A Sentimental Journey

A few years ago, I visited a dear college friend, Josephine, in Phoenix. She and her friend David took me to a “Night in the 40's Big Band Hangar Dance” at Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. Event flyers said: “Take a Sentimental Journey back to 1943 with ‘A Night in the 40s’ Big Band Dance." The ‘Night in the 40s’ features a WW II 1940’s musical show followed by a big band orchestra playing sounds of the era to dancing men and women dressed in period styles – all in the shadow of the vintage B-17 WW II Flying Fortress bomber ‘Sentimental Journey’!”

Writing this blog has fueled my obsession with the 1940s and World War II so I was game to go along with them because my parents loved this kind of music. While riding out to Mesa, I drove Josephine and David nuts talking about my parents’ stories. 

Once when I was about nine years old, we took a car trip across the country to California. On the way home, we stopped in Las Vegas and the first thing my parents did was make a reservation for a big band show, starring Russ Morgan. I remember my sister and I dying of boredom as my parents danced. We wanted to see real movie stars. The band droned on and we tried to get into the gambling room. We’d been playing slot machines for a long time because, in the 1960s, children could play slots in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We couldn’t understand why we were quickly removed from the gambling area. Back home, my parents bought a little stereo record player, and the first record they bought was Glen Miller, which they played all the time. The stereo was amazing technology for the time, and I sneaked a lot of rock and roll records in.

So back to the “Night in the 40s.” There was a costume contest and an amazing dance contest. It was sentimental to watch. Several women dressed as "Rosie the Riveter," Norman Rockwell’s painting that symbolized how many women helped the World War II effort. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., owns “Rosie” so I was excited to see these women, especially a little three-year old girl named Quinn dressed as Rosie who won the costume contest.

Several times I “teared” up during the night, thinking about my parents and their lives during the time the music was so popular. I was especially emotional looking at some of the World War II memorabilia around the hangar. There was one display with a replica of one of those, “Your loved one is missing in action . . .” telegrams. I have a one exactly like it. I believe the 1940s will always be with us.