1945

The War was over!  A picture is worth a thousand words.

...Yep, the war was over; men started coming home, and the world changed (at least in the USA).  People could buy cars again, Dad bought at 1939 Buick.  The car wouldn't stay is third gear (they were manual transmissions then) unless he held it down, the key was broken off in the ignition so you could start it with a screwdriver!  That car lasted four years.  Now we could ride around - Dad's favorite pastime (mine too, I must admit).  We would go to Sanford and down to the airport, during the war it was a Navy Air Facility, part of the runway was painted to look like a carrier landing deck, there was arresting gear (for the tailhook) and a plywood control tower that resembled an aircraft carriers superstructure; pilots practiced "carrier landings" in Sanford; the actual ships were busy in the Pacific.

I haven't said much about my Mom's family.  Her parents were Charles (everyone called him Ed) and Catherine Goodwin, they lived in Shapleigh, Maine on a small farm.  Her dad worked the farm and worked sometimes in the woods, cutting trees for lumber.  He also for a while ran the "snow roller" for the town - before cars the snow was packed down in the road for sleds and sleighs pulled by horses.
Mom had one brother, Jack, and four sisters, Edith, Peggy, Blanche and Annie.  She graduated from Shibles High School in Shapleigh in 1932, there were 3 people in her class.  She married Dad a couple of years later, 1934.

A snow roller at work.

Shapleigh Corner in 1911, the High School was across for that store on the left (yes, it's the store).

Me on the left and Lysle on the right - 1945