Hi, everyone. It’s a gorgeous day in Lincoln as this is being written. Hope your day – and your entire summer – will measure up accordingly.
Just a note or two to keep you in the loop on the writing front. We’re still waiting for any responses that past mailings and more recent epistles to agents and publishing companies might bring. There are two prospective books in the works. One is a military history titled (at least tentatively) Glory in the Shadows: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders – Cold War to the Present Day. The other, The YouTube Candidate, is a fiction piece that hopefully might strike a chord with next year’s mid-term elections coming up. (Or maybe not.) We’ll see. Later this month we’ll be out of pocket for a while on a trip-related adventure, so I will let the dust settle on those mailings while we’re away. If there is no news waiting for us when we return, it will probably be time to explore an entirely different set of publishers and/or follow-up with any of the agents who expressed a degree of interest.
The mention of the out of town trip brings us to the second major item of news: there will be no July Newsletter! Once again I can hear the resounding shouts of great joy echoing across landscapes that span the entire globe. Absent unforeseen circumstances, the newsletters should resume in August. Of course there is always a possibility of the ship striking an iceberg as we approach the Arctic Circle or of an unrepentant German U-Boat torpedoing us somewhere between Scotland and the coast of Norway. (There’s always that ten percent that don’t get the word.)
A few days ago, I was browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble while Nita did some pre-trip shopping (additional excursions are sure to follow) in preparation for the journey. (My own wardrobe is pretty much set: sneakers, blue jeans, and a couple of sweaters – my usual look of casual, understated elegance… I probably won’t take the Nebraska corncob hat with me.) Anyway, while I was waiting, I happened to pick up a small book titled 150 Great American Events. One entry that I found especially intriguing was that the North Platte Canteen was listed among the unique, out of the ordinary episodes in our nation’s history that warrant a special place in our collective memory.
For those among the readers who may not know the story, North Platte is a modest-sized city in central Nebraska that during World War II was a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad. All rail traffic halted there for a few minutes while crews topped off the reservoirs of the steam engines that at the time powered all locomotives. The troop trains that stopped there transported soldiers to the east and west coasts where they would embark on ships and head off to battlefields in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. The remarkable thing about North Platte was that beginning on Christmas Day, 1941, (18 days after Pearl Harbor) until April 1, 1946, the people of North Platte – and eventually 125 other communities, some as many as 200 miles distant – met every train that came to the station. Soldiers were showered with sandwiches of various kinds, cookies, cakes, pies, coffee, soft drinks, and, as appropriate, hugs and conversation. Some soldiers asked that notes to family members be written on their behalf. When the trains carried wounded soldiers who could not disembark, canteen members boarded the trains and served them. This went on around the clock for more than four and a half years. By the time it ended, more than six million soldiers had been cared for and given a touch of home by the people at the canteen.
Many of the veterans remembered those moments for the rest of their lives. In 2016, a network news program interviewed a soldier from Iowa whose train had stopped at North Platte on November 10, 1942. Seventy-four years later, the veteran still vividly recalled how much those ten or fifteen minutes had meant to him and his buddies.
One of the many things that showed the depth of commitment of the hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers who helped in various ways during the canteen’s existence was with everything else that was going on, with all they had to do to prepare and sustain the canteen effort, they were, of course, subjected to the same rationing restrictions on butter, sugar, meat, coffee, gasoline and other items that applied to all citizens. Thus, they and their families sometimes “went short” in order to assure sufficient food and treats for the canteen.
My first real awareness of the canteen occurred many years ago when I happened to catch a 60 Minutes or 20/20 episode that devoted a segment to the canteen experience. Volunteers (almost all were women) who had worked at the canteen told several stories that have always remained with me. One volunteer spoke of a colleague who was scheduled to work an evening shift at the canteen. That morning her friend had received a telegram notifying her that her soldier son had been killed in action. “She insisted on coming to work,” the volunteer said, “and through her tears she sat at the piano and sang songs with the soldiers and even danced with some of them.” I remember the interviewer seeming stunned by the story. I think he then asked something like “Why would she do that?” or “Why did she do that?” The volunteer replied, “Well, that’s Nebraska ….” That was gratifying to hear, of course, but it should be immediately noted that lots of marvelous people like her friend also came from distant places in Kansas and Colorado to help at the canteen. Full disclosure, though, I used that story in a speech that the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command gave to Nebraska’s business and political leaders at a banquet at Offutt AFB commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the command. I thought it represented the qualities that make the state special. (I also mentioned football, of course.)
Fortunately, the canteen experience created far more moments that were happier and life-affirming. Some of the younger lady volunteers who danced or talked with soldiers affixed their mailing addresses to sticky popcorn balls that they handed to servicemen that came into the canteen. Most did so apparently intending only to provide a pen pal opportunity to young people about to go in harm’s way. However, at least two marriages are known to have resulted from the sticky popcorn ball messages.
As the war continued and news of canteen operations spread, donations in money and food commodities flowed in from private citizens, businesses, church groups, and service organizations throughout the country. President Franklin D. Roosevelt even sent a personal check ($5.00).
Thanks to all for indulging me with this sidetracked discourse. When I first heard that news segment years ago and then read about the canteen, it occurred to me how truly special that occasion was and how exceptional were the people who made it happen. So, I was surprised, and touched, when I opened the book to find that the canteen had been singled out for its unique significance and placed alongside other of the most momentous events in our history.
Those who might wish to read the full story of the canteen should pick up a copy of Once upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene.
One final small item of full disclosure before turning to other things: in later years, Nita and I learned that her dad had been on some of those troop trains. Early in the war “Hutch” was the senior noncommissioned officer on three or four of the trains that carried troops to ports on the west coast. The train station where the canteen was located was torn down in 1973. However, the doors to the canteen were taken to the local museum where they still reside. Nita and I visited there a few years ago. Seeing those doors – knowing her dad had once walked through them – was a special moment.
And now, as always, that unique, much maligned, consistently disrespected feature: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.
The present-day ban on plastic straws was actually predicted by a 16th century prophet.
His name was No-straw-damus.
Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve bacteria here.”
The bacteria reply: “No, no. We work here – we’re staph!”
/////
Hope you have a great summer.
Best wishes – see you again in August.
Tom
Just a note or two to keep you in the loop on the writing front. We’re still waiting for any responses that past mailings and more recent epistles to agents and publishing companies might bring. There are two prospective books in the works. One is a military history titled (at least tentatively) Glory in the Shadows: America’s Forgotten Military Leaders – Cold War to the Present Day. The other, The YouTube Candidate, is a fiction piece that hopefully might strike a chord with next year’s mid-term elections coming up. (Or maybe not.) We’ll see. Later this month we’ll be out of pocket for a while on a trip-related adventure, so I will let the dust settle on those mailings while we’re away. If there is no news waiting for us when we return, it will probably be time to explore an entirely different set of publishers and/or follow-up with any of the agents who expressed a degree of interest.
The mention of the out of town trip brings us to the second major item of news: there will be no July Newsletter! Once again I can hear the resounding shouts of great joy echoing across landscapes that span the entire globe. Absent unforeseen circumstances, the newsletters should resume in August. Of course there is always a possibility of the ship striking an iceberg as we approach the Arctic Circle or of an unrepentant German U-Boat torpedoing us somewhere between Scotland and the coast of Norway. (There’s always that ten percent that don’t get the word.)
A few days ago, I was browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble while Nita did some pre-trip shopping (additional excursions are sure to follow) in preparation for the journey. (My own wardrobe is pretty much set: sneakers, blue jeans, and a couple of sweaters – my usual look of casual, understated elegance… I probably won’t take the Nebraska corncob hat with me.) Anyway, while I was waiting, I happened to pick up a small book titled 150 Great American Events. One entry that I found especially intriguing was that the North Platte Canteen was listed among the unique, out of the ordinary episodes in our nation’s history that warrant a special place in our collective memory.
For those among the readers who may not know the story, North Platte is a modest-sized city in central Nebraska that during World War II was a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad. All rail traffic halted there for a few minutes while crews topped off the reservoirs of the steam engines that at the time powered all locomotives. The troop trains that stopped there transported soldiers to the east and west coasts where they would embark on ships and head off to battlefields in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. The remarkable thing about North Platte was that beginning on Christmas Day, 1941, (18 days after Pearl Harbor) until April 1, 1946, the people of North Platte – and eventually 125 other communities, some as many as 200 miles distant – met every train that came to the station. Soldiers were showered with sandwiches of various kinds, cookies, cakes, pies, coffee, soft drinks, and, as appropriate, hugs and conversation. Some soldiers asked that notes to family members be written on their behalf. When the trains carried wounded soldiers who could not disembark, canteen members boarded the trains and served them. This went on around the clock for more than four and a half years. By the time it ended, more than six million soldiers had been cared for and given a touch of home by the people at the canteen.
Many of the veterans remembered those moments for the rest of their lives. In 2016, a network news program interviewed a soldier from Iowa whose train had stopped at North Platte on November 10, 1942. Seventy-four years later, the veteran still vividly recalled how much those ten or fifteen minutes had meant to him and his buddies.
One of the many things that showed the depth of commitment of the hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers who helped in various ways during the canteen’s existence was with everything else that was going on, with all they had to do to prepare and sustain the canteen effort, they were, of course, subjected to the same rationing restrictions on butter, sugar, meat, coffee, gasoline and other items that applied to all citizens. Thus, they and their families sometimes “went short” in order to assure sufficient food and treats for the canteen.
My first real awareness of the canteen occurred many years ago when I happened to catch a 60 Minutes or 20/20 episode that devoted a segment to the canteen experience. Volunteers (almost all were women) who had worked at the canteen told several stories that have always remained with me. One volunteer spoke of a colleague who was scheduled to work an evening shift at the canteen. That morning her friend had received a telegram notifying her that her soldier son had been killed in action. “She insisted on coming to work,” the volunteer said, “and through her tears she sat at the piano and sang songs with the soldiers and even danced with some of them.” I remember the interviewer seeming stunned by the story. I think he then asked something like “Why would she do that?” or “Why did she do that?” The volunteer replied, “Well, that’s Nebraska ….” That was gratifying to hear, of course, but it should be immediately noted that lots of marvelous people like her friend also came from distant places in Kansas and Colorado to help at the canteen. Full disclosure, though, I used that story in a speech that the Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command gave to Nebraska’s business and political leaders at a banquet at Offutt AFB commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the command. I thought it represented the qualities that make the state special. (I also mentioned football, of course.)
Fortunately, the canteen experience created far more moments that were happier and life-affirming. Some of the younger lady volunteers who danced or talked with soldiers affixed their mailing addresses to sticky popcorn balls that they handed to servicemen that came into the canteen. Most did so apparently intending only to provide a pen pal opportunity to young people about to go in harm’s way. However, at least two marriages are known to have resulted from the sticky popcorn ball messages.
As the war continued and news of canteen operations spread, donations in money and food commodities flowed in from private citizens, businesses, church groups, and service organizations throughout the country. President Franklin D. Roosevelt even sent a personal check ($5.00).
Thanks to all for indulging me with this sidetracked discourse. When I first heard that news segment years ago and then read about the canteen, it occurred to me how truly special that occasion was and how exceptional were the people who made it happen. So, I was surprised, and touched, when I opened the book to find that the canteen had been singled out for its unique significance and placed alongside other of the most momentous events in our history.
Those who might wish to read the full story of the canteen should pick up a copy of Once upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene.
One final small item of full disclosure before turning to other things: in later years, Nita and I learned that her dad had been on some of those troop trains. Early in the war “Hutch” was the senior noncommissioned officer on three or four of the trains that carried troops to ports on the west coast. The train station where the canteen was located was torn down in 1973. However, the doors to the canteen were taken to the local museum where they still reside. Nita and I visited there a few years ago. Seeing those doors – knowing her dad had once walked through them – was a special moment.
And now, as always, that unique, much maligned, consistently disrespected feature: TRULY AWFUL PUNS.
The present-day ban on plastic straws was actually predicted by a 16th century prophet.
His name was No-straw-damus.
Two bacteria walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve bacteria here.”
The bacteria reply: “No, no. We work here – we’re staph!”
/////
Hope you have a great summer.
Best wishes – see you again in August.
Tom
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