Books

I'm Too Tired to Cut the Rhubarb

As the author of “I’m Too Tired to Cut the Rhubarb” I have recorded my husband’s last eight months of life, the ongoing internal monologue of my innermost thoughts, the way I confronted my new duty of thinking for, and deciding everything for someone else. Also, I have chronicled my own physical and emotional decline to an unknown depth. My story has taken the form of an 80-page self-published read intended to give credence and stature to the role of caregiver-the job so in need of recognition, understanding and support. Between November 2003 and December 2005 I necessarily became a caregiver, joining the legions of older American women who have cared for their partners through the final years and months of their lives. We have a deep satisfaction that comes from having fulfilled our commitment; wearing, taxing, exhausting as it was.

Volunteers are a blessing, but the time comes when they are no longer up to the task, or the patient’s condition negates them. Then it becomes a frighteningly solitary task for the responsible spouse (more than 60 percent of the time the woman). The next fact is that little or no attention is given to the caregiver as the medical world and most of the support both focus on the dying. This record emphasizes how little time the caregiver has to spend on one's self, be it either a man or woman. And how that lack of attention hastens the decline and demise of the caregiver.

It's Hard to Salute Standing in A Wall Locker WWII

WAVES, WAACs WACs, SPARs, Army Nurses, a Cadet Nurse and a MARINE share their memories of boot camp or basic training as well as a few hilarious incidents during off-duty times. History comes alive as these ladies - all now in their late 70s to mid-80s - take a memory trip back to where they served during World War II. Follow one Army Nurse to Europe and the other to Alaska, then the Philippines. Laugh with the WAC who gave title to the book. Learn what travel was like for ladies on a troop train.

But most of all, sense the attitude of purpose in all of these stories told by these WWII lady vets. And, admire the Army's first female bugler played Taps at hundreds of veterans' funerals over the years, until she fell ill in 2008. She passed away in April 2010 after being admitted to the Bugler's Hall of Fame, and receiving multiple local and national honors. A total of eight of the sixteen have now passed away, their stories which would have been lost had they not been recorded in this book. (Edna Scott, WAC d. '05, Velma Bazhenow, WAVE d. '06, Florene Rukavina, Army nurse d. '05, Donna Mae Smith, WAC d. '10, Mary Weatherman, WAVE d. '10, Nellie Sorensen, WAVE d. '10, Nadine Warren, WAVE d. '11, Pearl Bach, Army nurse d. '06)

Never Salute With a Broken Garter

NEVER SALUTE WITH A BROKEN GARTER is a collection of Peggy Lutz's memories between the years of 1944 and 1946, primarily recounting life of a young woman doing her part for the War effort as a US Navy WAVE. Women Accepted for Volunteer Service, or WAVES, was a fully pledged and uniformed auxiliary attached to the US Navy only during WWII. They performed most of the same stateside assignments as their male counterparts.

Because very little has been written about these women in uniform Lutz explains that her hope is that NEVER SALUTE WITH A BROKEN GARTER will shed some light on all the little threads that made up the fabric of military life for a woman between 1944 and 1946.

Never Salute with a Broken Garter offers a tell-all tale of firsthand WWII experiences, some of them depicting the Oregon coast civilian Homefront, but most of them about her time in the military service.

$10 +S/H

$9.00 +S/H

$15.00 +S/H