Wayne;

I grew-up in a small town in Michigan. The same town I live in now. One of my early memories was collecting metal caps off beer and soft drink bottles.
I would take a small sack of them to the local junk dealer and I get a penny or two. I now wonder if they were paying for the metal or just giving a little boy a token for being helpful in the war effort. My mother, like every household would save the grease from bacon and other meat in glass jars or tin cans. That all went to the junk dealer too.

My brother and I built a cab on our wagon out of an orange crate for the grocery store. We needed something to cover it with and found some paper board signs. The signs said " Buy War Bonds". When the guy next door saw that he put us to work. He gave us each a nickel to pull that wagon up and down the streets.

My mother wrote letters to some army men during the war. These were guys that we didn't know. I don't know where she got their names. Could be from the man that run the drug store. He was head of the draft board. Anyway, when the war was over everyone of them came to visit.

I remember the sad day at our house when my two seventeen year old future bother-in-law said goodby and boarded the train to go to the army.

I don't know if it was because of the war or if it was just the way it was but everyone looked out for everyone. If you needed help someone was there. Nobody went without.

I don't remember when the rules became a bother. I guess in the late '50s and early "60s but that may be when they applied to the things I was doing.