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Amanda Laughtland
Vital to Victory
poems by Amanda Laughtland
Š 2011 by Amanda Laughtland NAP CHAP 1 NAP Magazine & Books Indianapolis, IN NAPLITMAG.COM Cover by Ryan Bradley www.aestheticallydeclined.net
For Trish and for Sandy
Some poems in this collection were originally published by 21 Stars Review, 42opus, elimae, Eratio, listenlight, The Local Writer, No Tell Motel, Otoliths, past simple, Sawbuck, and Sacrifice Press.
Notes on This Issue Our friend and frequent contributor, Mr. Van Loos, supplies further reflections upon the battlefield of misinformation, countering “expert� claims that Russia has weakened. Betty makes her first appearance on our cover in a hat made just for us. She hails from London, where her brothers fly with the R.A.F. Her likeness is drawn from a natural color photograph.
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Notes on This Issue 7 Our New Nerve Center 13 Care and Operation of Your Gas Range 14 A Word from Bob Hope 15 No Amount Is Too Small to Save 16 America’s Smart Durable Rug 17 Don’t Rob the Cradle 18 Attention, Knitters 19 Your Eyes, Your Secret Weapon 20 Kill Them Dead 21 Please Drive Carefully 22 Vital to Victory
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No Laughing Matter 23 Invisible, Permanent, Prompt 24 Depleted Skin is Defenseless 25 Dinner Ideas for Fall 26 Dress Up Your Wartime Menu 27 For Finest Results 28 Science Note 29 Advances in Medicine 30 Where Does She Get Her Energy? 31 Take Time for Beauty 32 Kitchen Tidbits 33 9
Amanda Laughtland
You Can Can with Confidence 34 Is Garbo a Nazi? 35 Glamour Girls 36 Make It Yourself 37 For His Birthday 38 Plentiful, Versatile, Healthful 39 For Good Cheer 40 Keeping Up the Fleet 41 Thanks, Judy! 42 Make Electrical Cords Last Longer 43 Personal Note from a Veteran Newspaperwoman
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One of the Girls 45 July’s Contest winner, Mrs. D.H. MacGregor 46 For a Fighting Man 47 On War and Industry 48 About the Author 49
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Our New Nerve Center The world’s largest office building houses thirty thousand military men and frustrations over the maze of finding one office in sixteen miles of corridors. Some men feel claustrophobic behind soundproof walls, agoraphobic in the middle of lobbies and hallways. Time will cure both of these sensations. Everyone will come to love the Pentagon.
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Amanda Laughtland
Care and Operation of Your Gas Range It is well-built and dependable and reasonable care and operation will see it through. When peace comes there will be new gas ranges available for you. Buy war bonds in the meantime, while we are busy supplying materials to defeat the Axis.
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A Word from Bob Hope Our guys are big Doug firs, snow and good fishing up north, cornfields, smokestacks, the boardwalk at Atlantic City, every last mile of Route 66. I imagine each guy as one small town—the new garage on one corner, the old restaurant on the other. He’s the schoolhouse, the grocery, the tall water tower.
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Amanda Laughtland
No Amount Is Too Small to Save Members of the family, especially children are more cooperative about saving pieces of soap if you paint a coffee can, cut a slot in the top and station it near the bathroom door. Children enjoy dropping soap bits in the can as they do pennies in the piggy bank.
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America’s Smart, Durable Rug This lovely rug is as practical as its price. Its charm captures gay coastal landscapes yet it’s as sensible as it is good-looking— sturdy, reversible and so easy to clean, with a unique flat weave that has no nap to catch dust. Ask your dealer, and be patient. More women than ever are wanting these rugs, more than we can hope to make rugs for in wartime.
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Amanda Laughtland
Don’t Rob the Cradle Though the low ration point value of baby foods may be tempting unfortunately there’s limited supply of these specially prepared products. Unless you have a junior at home please walk right past those rows of little cans. All companies are following wartime restrictions and the nation’s birthrate is rising.
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Attention, Knitters School days are here again. It’s time to knit that pullover for John and cardigan for Mary. We have yarns for all ages, baby to grandmother, in every weight and color, special prices on hard-wearing khaki and navy for big brother in the service. Tell us your knitting needs and send ten cents for samples of our yarns—ten cents will be deducted from your first order.
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Amanda Laughtland
Your Eyes, Your Secret Weapon If you need eyeglasses and if you are trying to work without them, how can you produce at maximum efficiency? Stop to see your optometrist. You owe it to yourself and to your country to have your eyes examined. Poor vision on war work is sabotage.
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Kill Them Dead Enemy wings five times worse than bullets? Typhoid fever can infect any possible place from homes to Army camps. One fly on the windowsill carries more than 500 million bacteria. Make sure you buy a fly spray strong enough to kill them all. Use at least twice a week to quickly, thoroughly, chemically protect our food and health.
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Amanda Laughtland
Please Drive Carefully You’d take care if you ran a machine making airplane parts— slow down! Rubber is scarce and bumpers use valuable metal. Think of giving your car a rest. How about some tokens for the bus? Why not hoof it?
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No Laughing Matter After college everybody said she’d marry in no time, but the whispered story of her trouble made the rounds as it always does. It simply ruined her socially. This is exactly what halitosis does to many a woman without her even realizing it.
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Invisible, Permanent, Prompt Your stockings are vital to victory. Put thirty-five cents in the toe of each one with a run, slip into an envelope and mail. One day service—generally. Rayon, nylon or silk. Satisfaction guaranteed.
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Depleted Skin Is Defenseless You must help nature out with action against blemishes, lines and coarse pores. Trade high-priced, lengthy regimens for what you can do yourself with a single cream at night applied with simple, upward strokes.
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Amanda Laughtland
Dinner Ideas for Fall September means some days hot, some days cool, and meals planned to change with the weather. Dehydrated soups, besides being flavorful, are extra versatile for resourceful cooks. These days you must be ready to improvise to make up for scarcities. There’s nothing more valuable in the cupboard than an assortment of unrationed soups.
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Dress Up Your Wartime Menu This potato crust pie serves five. Write for our booklet, packed with stretching recipes. Yesterday’s meat is today’s brand-new meal with two tablespoons of dressing to make a sauce with tang and zest men will love. Add flavor to fish, salads, sandwiches—the right dash can make any dish delicious.
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For Finest Results
Put away jellies and jams using powdered pectin. It saves sugar and fruit and has a faint but pleasing taste. Our government sends regular supplies to help our food-short Allies. For health and economy, make as much as you can right away. Food authorities say jellies and jams are not sweets but energy-rich foods we all need.
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Science Note Dr. Oppenheimer leads a team of physicists in a laboratory built somewhere near his ranch in New Mexico. He says the desert air is good for his health. Everything else must remain highly classified.
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Amanda Laughtland
Advances in Medicine Nurses have become integral to treatment throughout air lifts, hospital care, and stations in between. Penicillin, blood transfusions, recent improvements in surgery—all help tip the odds in favor of the wounded. With destruction comes valuable medical lessons.
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Where Does She Get Her Energy? It’s a question you’d ask, too, if you could see how she bubbles morning to night. Everything is fun to her. Luckily she prefers what’s best—fresh air, sunshine, hearty breakfasts of puffed wheat cereal with fruit.
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Take Time for Beauty
At your salon, ask to have your color and permanent wave created with our permanent solution and liquid rinse. So gentle but with the strength to make long-lasting waves and deep color. We’re glad to do double duty for the beauty of your hair, any woman’s most fascinating feature.
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Kitchen Tidbits You know hot things must be served piping hot and cold things icy cold, but it’s these sorts of simple things you might be apt to forget these days. Even coffee is a pitfall though it needn’t be— relax and measure carefully.
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You Can Can with Confidence Homegrown, home-canned foods are never rationed and will solve many problems. Safely can your food supply using engineered jars and caps, no rubber rings. Send for free labels, tested recipes and instructions. Careful canning will insure against spoilage. Your care in cooking will float battleships.
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Is Garbo a Nazi? Everyone knows how cold she is, her accusers say. Why doesn’t Garbo go on bond-selling tours? Isn’t she still a Swedish citizen with an estate in Sweden? Her friends know her feelings are with suffering people everywhere. They say Garbo is gay, naturally and charmingly, when she’s with people who aren’t the sort to mob her and tear her clothes for souvenirs. She donates large sums to the Red Cross. She’ll receive her citizenship papers soon. Her real estate is in Los Angeles. Garbo is gracious and shy, which is why she won’t fight back.
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Glamour Girls She can operate a drill press as easily as the egg beater in mother’s kitchen. Instead of baking chocolate cakes, she cooks gears for Army tanks. She sews parachutes, not quilts. She cuts her patterns from sheet metal. This year’s best-dressed girls are wearing slacks and doing women’s work tailor-made for our enemy’s downfall.
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Make It Yourself Old pins from a bowling alley can become new lamps. Paperboard can take the place of hard-to-get metal and plywood for jewelry boxes, shelves, trays and tables. The importance of hand craftsmanship? Confidence in yourself and your future.
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For His Birthday A box of several little packages— handkerchiefs, candy, smokes, a series of clippings of cartoons and quotations with an eye on his tastes. The best present is a long distance call if possible or a short phonograph record of birthday greetings. Recordings can be made in many cities.
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Plentiful, Versatile, Healthful Thousands will thank their lucky stars for abundant supplies of cornflakes enriched with vitamin B, the need for which we never outgrow. The role of cornflakes goes beyond their use at breakfast—in many recipes cornflakes extend scarcities with ease. For sausage balls, mix pork, catsup and three cups cornflakes to hold together the meat and supplement its nutritive value.
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Amanda Laughtland
For Good Cheer More and more housewives are saving refrigerator space by keeping two quarts or more of extra pale beer always chilled, always ready for serving to tired husbands or fathers— a he-man’s beer, but light and lively for the women to enjoy, a beer for pouring smoothly from a pitcher into rugged mugs or fancy glasses, a beer that goes nicely with food.
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Keeping Up the Fleet Champagne and charming lady at the ready, everything’s set for launching another ship, inanimate steel animated to sail to battle. Our nation is transporting more men and equipment overseas than ever. The government stated its need, and private companies took over, saving time when time was precious at war’s beginning and now, 800 bottles broken last year over 800 bows.
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Amanda Laughtland
Thanks, Judy! When Judy Garland sent Joe Pot to one grateful crew, her act did more than twenty songwriters could put into words. Joe Pot is what a gob calls his friend the coffee percolator, a friend in need on late night watches at sea.
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Make Electrical Cords Last Longer To treat cords properly, anyone can follow these illustrated directions to replace worn coverings, splice and make new connections between plug and cord. Knowing how to undertake simple repairs will save you countless worries over the electrician who can’t be there.
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Personal Note from a Veteran Newspaperwoman
I have four daughters and one typewriter. The typewriter waits on a card table in the kitchen. I get a little writing done in intervals. I wear size 14 dresses having recently lost several pounds. My eldest daughter is a riveter in an aircraft plant with ambition to join the ballet theatre. I volunteer with a ladies auxiliary, packing cookies to ship to servicemen overseas.
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One of the Girls I started to figure the world might come to an end. I quit my job in the dime store, moved to the city and U.S. Steel. I wanted to be with all those women from the newsreels working alongside each other, women like me. Everywhere we find each other, busy with the war.
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July’s Contest Winner, Mrs. R.H. MacGregor I’m crazy for my home state of Montana but find it satisfying to live in California, where the war took my railroader husband. We have twin sons. One lifetime is too short for all I do. I lead Sunday school and a troop of scouts. My hobbies include bicycling, swimming and skiing, at all of which my performance is mediocre, my enthusiasm tops.
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For a Fighting Man While Sergeant Smith cooks up surprises for the Nazis, his mother works on her own surprise, a spot for Smith to read and write, an attic room lined in warm ponderosa pine. Write the Western Pine Association to meet other loving mothers busy improving homes and lives.
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On War and Industry Our volume of production is so high and its degree of secrecy so great, we can share little about it. When it can be told, this story will fill several chapters in any history of progress—new materials like plastics, new sciences like electronics. So many next-century opportunities we can’t disclose yet.
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Amanda Laughtland is the author of Postcards to Box 464 and editor/publisher of Teeny Tiny Press (http://teenytiny.org). Her poems appear in NAP 1.1. She lives in the Seattle area, where she teaches English at Edmonds Community College.
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Amanda Laughtland