Born in 1943

If you were born in 1943, America was deep in the rhythm of wartime, and that rhythm touched every corner of daily life. The ration book was as essential as your wallet—you couldn't buy a pound of butter or a pair of shoes without the right stamps. Meatless Tuesdays meant creative cooking, and housewives traded recipes for lentil loaf and victory cake at the church social.

The big bands were still playing—Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey filling the ballrooms—though plenty of the young men who'd danced there were now overseas. Victory gardens were everywhere, in backyards and vacant lots, and the scrap metal drives meant kids could earn real civic glory hauling old pots and coat hangers to the collection point. At the five-and-dime, you could still get a chocolate malt for a dime, and *Casablanca* was the picture everyone was talking about, Bogart's trench coat burned into the national imagination.

The USO dances were a lifeline for servicemen passing through—young women in rayon dresses dancing with men they'd never see again, all of it flickering with bittersweet urgency. Bob Hope was on the radio and in the newsreels, cracking wise in the South Pacific, and if you listened on Sunday evening you might catch *The Lone Ranger* or *Lux Radio Theatre*. The news from North Africa was finally turning hopeful.

The pennies were made of steel that year—the copper was needed for shell casings—and somehow that small detail said everything about what America had become.