Dear Folks, It was during the time I was researching the history of WWII to write my book about that era in Niagara Falls that I eventually realized what the general food shortage was all about. My little fictitious girl in the story, Ginny, (aka me with my curious mind) finally asked her parents what had caused such a sudden food shortage. The reply she was given was that so much food went to feed our soldiers who were fighting the war. Ginny's question then was to ask that since the soldiers had always lived in America, why would they consume that much more food. Because of my research, I was brought up short with the answer. Many of our servicemen came from families who had suffered greatly during the Depression and hadn't recovered by then. As a consequence, the young men barely had a decent meal in their entire lives. When those men sat down at the chow hall tables with their tin trays loaded up with food, they ate everything in sight and loaded up for seconds. At the same time the US was sending shiploads of food to England to help them out in their food shortage crisis because of the London Blitz. So since Ginny's parents had the patience and intelligence to answer her question honestly, she was able to understand why food at home was hard to come by. vee