The effects of World War II

The two best books I have read so far this year are Cultural Amnesia by Clive James and Austerity Britain by David Kynaston. Both books deal at great length with the effects of World War II on their main subjects (for James, the culture of Mitteleuropa; for Kynaston, British daily life).

One of the smallest effects of World War II—albeit an effect of great importance to me!—is that without it, neither set of my grandparents would have met, married, or had children.

My paternal grandparents met in Liverpool in 1940, where my grandmother was a local girl working in an aircraft factory and my grandfather was an American mechanic brought over by Lockheed from Los Angeles to help prepare new planes for test flights.

My maternal grandparents met in San Francisco in 1942, where my grandmother was a farm girl from Whatcom County, Washington who moved south with her younger sisters to look for clerical work and the excitement of city life, and my grandfather was a Marine corporal from Columbus, Ohio waiting to be shipped to Guadalcanal.

I have no point to all of this biography, it just strikes me now that I have thought about it.