OUR MOTHERS’ WAR

I’m reading a fun, fascinating history book called Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II, by Emily Yellin. You hear a lot about WASPs and WACs and Rosie the Riveter, but this book covers every possible facet of women’s wartime experience, from housewives to movie stars to prostitutes as well as the usual female factory workers and military units. It’s chock-full of personal testimonials, very well organized and informative, and far and away more lively than the book I read about women of the OSS a few years ago. I really recommend it. Also, it supplied me with an unexpected giggle this morning while I was brushing my teeth, as I read this passage about banter between Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope:

The joke played off a line in Johnny Mercer’s popular 1944 wartime song “Accentuate the Positive,” which spoke of eliminating the negative and latching on to the affirmative, but not messing with “Mr. In-Between.” So Lamour made her own light quip about something mundane and then in front of all the soldiers she said innocently, “Don’t take me seriously, Bob, I was just pulling your leg.” Hope reportedly replied with a glint in his eye, “Listen, Dottie, you can pull my right leg and you can pull my left leg, but don’t mess with Mr. In-Between.”