Stories Worth Sharing

  I learned early on—in the 1950s—that my cousin Louis was anything but a fan of the Japanese. He would avoid buying Japanese-made goods whenever he could. That is nearly impossible today.   In the years immediately following World War II, Japan's economy was devastated, and the country struggled to rebuild its industrial base. Many of its early exports developed a reputation for being cheap and poorly made. "Made in Japan" meant   "Don't buy it. It's junk!"   But Louis's reluctance to buy Japanese had absolutely nothing to do with product quality.   Louis was a survivor of the Bataan Death March.   It began on April 9, 1942, after approximately 75,000 American and Filipino troops surrendered to Japanese forces on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. What followed was one of the most notorious atrocities of World War II.   The prisoners, already weakened by months of fighting, hunger, disease, and exhaustion, were forced to ma...

  During World War II,   All Americans were encouraged to do their part for the war effort. Some planted Victory Gardens. Others collected scrap metal, saved cooking grease, or learned to get along with less sugar, coffee, and gasoline.   Factories that once manufactured automobiles were turning out tanks and aircraft. Housewives were stretching their ration coupons, and just about everybody was making sacrifices. One American mother decided that doing her part wasn't enough.   Her name was Vesta Stoudt.   Vesta worked in an Illinois defense plant packaging rifle cartridges destined for American soldiers overseas. The ammunition was packed in cardboard boxes, sealed against moisture with wax, and secured with paper tape. A small tab was provided so soldiers could quickly tear open the packaging. At least, that was the idea.   Vesta discovered that the tabs had an annoying habit of breaking off, leaving the unfortunate soldier to wrestle ...

    The tree branches were barren, beaded with rain, and shrouded in a smoky smirr. Igor and I trudged up the cobblestone path toward a gaping doorway that slowly emerged from the darkness. The fog was thickening, and our spirits were as damp as our coats. A shadowy figure in a black rain cape appeared in the doorway, holding a small flashlight. The figure glided toward us.   It was Mary.   There's something just not right about a flashlight held beneath someone's face. The shadows fall all wrong, the features become distorted, and the teeth seem more prominent. Mary looked like a vampire.   We had come to get her casket. What?   Stay with me …..   For twenty years, while I worked at the community bank next door, the Oyster had been the source of marriages, divorces, quarrels, laughs, promotions, dinner dates, business deals, hangovers, and happy hours. It was a restaurant and bar with a fair degree of elegance for a small...

  If you ask around, I think most people are going to tell you this is a toiletry bag but perhaps some folks from The Greatest Generation (and I think it was) and a few others may know it as a Dopp Kit. A Dopp kit—spelled with two ps, not Dop kit—is designed to hold grooming supplies. Dopp kits open wide and their compact size that makes them particularly helpful for individuals who are traveling. Without taking up too much luggage space, a Dopp kit is able to offer a convenient space to pack a shaving kit, razor blades, shaving cream, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, nail clippers, and other essential toiletries. The Dopp Kit acquired its name from a German leather-goods maker named Charles Doppelt, an immigrant to the United States. He invented his toiletry case, with the help of his nephew, in 1919. Doppelt manufactured and sold the bags locally at first. Charles Doppelt Inc. was a Chicago company located at 2024 South Wabash Avenue. The company got its big brea...

                                                                                         Many people have a Christmas story, maybe several but perhaps one stands out, mentally buried for a time in an avalanche of calendar pages of years gone by. It may be a particular story or, like one of my own, is just a simple recollection like walking in the early evening to my grandmother’s house to shovel her snow and watching as the Christmas wreath with the red light slowly became visible in the second-floor window. Ducking inside afterwards for a cup of hot chocolate (she insisted) and conversation was time well spent, and I miss her very much.  This is typical of Chris...

    As a kid growing up in the 1950s, you spent as much time as possible outside together with your friends. One outdoor pastime we really liked was watching aircraft fly overhead and naming them if possible. I still remember what a TWA Super G Constellation looked like. If you were lucky you might spot Goodyear Blimp, military aircraft, or watch a Sikorsky helicopter place HVAC units on the roof of a nearby factory.   But you got a crick in your neck when a skywriter was overhead writing “It’s Toasted” in aircraft oil—exhaust floating in the air above me. The meaningless catchphrase promoted Lucky Strike cigarettes, and you can still find it on a pack of the smokes.   You might correctly guess skywriting to be a difficult skill to learn. The letters must be formed without the pilot having any perspective over what they’re doing. Though the letters look vertical from the ground, they are in fact horizontal, facing the ground, and a skywriting pilot can only...

  Every few seconds, slicing through the clatter, comes the crisp, high-pitched ding of a bell ringing like the sound you hear when your fries are done. But it’s not a Radar Range (who remembers that name?). It’s a typewriter carriage bell, and there are at least a dozen Selectrics on the main floor.   Men wore dark suits. Women dressed accordingly. No one approached you wearing a label-maker name tag on a unisex polo shirt bearing a name like Redneck Bank.   It’s a real bank in Oklahoma, and they lean hard on the brand—very hard. I’m thinking of Green Aces. Their mascot is a mule. Check them out for yourself—and you think I make this stuff up.   1975.   You walked into your neighborhood bank, and it was like Cheers, where everybody knows your name. Well, there were a handful of employees, anyway.   “Good morning, Mr. Dawlidowicz. How’s the family?” And he or she pronounced the name correctly—because it mattered.   You handed the teller your passbook, ...