Hard Jobs and Easy Jobs

Remember Camp Capers and Kitchen Capers? Those were the euphemisms adopted in the early '40's for what we all called Hard Jobs and Easy Jobs. The hard Job I most remember was scrubbing the wooden latrine seats with a hard brush dipped in a mixture of CN and water. This job was memorialized in the only stanza I remember hearing the Prenti Unit sing in 1943 (to the tune of "I Have Spurs that Jingle, Jangle, Jingle"):

We have work, and little kids to do it

As we scrub all the la seats in the camp,

And we sing, 'Oh, ain't we glad we're Prenties,'

And that song ain't so very far from wrong!

Oh, CN dear, oh, CN dear,

We dilute you and salute you as we never did before...

Remember? Who could forget?

Lennie

Tin Mirror on the Tentpole

Another story from the old days: our camp nurse, Gil (Betty Gilbert) was young and pretty. All the little kids loved her. Some even pretended to be sick so they could be near her. She would stand, smiling, in front of her tent, and there was a little tin mirror tacked onto the tentpole. 1942--Gil was gone. She had joined the Army Nurse Corps. We had a new nurse, Zicci (Mary Ziccarelli). She was nice, and we liked her, but we missed Gil. 1943/4(?)-I am at the Saturday matinee at our local theater. The Movietone News comes on with pictures of the war in Europe. Guns...soldiers...and suddenly, Gil, standing in front of her tent, smiling...and there was a little tin mirror tacked onto the tentpole. Lennie