Memorable Border Crossings: "Welcome Home"

I love traveling as much as I love writing. This is my second post in my Memorable Border Crossings and it feeds in a personal way to my new release, Kiss Me in the Rain, the first of the Tanner Family Series. The series tackles environmental, social and economical issues, but the backbone of the series is the familial dynamic of adult siblings and their divorced parents. I know not everyone has positive border crossings, but this memory shares a happy moment during a rather awkward family time.

Coming Back into the U.S.A: Semester in Scotland
When I was 18 years old I received a brochure from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire’s International Office declaring I could study abroad. I was eighteen and it was a full two weeks before I even stepped foot in any of my freshman lecture halls or classrooms. Back then, still a couple years before I would meet my now, and very much a planner, husband, I didn’t do organized.  But this, something I would have to apply a whole year in advance for, called me like a very loud, very specific bull horn. Sarah, Study Abroad!

I applied for a program in Scotland, got accepted, and waited not-so-patiently to zip off to the land of castles, kilts, scotch, really cool accents and rugby. During that year my parents also happened to start the very long, rather painful process of divorcing.
Did I mention rugby? Turns out contact sports are really good at letting go of bottled up tension. Which I found out during my AMAZING semester in that incredibly welcoming, happy, beautiful country. I was having an epic experience, in between emails and phone calls from the dividing home front.

When my semester was over and my nineteen year old self flew back home, I walked out of the tunnel from the plane and headed down the windowed corridor to customs. On the other side of those floor-to-ceiling windows was my mom and my sister . . . and a few paces away my dad and his girlfriend. I know both my parents were just really excited I was home, but, well. . . awkward!

What does this have to do with border guards? As I walked down that corridor and I saw my two rides waiting to pick me up and dreading the first of what would be many perceived “who do you chose” scenarios, I walked into U.S. Customs. I have never wanted to wait so long in a line in my life. Or hang out with people with badges and guns. But all too soon it was my turn.

The border guard had no idea the family drama I would be stepping into in just a few moments, but he looked at me, handed me back my passport, and said, “Welcome home.”
I stared at him a moment, and realized he meant it.

“Thanks.” I said, feeling fortified by the kind, no-strings-attached words of a stranger. I borrowed some of his strength, hoped the jet lag didn’t make me ask my family the obvious, and went to see who I was catching a ride with. And have always remembered that small kindness that meant more to me than that border guard would ever know.

That having been said, I have heard those two magic words, Welcome Home,  almost every time since. Still, it's pretty cool. Thanks Mr. Nice Border Guard Guy.

Happy Trails . . .

Special Guest Diana Cranstoun, Two Weeks of WWII Food Rations

I've written before on the vibrant writing community that is in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I met today's special blog guest Diana Cranstoun when I joined Alberta Romance Writers' Association (ARWA) four years ago. She is a joy and an inspiration. I am honored to call her friend and to have her as a guest on my blog today! 

For those interested in World War II, you are in good company, as that is of particular interest to Diana, the main topic she writes about, and what prompted her to earlier this month eat only WWII food rations. For more information on Diana, visit her at dianacranstoun.com.

Please welcome Diana Cranstoun:

Firstly, many thanks for inviting me to guest blog on your site, Sarah.  I’m very excited about it!  As to what to write about...

Although I grew up in Glasgow 20 years after the Second World War ended, it’s not really surprising that particular war has always fascinated me.  On my daily walk to school I passed several gardens that still had air-raid shelters in them. When my history teacher asked my class how many of our fathers had been at Dunkirk, at least a dozen hands (including my own) shot into the air. And although the rebuilt stonework was fairly well matched, it was obvious where a landmine had taken out a tenement building on the street where my mother was born. 

The soldier/sailor/airman’s experience of those years is well documented, but those of the women they left behind, not so much. Perhaps that’s what was in the back of my mind when I decided to limit myself to wartime rations for a two week period.  What must it have been like trying to feed your family during that time?  (BTW, rationing in Britain continued until 1954, nine years after the war ended.)

Weekly allowance of rationed food for a British adult during WWII.
Photo by Diana Cranstoun

The weekly allowance of rationed food for a British adult consisted of: 8oz meat, 4oz ham or bacon, 2oz butter, 2oz cheese, 4oz margarine, 4oz cooking fat, 3 pints milk, 8oz sugar, 1lb jam every 2 months, 2oz tea, 1 egg, 3oz sweets.  Bread and vegetables (locally produced/in season) were not rationed and formed the basis of the diet.  Certain tinned foods were available on a points system. Although proteins e.g. eggs were rationed, that didn’t mean they were always available.

The first week was a challenge trying to juggle everything so I didn’t run out of rations, but by the second week I was starting to get the hang of it, and I learned a lot from the experience.  Preparation and cooking from scratch every day was very time consuming.  I had the luxury of a fridge, microwave and being able to buy all my groceries in one trip to the shops, but that wasn’t the case for the women during the war. Even harder if you were holding down a full-time job as well.

But perhaps the greatest thing I got out of the experience were the memories my aunt supplied.  She was a child during the war and had some unexpected tales to tell. 

One story I remembered my mother telling me, and which has always stuck in my head, was her experience during the Clydebank Blitz.  She was a young mother of a six month-old baby at the time. The night of the blitz, my grandmother gathered the whole family onto mattresses in the hall as the bombs fell. If they were going to die, they would die together.  (This was about half a mile away from the landmine mentioned above.)

My aunt, eleven years of age at the time, remembers the event differently.   We all gathered in the ‘safest’ place in the house but I several times made an excuse to go to the bathroom so I could see the searchlights and the glow of the fires. Ah the resilience of youth!

Oh yes, and then there was her story of the pheasant . . . !