Good Parenting

I remember back in 1937 when I was ten years old, I heard the roar of an approaching low-flying airplane so I ran out to the backyard and there a few hundred feet overhead was the first Autogiro airplane I’d ever seen! What a thrill! What a happy day that was!

Back then, in the late thirties, we were in the middle of the Great Depression. Our family never had any extra money but we did have lots of other things that were even better than money such as: home, family, love, good neighbors and – now, as I look back, many heart warming memories of those “good” times we shared. In all, they were good times for us – one day at a time.

I remember five years later, in 1942, the depression was behind us, but there was a war on. There were shortages. We had almost no gas for cars. There was food rationing. Everything was too expensive. Everyday our troops were being shot at and killed and wounded in Europe and out in the Pacific. Gold Stars hung in many of our neighbor’s front windows.

Even so, my family made the best we could of those times. We worked hard, my parents served as air raid wardens, we grew victory gardens and at the same time, we played as often as we could. In short, we were as happy as we could be under those circumstances. They were, in many ways, good times for us with, as I look back now, many pleasant memories.

Then in 1947 – after another five years, I was away from home and  in the Navy. I remember I made $78 a month and sent half of it home to help out. I had very little money but I was -courtesy of the Navy’s 6th fleet – on a grand tour of Gibraltar, Spain, Italy, Athens, Mars Hill, the Parthenon, Trieste (Yugoslavia), the cities of Nice and Cannes in the beautiful south of France, a visit to the casbah section of a port city in North  Africa, and even a week-end trip to ski in the beautiful village of Cortina in the Italian Alps. What a good – never to be forgotten – time that was.

Then in 1952, I was by this time, a civilian again, recently married and going to college at night on the GI Bill and struggling to pay the bills in my small business and to pay the rent for our tiny first apartment. For fun, since we had no money, we’d go for walks in the park. We laughed and had lots of fun. That too, was one of my: best of times.

What I’m trying to say is this: Every year, in fact, every today of your life and mine, even though full of its own problems and struggles can be for each one of us, praise the Lord, the best of times of life!