Intense weather on the blogs recently. Many hard lines. Angst writing itself into being. This phrase, so seductive...
Interesting NPR story about the Nebraska town of North Platte, which somehow in 1941, because of an initial error, began greeting every trainful of soldiers that passed through.
Soldiers arriving any time of day or night would find a crowd waiting for them. By war's end, the town of 12,000 persons had greeted some 6 million soldiers. Trains would stop for 10 minutes, giving soot-encrusted troops time for a sandwich, a Saturday Evening Post, a dance with a girl in the canteen.
The little town didn't have the resources to do this all by itself. Some 125 communities in northern Nebraska ended up helping out.
Some girls would give the soldiers popcorn balls. Inside some of the balls were lists of local farm girls' names and addresses. Bob Greene, the author of Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen, noted that at least two soldiers came back and married girls and had long lives with large families.
The book is being marketed, of course, as a slice of heartwarming patriotism, America at its best, etc. I wonder if it has something to say about blogging, about which, I think there is much we do not understand. Especially its weather.
