Yesterday.

I had a long telephone conversation with my niece yesterday. She is the daughter of my oldest sister, and she is so sweet to stay in touch with all of us older family members. We talk about everything, and she helps me to remember all those happy times we had as kids. She and my younger siblings grew up together, so there are a lot of stories.

I went away to business school after high school, so I missed out on some of their stories, but I have my own to remember.

The time was the beginning of the great war. If you lived at this time , and if you were sixteen and all the boys were going off to war, you will understand what that means. The country was trying to get out of the depression, so everyone was in the same boat. We had to make our own entertainment. Thanks to some of the parents that liked to have fun, we were allow to come to their homes on Saturday night, roll back the furniture and dance to the the strum of someones guitar. We had such good fun. No beer, no hard drinks, but a drinks of water from a bucket with a community dipper in it to drink from.We did this every week. The parents would sit back and watch as we danced the night. We had no transportation, so we walked to the danced. When it was time to go home at midnight we would be so tired it would be hard to make it home.

One of our guitar players was new in our community. He was a real handsome lad, and he fit in with our little group. He had moved there to live with some relatives. We became friends, and then he went to join the war. I don't remember corresponding with him. Maybe I did.

My oldest sister died several years ago. My niece inherited a cedar chest from her that her husband had given her for Christmas before they were married. Inside the chest, my niece found a letter that was written to me from this young friend who was then on an island far away. I never received this letter until over sixty years after it was written. My friend never got to come home again. What if?