Putting On The Blitz

Another day, another crazy morning of having to get out of bed, line up for our showers, and dash around like mad neatening up the bedroom and covering everything with tarps before the contractor gets here to work on the master bath. At 7:30.

Did they even HAVE a bathroom?

Yeah, it's fun. It brings to mind Anne Frank, actually, because I'm Jewish and was therefore expected to read Anne Frank's Diary at an impressionable age, including the part about how she and all the people who were hiding in that attic behind the bookcase had to get up super early and rush around and get dressed and neaten up before anyone came to work downstairs; after that, they had to be super quiet and not move all day until the workers left. I read that when I was 10 or so, and I remember being glad that I didn't live in hiding, because I didn't like getting up and dressed that early.

Growing up Jewish can be special sometimes. Especially because everything reminds you of Anne Frank, in one way or another. I mean, I just compared having my bathroom redone to hiding from the Nazis. If you're not offended, you certainly should be.

In other news, I drove one of my elderly clients to the dentist today, and then sat and knitted in the waiting room while she had her teeth cleaned. (I know, it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.) There was another elderly woman there (92, as it turns out), with a British accent, and we got to talking, first about knitting.

"I used to knit at boarding school," she said. "We would knit socks in the evening for the seamen."

"Really?" I said.

"We would put notes in with the socks, and I remember being disappointed when none of those gentlemen replied."

Picture me, sitting there, trying to imagine this very old woman as a disappointed English schoolgirl.

"Of course," she continued, "I couldn't wait to graduate. I joined the WAAFs right away."

And here, people, is where I started paying attention.

These women here - she was one of them

"The WAAFs?" I asked. "The Royal Air Force? In WWII?" Because, yes, I can do math. This woman was born in 1924.

"Oh, yes, have you heard of them?" she said.

"YOU were one of the women in those bunkers? The ones marking incoming German planes during the Blitz?"

"Oh, certainly - we all stood around that big table with the maps and pushed those planes around," she reminisced.

OMG, thought my inner history buff. I'm talking to a WAAF. She's a living piece of history. 


"Hitler was a terrible man," she added, unbidden. "And this guy in charge now doesn't look much better."

Heck, I guess she'd be one to know, wouldn't she?






[Anne Frank bookcase: Wikimedia Commons]
[WAAF plotters image: Wikipedia]