Seventy years ago, today, Mom, Dad, my brother, and I were sailing across the angry North Atlantic to the promised land. It was the fourth day since embarkation. I was within several months of my 9th birthday. An excerpt from my memoir follows:

“Once the seasickness subsided, we regained our appetites. For the first time in my memory, we had all we wanted to eat. The mess hall was super clean and was brightly lit. Food was served cafeteria-style.

After taking an aluminum tray from one of the tray stacks, we would slide them along three stainless pipes as the American merchant marine sailors plopped food onto the tray. We had never seen so much food! It was delicious!

We ate standing up and, when finished, dropped off our trays. We were not permitted to take food with us to the living quarters. Of course, I would get hungry between meals. In my case I was still feeding the intestinal parasites (worms) I had lived with for years. The worms took their share of nutrition and calories from my food. I was hungry all the time.

On the ship, I wore a dark pair of pants similar to sweatpants, which had elastic at the bottom of the pant legs. I took extra rolls, opened my elastic waistband, and dropped them into my pants. Gravity worked so that the rolls ended up at the bottom of my pant legs, safely held in place by the elastic. I put so many rolls down my pant legs that the bottom of my pants bulged out and I had to walk with my feet apart. Talk about bell-bottom trousers!

The sailors working in the mess hall noticed, smiled, and let me go my way. God bless Americans!”