Treat Us Generously. June Everett

      The radio was scratchy with the sounds of Glenn Miller. Static faded in and out as the rhythmic mellow sounds of his orchestra strained over the airwaves from WBZ Boston. The radio console, stood majestic in its place in the living room; while “In the Mood” blended with the laughter and talk of my uncles . . . the lusty sounds of my childhood.

      Ella and Dorothy were probably there too, but I could not tell. But you could always tell the booming voices of Uncle Irving, and the smooth sound of Cary Grant, that is, my Uncle Lou.

      They had long ago chased me upstairs, where I lay in my big bed in the large front bedroom. The railing that encircled the long upstairs hall just outside my bedroom door, made it easy for me to to be a part of almost everything that happened or was said in the living room below.

      Yet, though our house always seemed very exuberant, it seemed to me that almost nothing happened in our town, except the War. That seemed everywhere, though it was supposed to be very far away. Everyone talked about it. Everyone lived it. Ration coupons . . . for groceries . . . traded, bought, stolen. No one had a new car; drove something they had for years, or something second-hand or nothing at all. Newspapers talked about some attack or plan. You couldn’t ride the Digby Boat or take a train. Sometimes you would get down to the station, and the trip to Halifax would be a troop train and no one else was allowed on it, even with a ticket. I don’t think people splurged at all. Not on food, or lights, or clothes, or things, or life.

      And so on those summery nights, everyone sat on the big porch with the radio somewhere nearby. We had been in Bridgewater forever, but now, with the War, lots of new people kept moving in. Something to do with the CNR or the lumber mill down the road. And lots of women, too, working in the cotton mill, or that new plant, think it might have something to do with rubber, down the LaHave Highway, that the Navy or someone had just built.

      Sometimes, my uncles and friends would go out to Ketepec for dances in the old Casino out there, and they would come back awfully late to our porch, and again, brought along Glenn Miller.

      Our home was really a member of our family. An old, big, and even a gallant house with a large sweeping lawn out front and 3 garages out back. Through the Depression, I had heard it cost a lot to keep it going, and there was more than one cold room through those winters. But it was like our child too, and we managed it. And now, with the War, my grandmother decided to rent out the caretaker’s place in the back-it was just a very large kitchen with 2 bedrooms. And she also rented the 3 back bedrooms upstairs, to girls who worked in the new spice plant opened by Batten’s; or to young wives whose husbands were shipped overseas. One even brought a baby.

      To me the best of the house in Bridgewater was the long driveway that wound in from Aberdeen Road. Aberdeen Road was really the highway, the busy road to Halifax, 6o miles away. On any day you could sit on that large front porch with its old uncomfortable chairs and couches from the family antique store-just old second hand stuff to me-and watch the traffic, rushing to the city. There always seemed to be lots and lots of cars and trucks, and even that new fangled station wagon, so sharp with its long shape and side wood paneling. It was a busy two lane road and I was really frightened to cross it by myself even to visit Isabelle, though my grandfather said just run across.

      Mostly I liked to watch for Uncle Lou. He had a shiny convertible that he drove back and forth to Halifax a million times a week, and then afterwards was always washing and polishing it. My grandmother never saw the use for that car. It was cold in the winter even when the top worked. It had only two doors and hard to climb into or to somehow get out of. There really wasn’t a trunk, because it had a rumble seat back there, which I loved, like I loved Uncle Lou.

      I didn’t know why that summer seemed so special to everyone. But probably because ‘the Boys’ were going away . . . to War. Uncle Lou was going up to Camp Borden in Ontario and the Air Force. And no one knew about Uncle Irving; he just wanted to join the Army, if they would take him on. He had an ear injury from a sledding accident way, way back, and he was looking around for some easy small town with a not too efficient recruiter.

      Chapter 2