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UNUSUAL EVENTS:
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When W.W.II broke out, I was too small to remember, but when we were living on
the dairy ranch of my Aunt and Uncle's, I remember the black outs. Our windows were covered to be completely dark. Either with paint or heavy fabric. We did not turn lights on during certain hours. Being on a dairy and milking cows made a major difference in the farmhands time of work.
We live on the coast
line. We could hear the planes leave the valley (Sacramento Valley) and head toward the coast and Hawaii. We would set on our porch steps and wait til the planes appeared. I learned almost all the planes of W.W.II because of this. Believe it or not, those planes roared for a long time before they reached our eye sight and roared a long time before leaving our eye sight. I will take the roar of a jet any day to that droning of those planes. Today when an oldie fires up and we watch an AIR SHOW, my skin still gets goose bumps. My Uncle Comillo had two brothers that flew in those planes. At the close of the War one day, one brother came over the yard and dipped his wings and waved to us all. We were excited to see him return but it sure messed up the milking of cows that evening. Actually Uncle said it took two days to get the cows to again let their full milk down to retrieve. (Even cows when uptight can withhold milk. We had to regather some of the cows.) WE had all types of planes leave the military bases in the US and flew to Hawaii to go on to where ever they would be stationed, fights, bombers, etc. Some roar more than others, of course some are much larger than others too.
When asking Mom about the time, she said, depending on how many units, sometimes it was four/five hours of planes flying westward
to HI. My Dad was a plane spotter because of color blindness and my birth. If the War had lasted another week, my Dad would have been
called
anyway. He had a brother that had been at Pearl Harbor when the Island was attacked and wanted in badly. Uncle Jerry said they had rumors that such a thing might happen. But the guns they carried had no ammunitions. He said they stood up in the watch towers and threw their guns at the pilots and looked many Japanese Air Pilots in the eye.
I have always felt the training I had as a
small child made me more aware of my surroundings and the beauty that is there daily. It also helped me to learn to be very still and quiet (:>)) while we watched for deer for my Dad and Uncle to help put food on the table during the rationing and when legal to shoot.
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