I'd gotten the makeshift
rabbit ears to work, augmented by an old
bass string I had lying around. But there was nothing on
TV - it was about 3 AM, and this was before the age of all-night news and
infomercials. There was an old
World War II movie on - maybe it was
Darby's Rangers, but the snowy picture and intermittent sound made it hard to discern.
We gave up on watching, but started talking about the war; both our fathers had served in it, on opposite sides. She told me what she knew about her dad's time on the Russian Front, and his short time spent as a POW. I felt a little embarrassed to offer my father's wartime exploits - he was stationed in New Orleans, keeping the city safe from Nazi invasion, armed with a cigar in one hand and a dry martini in the other...