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Home Front Letters: Lottie Thompson

I had an interesting letter from Lottie Thompson of Lewistown, Penn. Lottie remembers the ’40s quite well, but she wasn’t writing about the ’40s this time.

She was just telling her news and what she does in her routine, and something she said really caught my attention. I thought to myself: we’re on the way back to how it was in the ‘40s. Give a listen to this.

“… I’m making plans to move up around there to be closer to my girls. They tell me I will be sorry, but I still think I need to be near them. With the price of gas, I can’t expect them to come down to see me. Yes, my girl friend has a car. When pay day comes, she and her son and another friend of ours and me all go to the bank and the food stores together. We try to make one trip for us to the bank, food store, and the drug store to get our medicine in one trip.”

Here we are in the age of technology, and our retirees (and a lot of other folks, too) have to band together and share cars and split the cost of gasoline just to do the monthly chores. They did it that way when they were young working folks and gas was in short supply. I wonder if any of them feel a bit like they’ve been in this situation before? How funny. If it weren’t so sad, it’d be funny.

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