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My father was engaged in what was considered an “essential war industry”—agriculture, so that may have played a part as well. (He worked at a canners and freezers association by day and worked his father’s farm with a horse on the weekends.) His eyesight was also so bad in college that when a gunnery instructor told him to aim at the bull’s eye on the target, he replied, “What target?” Imagine not knowing one needed glasses until college.

Dad told me that he stood watch at night on the waterfront on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. My home county—Talbot—has more miles of waterfront than any other county in the country. He was a warden. I think I found something that led to believe he was also on the draft board.

I was born the night of the first blackout in Easton. All the shades were to be drawn so no light would escape to help enemy bombers find their targets.

My father and his friend, Methodist minister Charlie Jarvis, were sitting on the hospital porch drinking beer as my mother was giving birth. They were probably talking politics. Charlie was quite the liberal. When I was older they were always getting into lively political discussions.

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