Friday, November 18, 2016

Milkweed Collectors Helped the War Effort


Sorry that I didn’t blog yesterday. Travalon and I went to the East Side Club’s Thanksgiving dinner for members, which was catered by Bunky’s. (They have closed their restaurant and only do catering now.) We sat at a table with three kindergarten teachers who were very friendly, and one tried to talk me into joining the Social Committee. Not that I have an abundance of free time, but maybe that way I would at least know when social events have been canceled… After dinner, a member talked about how as a child during World War II she collected milkweed pods so the fuzz inside could be used to make life preservers, and several other people in the audience had done the same thing. I had no idea this huge war effort existed! The speaker had even made a DVD of two survivors of the USS Indianapolis disaster (if you didn’t know anything about this, join the club) who had survived in the ocean for five days before being rescued, thanks to their milkweed down-filled life preservers! It is kind of cool to think that back then kids were expected to contribute to the war effort with such an age-appropriate yet obviously important task. Not that I desire in any way to be in a war, but I wish there were something that united us all the way the war effort seemed to unite people seventy years ago. We could sure use it after this contentious election!

Famous Hat

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