The savory poultry scents of Thanksgiving, the nauseating sweetness of Halloween, the giddy nut-flavored aromas of Christmas, the melting chocolate of Easter, the roasting barbecue pits of Memorial Day, the succulent candies and desserts for July Fourth, and the luscious garden vegetables of Labor Day come to me when I think my youth in West Philadelphia.
Growing up along the Schuylkill River on the edge of Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, I remember Mother and Dad making the most of their annual traditions, all around the food my brother Neil and I ate in hearty abundance. The abundance came to an abrupt end after my college years, after my year in Italy, when I returned home to the Great Depression. After they lost the house and moved to the apartment on top of the pharmacy, the abundance became an abridgement.
All that’s past and all’s well that ends well, so they write. Mother and Dad moved out of the closet of an apartment they had, Agnes and I moved into our own home, and the abundant meals returned to our family’s tables. But time passes and bitter memories linger. Lying here on my cot in the barracks somewhere just outside of London, writing into my diary, I wonder what the purpose of the Depression was. So that we’d appreciate our wealth all the more? And what, then, is the purpose of this ghastly war?
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