OK, it is
Friday (and payday) so my inhibitions are a bit down. Sharon,
writing about German and Italians in Tennessee wrote: I recall
especially …the efforts made by the camp commander to do such things as serve
foods that the prisoners would like. Obviously, the Italians preferred
pasta and that sort of the thing, and the Germans wanted meat and potatoes. I
suspect such an environment would have made for some great psychological
studies, but I don't think much of that was done. I grew up
in Cleburne (between Bono and Rock Tank) in Johnson County, Texas. Johnson County was a “dry county” (i.e.
the only sources of alcohol were the bootleggers, moonshiners (mostly in
Somervell County), and trips to Tarrant County along a winding, two-lane road. As a boy in the 1950’s some of the tee
totaling adults were still indignant that during WWII the Army brought in beer
for POW’s working in the county. For all I
know this may have all been an urban (well, that may be the wrong adjective for
the community) myth. Some said
that the POW’s were Germans, others Italians. And I have the impression that they were in a fairly remote
area (maybe closer to Ft. Spunky or Goatneck than Cleburne) in a temporary work
camp, but I can vouch that no matter what the facts may have been there were
citizens who were outraged a decade and more after the fact that the Army
violated our local option law. Paul (who
does imbibe from time to time) Scott Records
Management Officer Harris
County, TX |