Date Night!

Michelle (to Colonel): What did you do on dates?

Colonel: We went to a steak house over in Phoenix city, for a steak. The name of the steakhouse was, I keep wanting to say ‘Roberts’ but that’s not right.

Sara: I think it was, was either Roberts or Robertson.

Colonel: No..

Sara: It was Roberts!
Colonel: Okay, this was so unusual to be able to go to a place where you can get a steak in the middle of war! So our favorite, and I was on the base all week, so on Saturday night, we’d take off. And so we’d go to Robertsteak house for meal.

Michelle: Which base were you at then?

Colonel: Fort Benning, Fort Benning, GA. And this steakhouse was in Phoenix City, which was Alabama, which was right across the river. My father had, I had a 1940 Chevrolet Sedan. And when I went in the service that Chevrolet sedan went into my father garage and I had my father and I jacked it up so that the tires would not be crushed. And it was on blocks in the father’s garage while I was in the service. But, when we got married, my father took it off those blocks and took it down to the railroad station and they put it in a boxcar and shipped it to Columbus, GA! So we had a car!

Sara: That was before we got married.

Colonel: Yeah, it was just before we got married.

Sara: Because we needed the car. We hated walking and getting on the bus.

Colonel: and gas stamps. A stamp about as big as the end of your thumb and it would buy you three gallons of gasoline.

Michelle: For how much?

Colonel: Whatever the price was… sixteen cents a gallon.

Sara: But nobody was making a lot of money then either.

Colonel: These stamps were issued from the ration office and you couldn’t buy gasoline without a stamp. If you wanted six gallons, you had to give them two stamps. And you got stamps from the ration office depending on your need. That kind of a thing.

Michelle: Depending on employment?

Colonel: Yeah. And there was some counterfeiting going on. We got married and one of our gifts was a gas stamp. Heh, Heh.

Michelle (to Sara): What was your favorite date? Same thing? The steak house?

Sara: I don’t know, I never thought about it. No I think I enjoyed when we went up to the mountain. And Joe and Fred, my cousin and her husband and the four of us. We took sleeping bags or whatever they were and slept on Stone Mountain near Atlanta.

Michelle: On the top of it?

Sara: Well on the side. Of course, there was not a soul around at this point. Just the four of us.

Michelle: So you made your own little campsite?

Sara: Yes and our sleeping bags.

Colonel: On cots. Army cots.

Sara: With our sleeping bags on top.

Colonel: Well, yeah.

Sara: Jo and Fred, Jo was my cousin and she was married to Fred. Fred was, his father came over from Germany and his mother came over maybe several months after that. And I can’t remember whether they told me they were married here or they were married before they came over. But they were married at some point. And they had seven sons and one girl at the end. And all seven graduated from Georgia Tech. And one of them played football with the Eagles.

Michelle: Do you remember the name?

Colonel: Zigler. Zig-Zag Zigler. He was a running back.

Michelle: Awe, cool.

Colonel: I remember the name of the steakhouse. It was Firm Roberts. I don’t know other then that.

Sara: And you remember my cousin that came to your birthday party? She was a Zigler. Her father was one of those seven. And it was her mother and father that we camped with. That’s why we’re so close to her. And she has no brothers or sisters. I just adore her. She and her husband came later after you met her at your birthday party. She said, ‘everybody was gone, the husband was gone, the three girls had taken off, so I’m going to see Aunt Sara!’. I said good, anytime. She bought a great big Colonial house, to move from, they were in the same area. I thought about it though, I have that big cherry furniture that my family does not want. And I think they would go in her Colonial house very well. Twin beds, and chest and dresser. So they would be real good for a house of three girls. But I haven’t asked her yet if she wants them. Beth doesn’t have a use for them, Barbara said she doesn’t want it. And if you’d sell it, you’d get nothing for it. So what’s money! I’d rather have somebody have it and love it!