***The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…

 

…she never intended to let it get that far but damn she was lonely, lonely for her man, lonely for her man overseas in some godforsaken island in the Pacific, Midway, or Guam, or Guadalcanal some place like that, lonely for a man. And so it started with Jeff, Jeff a boy, an old beau, she had known in high school, Olde Saco High if anybody was interested, who was being deferred because they needed him up at the Bath shipyard to help build that troop-transport-a-day they were committed to (no matter that later the statistics found the high rate of sinkings due to problems in construction) and they had met one Saturday night at the Starlight Ballroom in Olde Saco, had talked, had pleasantly talked, danced a couple of numbers including their song at the senior prom (held right in that very ballroom) If I  Didn’t Care. 

That started it, started her “she never intended to” including letting Jeff have his way with her one night after they had had a few drinks (yeah, she was lonely for a man, hadn’t done “it” in a year since he had gone overseas and was secretly thrilled to let a man have his way with her). And just then, just as she prepared to go meet Jeff at the Starlight Ballroom to dance, have a drink or two, and then see what happened she wondered, wondered out loud whether she should go or stay at home and write Jeff a letter.  She started the letter and as she wrote she thought about him, about that last night they has spent together, about her secret thrill and she left off, grabbed her coat and walked out the front door…