Yesterday's blog was a description of how I ended up in Oklahoma.  A little kid in the middle of things I didn't understand.  All I knew was that I was really lonely.  I think everyone was lonely in their own way.  All of us had been uprooted and plopped down in a strange place.  We had no friends.

My mom was from a big family and after we moved, all of them might as well have lived at the other end of the earth because travel had so many obstacles.  Many of the roads were dirt.  Two lanes.  Many of the bridges were one lane with boards laid over steel framing.  All the steel that could be removed from bridges had been melted down to make tanks and guns.

And if you had a car, you couldn't get tires or gasoline.  Tires and gasoline were needed for the war effort so everyone was restricted to a certain number of tires and a fixed amount of gasoline-- and could get them only if you had a "coupon".   Coupons were required for most food items as well. When you ran out of coupons, you did without.

When we finally had enough coupons for gas, we would drive the hundred and fifty miles to my grandmother and granddad's house.  I can still see my daddy squatting in the dirt beside the car, taking a tire off, pulling the flat inner tube out and patching it.  Not once, but sometimes three and four patches on one trip. Every thirty or forty miles we would get a flat.  Everyone carried a tire patch kit in the car.

People shared coupons.  They traded coupons.  I don't ever remember being without anything we needed.  America was a family, united in a common cause.  It was one of the most wonderful times of my life.  People went to church, prayed for "Our boys overseas," and gave thanks for what God had provided.  We were all in the same boat.

"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 1 Thess. 5: 18