Something I wonder about (or remember, depending .. ) are the commercials left in that caution you housewives to save even a spoon of left over fat a day will make a pound in a month, that you can take to your butcher who will see to it our boys will get the needed gunpowder to get Hitler and Tojo.
As I contemplate those commercials, I remember old movies I've seen that will show kids walking the tracks finding scrap to donate for airplane parts or some such thing.
WW2 was only 70 some years ago, and our entire nation was involved with winning the war ... killing the enemy ... and not apologizing for that desire nor the words used to describe it.
I was born in '48, so I was not an actual part of that history, but we eight kids grew up with Mrs Filbert's Margerine, which I vowed .. when I get bigger, I'm going to have nothing but butter!
And my belly fat proves the tenacity with which I clung to that vow.
Austerity? No sweat.
I was born in ‘32,my brother in ‘35,and my father died in ‘38——and then the war.
Doing without was a way of life. No big deal.
Booklets of war bond "stamps" at face values of cents... another peanut can, on my dad's dresser...full of combat ribbons...fun for a kid to arrange and rearrange in colorful rows...
Those were the days...America could stand a siege of austerity, just to remind the marshmallows out there that life is sometimes tough..