I'm Still Scared (9 page)

Dad told us that all the state workers were being asked to take “war jobs” along with their other jobs.

“How are you going to do that?” Buddy asked.

“After New Year‘s, I'll still be working in my office just like I do now, but not all day. I'll be working at New Departure as a ‘foreman.' That means I'll make sure everyone's doing their job. I'll be working what they call the ‘graveyard shift' from midnight until eight-thirty in the morning.”

“When will you sleep?” I asked.

Dad said that he would get home from Hartford around three in the afternoon and go to bed and sleep until eleven at night. Then he would go to New Departure to work until eight-thirty in the morning, come home, have breakfast, clean up, and then go back to his office in Hartford.

“I won't get to see as much of you as I do now,” Dad said, “except on weekends.”

And he was right.

For the whole war, we never saw Dad except on Saturdays and Sundays. When we got home from school, he was asleep. Then he left for work when we were asleep. Dad was always either “upstairs asleep” or “at work.”

Well, even though we were at war, Christmas was great. We had a beautiful tree.

Mom and Dad's Christmas Eve Party was crowded with people that I know: Uncle Charles and his girlfriend, Viva; Mickey Lynch; Vinnie (from Wallingford, too) and his girlfriend, Queenie; Monnie and Joe; our cousin Helen and her husband, Carl, who is a soldier; Cousin Mabel and her husband, Bill Powers; Mr. and Mrs. Nadile; Mr. and Mrs. Houdlette; the Conroys; and all the neighbors and friends from all over Meriden and Wallingford.

The next morning Buddy, Maureen, and I got up very early. We wanted to see what Santa Claus had brought us. We got lots of things, including a big swing and seesaw set for the backyard.

We had Christmas dinner in Wallingford at Nana and Tom's. Nana gave me a new diary for 1942. She and Tom gave Buddy and me a small radio for our bedroom.

On the way home, Dad decided to drive around a little so we could see people's Christmas decorations and lights.

“We may not see this for a while,” he said.

Because of the war,
I thought.

When we got home, we turned on the outside lights on the bushes, the electric candles in the windows, and the Christmas tree. We were allowed to have outside Christmas lights on for a few hours each night during Christmastime.

Two days later, Mom took Jeannie and me to see Mr. Walt Disney's brand-new movie,
Dumbo.
It was about a little elephant who had big ears and could fly. It was excellent although Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo's mother, got put in jail for spanking some mean boys that made fun of Dumbo's ears. I liked the part where Mrs. Jumbo puts her trunk out of the barred windows and Dumbo crawls onto it. Then Mrs. Jumbo sings a lullaby. It was so sad.

Mr. Walt Disney really knows how to make very good cartoon movies.

A few days later, Mom and I met Carol Morrissey and her mom at the Capitol Theatre to see
Mr. Bug Goes to Town.
That was the movie Miss Leah wanted us to see. It was all about these bugs that lived in an empty lot right near Broadway in New York City. The hero was a grasshopper named Hoppity. His girlfriend was a honeybee.