Coal House & Coal House at War

This Welsh series  is absolutely brilliant.  It sets up several families in a community of coal miners and their families.  Series 1 is set in 1927 and the second is set in 1944.  My favorite historical reality series of all time is 1940s House and these two series, especially the second, is all that and a whole bunch more!  Set up as a community, you get to explore more issues, like neighbors helping, taking in children who were evacuated from the cities during the Blitz, and working in the mines.  Like in the 1940s House, the rabbits survive, but a few chickens and a pig named after Adolph Hitler end up on the table.

Nevertheless, 1940s house is still my favorite, probably because with just one family a viewer gets a
really up close and personal account of World War II on the homefront.

As far as I know Series 1 is the only historical reality show set in the 1920s.

It blows my mind that the United States not done historical reality shows set in the 20th century at all!  Maybe it's the hard time of letting go of modern life that the earlier participants had that made the producers give up on the Americans.  Watch Colonial House, for example, and you'll see how some of participants, Americans all of them, whined and complained and refused to play along with the social rules of the time.  The British ones were not happy all the time, but they were dang good sports the whole time.  Okay, there was that one English dude who snuck into town, but he was suitably abashed upon his return and worked hard for the remainder. 

I remember one participant in Frontier House wondering how in the world could a person work so hard, wish and want so much to be a part of something so unique and rare, and then blow it off?  Just because you have to work hard and do without for a few weeks! 

Don't even get me started on Texas Ranch House!

In any case, the families in both Coal House series were troopers and I learned a lot and have been seriously inspired to work harder on my cooking skills.

I still wish like crazy the Americans would make at least one more, preferably life on the homefront during World War II.  All I could find was this informative, but boring documentary from the Hoover Library-   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34xA61v8WhQ

One of the Women Behind One of the Men Who Saved the World

I would say British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, one of the men who saved the world during
World War II, was produced and supported by three incredible women, his wife Clementine, his nanny Mrs. Everest, and his mother Jennie Jerome of Brooklyn, New York.  Wasn't she a knockout?

If you watch Downton Abbey you're probably aware of the Dollar Princesses, the American heiresses who crossed the Atlantic to marry into the British nobility.  Consuelo Vanderbilt was probably the most famous, because she snagged the biggest fish, the Duke of Marlborough. 

The English were broke, but had castles and cool aristocratic titles, and the Americans were filthy rich social climbers - it was a match made in elite heaven. 

Even the late Diana, Princess of Wales counts one in her gene pool.

In any case, Jennie Jerome snagged Lord Randolph Churchill.  Maybe we can thank her for familiarizing Winston with American ways, thus empowering him to forge a vital alliance between Great Britain and the United States. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Warrior King. Not.

Note:   There are many complete biographies of President Eisenhower.  Mine's just a fun nod to this great man.  I intend to post about each of the presidents between 1912 and 1963, but in a positive way.  This isn't meant to spark political rioting.  I'm a history buff and I appreciate the balance necessary to our form of government.  I'll also be posting about other people in that time period who have inspired me.

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Before the birth of the United States, it was rare that a triumphant warrior would have the humility necessary to refuse being crowned king or dictator for life or some other such thing.  And successful warriors are typically too narcissist to be benevolent civilian leaders.
 

As vice president, Harry S. Truman became president of the United States when the beloved President Roosevelt died just weeks before victory was declared in Europe at the close of World War II.  He authorized the Bomb and just a few years later got us into the Korean War.

These two presidents were Democrats, by the way. 

I think it’s pretty much impossible for my generation and younger to comprehend how it felt to be an American back then. 

Millions of people around the world died in World War II, including brothers and fathers and sisters and mothers.  It was horrible.  The nation was shell-shocked.  This is why it would have been easy for Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander who led the D-Day Invasion which literally saved the world, to become president or king or whatever and pretty much get away with anything.  Like George Washington, he refused.

But, some people got together and eventually convinced him to run for president.  Draft Eisenhower Movement   Of course, he won and President Eisenhower led our nation for two terms, from 1953 to 1961. 

The 1950s are nowadays criticized for many things, but there’s a growing movement of folks who appreciate the good things that went on.  Sure, there were negatives, but it was also a time of optimism and appreciation for the family.  The economy was booming and so were the babies.  World War II was finally behind us and I don’t think parents talked about it enough with their children, probably too painful. 

The Korean War ended and the Armed Forces were desegregated (a process started by Truman.) When Arkansas balked at desegregation in their schools, Eisenhower called up the National Guard and nine African American students were escorted safely to class.  Eisenhower also signed two Civil Rights Acts into law.  I like to think it was the courageous service of African Americans, like the  Tuskegee Airmen  during World War II which made this domestic issue so important to Eisenhower. 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. thanked him for his efforts:   "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order in Little Rock”
 

Oh, sure, there were nasty things going on around the world, but there was also Elvis Presley  

and    I Love Lucy  at home.

And my mother went to college.

 

After a two-term president, Americans almost always vote in a president of the opposite party.  Guess we just like change, but change is good and balance is essential to our form of government, I do believe.  Eisenhower was a Republican and his successor was a young Democrat named John F. Kennedy.

President Eisenhower at Biography.Com

Hey, did you notice Indy said, "I Like Ike," at one point in the last movie.  Watch it again, if you can't remember.  I think the scene with him running through the pretend 1950s neighborhood set up for the nuclear test was a stroke of imaginative genius.   Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Skull

 

My Original Review of Rendezvois to Remember by Geri Krowtow

World War II Historical Romance.   Rendezvous to Remember

WINDSHIFT by Joyce Faulkner

Good morning, Blog Buds. 

I assume you all know about the WASPs during World War II, right?  Okay, just in case some of you don’t know, before World War II women were strongly discouraged if not outright denied the option of becoming a pilot.  Amelia Earhardt is probably the most famous of the women who rejected that and won.  The United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941 and all of a sudden the nation’s men were shipping off, leaving  few behind to work in the factories and other civilian jobs.  Women filled those spots.  Soon, the military couldn’t spare pilots to do the more mundane work of testing and ferrying new airplanes from factories to airfields.  Women pilot pioneers saw their chance and put together the Women’s Air Service Pilots, the WASPs.

Windshift is the name of the inn were a group of these WASPs stayed while working at an airfield in Ohio after completing their training.  Myrtle is the fortysomething widow who runs the inn.  And this is their story.

Shirley is a Daddy's Girl who can’t seem to understand why she doesn’t have many friends, but it becomes obvious by how she’s driven to remake her bed after Myrtle already made it and how critical she is of another new girl, Emmie, who dumps her stuff and flops on her own bed. 

Women are women the galaxy over, as Captain Kirk once noted, if I remember correctly.  And when they get together, it doesn’t matter if it’s 1943 or 2013.  The slang and the fashion changes and sometimes the social attitudes a little, but a group of females together is going to be entertaining at least.

That nitpick, Shirley, starts the story and she turns out to be a good one to describe the setting.  I totally loved Myrtle’s kitchen.  And not all the boys are off to war, one adorable, semi-deaf one drives the bus which takes them back and forth to work everyday.

Finally, Delores arrives and Shirley has someone to be jealous of.  Delores blows in dressed in blue silk and with two hot GIs carrying her stuff.  And Emmie hugs her because they’re already friends.

So, we got our three core heroines.

These girls come alive on the page.  You take a look at her grandma or great-grandma and try to imagine them at about age twenty.  Even if they show you pictures, I bet it’s hard to imagine them being and doing all the girly things you did or will do at that age.  But, they did.  And on top of all that normal girl stuff, these WASP girls also helped save the world.

Emmie’s backstory is sweet and sad.  She’s an orphan who falls in love and marries young and then her man is killed while testing out a new plane for her.  Gotta love Emmie.

Nowadays, it’s difficult to imagine the prejudice these three girls run into when people find out they’re pilots, but it bonds them together.  Back then, girls were supposed to stay home under their fathers’ control until they married, after which they were under their husband’s control.  They were supposed to make babies and wash dishes and that was it.  And some people couldn’t wrap their brain cells around the idea that they could or should help save the world besides. 

Then, Mags comes into the story.  She’s gonna be their mentor.  She’s older and she doesn’t give a damn about prejudice or any of that crap.  She’s built her own life and lives it on her own term.  And the girls love her for it.

Even when she takes them on a wild ride in a Plymouth, or maybe because of it.

It’s the first of many great and wonderful adventures with Mags.  I especially liked the one where she distracts a male officer so one of the girls can snitch his candy.  Sugar was rationed during World War II, so candy was a rare treat!

Mags was in Europe before this gig and she got to fly a Spitfire, my personal favorite aircraft of all time.  Speaking of Europe, Delores has family there being tormented by the Nazis there too.

This is the best kind of historical.  You get all the historical stuff delivered to you, but it doesn’t feel like it because the characters are so alive and real and easy to relate to, as well as believable in their era.  The secondary characters are fully fleshed out and you can sink right into the ‘world’ and forget it’s 2013.  That’s very hard to pull off, as a writer.

I hope Joyce Faulkner keeps writing Historicals and I hope her publisher keeps sending them to me to review!

Honor Flight

November 11th is Veterans' Day.  For Living It, I'd like to bring your attention to a charitable organization called Honor Flight.   http://www.honorflight.org/

This organization was set up to provide free travel to World War II veterans so they could visit the memorials set up for them one last time before they pass away.  For some, this is even the only time in their lives they could visit.  These are the heroes from the Greatest Generation, the generation which literally saved the world.  There are very few of them left.

Sixty-eight years ago, they were just terrified young people going to do what needed to be done to save their friends and family.  They knew they would probably died a horrible death, split apart by bullets.  But, they went anyway.  This is true love and courage.

Some of these young people survived to tell us the incredible tale.

***Study this picture carefully.  That's a sunken ship under there, the USS Arizona.***

If you're so unfamiliar with the history that you just don't get it, try watching this Steven Spielberg movie, Saving Private Ryan.

I've spoken to vets.  They say the landing is the most accurately portrayed they've ever seen.  Here's a movie clip-   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqSg7WO4tT4

And they went through this hell on earth so that you could have the chance to Live Happily Ever After.  Don't let them down.  Now, shake a vet's hand and say thank you for your freedom, 'kay?

^"13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." John 15:13 The Bible

Much love, Blog Buds.

Saturdays Will Be Fun Days - The King's Speech

Blog Hops, Guest Blogs, etc...  and also review of other things besides books, like movies.  Before you take one look at the picture and decide I have stuffy tastes in movies, you should know I enjoyed watching Zombieland  right before it.  I have exceedingly wide tastes.
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Last week I finally got to watch a movie called The King's Speech. 

Of course, I'm a history buff, so I know all about King George VI, father of the present Queen Elizabeth II.  He's my favorite British king ever and this movie demonstrates exactly way.  I was glued and I cried.  Here's the trailer-   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzI4D6dyp_o
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FYI:   Harry Potter fans will be delighted to meet up with some of their favorite British actors in this one, including the ones who played Bellatrix and Dumbledore.
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Most Americans just don't get it.  To them, British royalty is just a bunch of overpaid celebrities.  They don't get how the Royal Family is the living embodiment of British culture and history.  But, you're brilliant.  You're not like most Americans.  You're here to learn cool stuff, right?
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I think anyone who has a Special Need or loves anyone who has a Special Need must watch this movie, regardless.  You see, King George VI had a paralyzing Speech Impediment.  Since he was born a prince and wound up king when his elder brother abdicated the Throne, he was *required* to do public speaking.  You know, most of us suffer through at least one semester of Speech class.  Imagine enduring that horror every single day of your life!  And you probably have average speech ability.  He didn't.
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Good people suffer bad stuff.  We all know that.  One of the reasons Bad Stuff happens to Good People is so that they share their courage and strength with others later on.  That's the moral of the story.
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Right after all this crap happened to King George VI, World War II broke out.  After Hitler throttled mainland Europe, he went after England and it is a historical fact that the King's courage got his people through what would later be called "The Blitz."  For months and months, Hitler's planes bombed British cities.  The British held out and he finally gave up invading.  During the Blitz, people begged the King to flee Britain to safety in Canada.  One of my favorite quotes was by his wife, mother of the present queen, Elizabeth, "The children won't leave without me.  I won't leave the King.  And the King will never leave."  And so they stayed and the Battle of Britain was won.  This photograph was taken of the King and Queen visiting a bombed out site during the Blitz.  Buckingham Palace was even bombed.  After that, the Queen said, defiantly, "I'm glad we've been bombed.  Now, we can look the East End in the eye."   http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/sep/13/queen-mother-biography-shawcross-luftwaffe

For an enjoyable primer, watch the old movie 'Battle of Britain.'  You can probably find it on YouTube.  Oh, yeah, here's the Zombieland poster, just for a visual example of my wide tastes in storytelling.