

The Essence of Collinwood

In order to describe the essence of Collinwood, requires a backdrop of the time period of my childhood, from the 40s to the 50s
The 40s
were days of national patriotism when citizens were asked and were more than willing to sacrifice, for the greater good of the country, during the duration of World War 11
Rationing was universal throughout the country, because produce and products were vulnerable to destruction from ocean shipping, due to the activity of Axis, but mainly German submarines
Great Britain (UK, England), Russia (USSR, Soviets), and America (US) were allies
The axis were a group led by Germany, Italy and Japan
Although in theory GermanU-boats were useful fleet weapons against Allied Naval Forces, in practice they were most effectively used in an economic-warfare role, enforcing a naval blockade against Allied shipping
http://www.uboataces.com/
Food booklets were distributed with coupons for such rationed items as sugar, coffee, butter, etc.
Householders had to register with their local shops.
The shopkeeper was then provided with enough food for his registered customers
Once items were purchased, the shopkeeper would cross off and subtract the relevant points used for that product for that month
The rules also stipulated, which underscored the the grim early months of the war, as follows:
If the shop where people were registered was bombed, they would then need to register with another shop in order to use their ration book, in order to buy their goods

Neighborhood stores were within walking distance of all city Collinwood blocks
Zucco’s, Cannarozzi’s, Galuppo’s, Petti’s, were within ours, but
Quagliata’s was our store where our family, like most families carried an account, usually settled at the end of the month
Angelo Quagliata once offered me free ice cream, if I would allow one of his 5 year old twin boys, to” punch you in the mouth, as hard as he could” without crying
They reminded me of the Katzenjammer Kids
http://www.geocities.com/~jimlowe/katzies/comix.html
I let that opportunity go by
During this time, the United States government encouraged the American people to participate in scrap drives.Citizens were asked to turn over to the government items that would prove to be useful in the war effort.These items included products made out of rubber and most types of metal, kitchen fat, newspapers, and rags, abong other items. The government then had various industries recycle these products into weapons and other items necessary for the war effort
Perhaps the greatest item collected was kitchen fat, an item necessary to produce glycerin
Glycerin was a vital component of bombs and other explosives
A railroad incident occured around 1939, just a few blocks south, towards London Road & Euclid
Lo and behold, livestock cars were upended and released most of it's panicked cargo of swine
Most of the locals were immigrants, or first generation Americans, and were very fond of pork products, and were familiar with butchering livestock back on their farms, in the old country
Needless to say, sausage and bacon were in grateful abundance, for months thereafter

Waterlogged

Cousin Pat and I had a water drinking contest, one summer
We were in his kitchen
He lived on the corner with
Cousin Jo Anne, Uncle Al, and Aunt Jo
And Mr. Frank, his grandfather

Mr. Frank was in his eighties, and smoked wine dipped crooked Parodi cigars
Very pleasant demeanor, with a slow walk
He was very dapper and neat in appearance, and customarily walked a half a block to The Green Lantern Tavern, or more commonly called “ the beer joint”, or Roosh’s, the Italian derivation of red ( russo )
The elderly proprietor had white hair, but was apparently a red head in his younger days
The Green Lantern Tavern was on the corner of Rudyard and Kipling
The other corner intersection was Rudyard and Mandalay

The city planners also named other streets in the neighborhood, Evangaline, Stevenson, Nathaniel, Ivanhoe, Plato, Euclid Avenue, and London Road

After games at the baseball field, Pat, I and some other kids would often greet him as we were headed for the beer joint to drink ice cold Pepsis, on the stoop
His tag line upon being greeted “ Oh boy oh boy “

Back in the kitchen, we started out our contest, filling 2 ounce shot glasses with water
We counted to keep track, as we continued our competition
We transferred 4 smaller glasses to a larger glass, to speed up the match
Each of us drank glass after glass until the winner was declared
Sadly I can’t remember who won

All I remember was feeling sick, on my way home, and hearing & feeling sloshing, in my distended belly, and vowing never to do that again

My Cousin Pat

My Cousin Pat

They say that first cousins are almost brothers
A close relationship, especially, and more so, as children
As years go by, the relationship fades, beginning with high school graduation
Then slowly losing touch with absences due to college, army service, and marriage
This is one of my remembrances of Cousin Pat

We lived on the same street, about 4 houses apart
We lived in Cleveland, but when asked, we said we lived in Collinwood
Collinwood was an enclave of mostly double homes, almost exclusively, Italian working class, as opposed to middle class

Collinwood was once a village, before being incorporated into the city, around 1900
Around the same time, many Italian immigrants settled in
It’s claim to fame, ,or notoriety, if you will, was due to a horrendous fire that killed 170 grade school kids
The knobbed doors opened inward, and when the fire caused the kids to try to escape, the crush of panicked bodies, made it impossible, to allow rescue workers to help
A law was then enacted, stipulating that school doors thereafter would open outward, and would be equipped with horizontal metal panic bar hardware

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collinwood_School_Fire


Our parents lived through the Great Depression, which they reminded their kids, was a time of job scarcity, so bad, they had to scrape for bare necessities
My father was unemployed for 6 years, and scraped by as an entrepreneur, by picking up, and then delivering coal, the main home heating fuel of the period, house to house
The truck was old, and had a metal door with a steel lever that opened a small opening in the back, so that when the bed was tipped, he could reach through the opening with a coal shovel, and manually shovel the material, through a metal 2 foot square coal chute built into every basement wall, into the customer’s coal bin
Coal bins were usually 10x10, with wooden side walls, that had a door opening on one side with a one foot high opening at the bottom, with side channels for 1x8 inch wood panels that were used to contain the resultant coal pile, which could then be removed, one by one, as the pile diminished
The homeowner would then slide a coal shovel in the bottom opening, and walk to the furnace, open the furnace door, and shovel in the coal
Meanwhile, inside the truck cab were 2 levers to operate the hydraulic raising and lowering, of the truck bed
On several occasions, upon asking, Pop allowed me to manipulate the levers
At the time I couldn’t figure out why he would seem amused about such a serious and important assignment for a 5 year old kid