From My Home Front in the Bronx By Eugene Rinaldi b. 1939

I was born in November of 1939 and my memories of the war are vague for two reasons: because I was too young and because I’m too old.

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My first memory involves listening to reports from the Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 1944 to Jan. 1945) on the floor model Philco (might have been Motorola) radio in our living room in the Bronx. Calling it a living room is a great exaggeration, but it’s where we lived.

My father was an air raid warden. When the sirens went off, he would patrol the streets to be sure all the lights were out and the shades were drawn. I remember sitting with him listening to the radio in the dark. I had turned 6 years old in November. I have no idea who the reporter was, but my father and I listened with rapt attention. Today, I have a problem with the difference between what I heard or what my father told me.

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He said – or the radio reported – that it was so dark that men in the field were wearing something like a miner’s helmet. For years I never thought to question this tactic. But, if you’re in a battle, why in God’s name would you put a light on your head? Wouldn’t that be the best target for an enemy? Anyway, that’s my recollection of the radio in 1945, and my earliest memory of the war. (I suppose I should do some research and find out if there is any truth to my memory.)

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Of course, there were the daily routines we all remember: rationing, war bonds, paper and metal drives. I remember soaking cigarette papers, the ones with tin foil on one side, to remove the tin foil, We rolled it into balls the size of a baseball. They were collected by ‘the junk man’ with his horse and cart, to aid the war effort. 

 

And I remember victory gardens. I lived with my parents and three sisters, my grandparents, an aunt and a married uncle and his wife in a three-family house at 4617 Matilda Ave. between 240th and 241st streets in the Bronx. My grandfather, a boot black, bought the house in 1927. The neighborhood was pretty nice, it was called Wakefield. Our victory garden was four or five flower boxes on the back porch filled with basil, parsley and oregano. But on the corner of Matilda Avenue and 241st St. sat the real thing: an acre of corn, potatoes, cabbages, zucchini and tomatoes. Mr. Spoto, who owned the garden, guarded it like it was Fort Knox.