twelve-year-old world and I didn’t realize that this would be the first time my Mom and dad would be separated during their marriage.

        Before we boarded the bus in Phoenix that first day, a voice boomed over the loud speaker, “ Bus for El Paso boarding. Service men first.”  Soldiers, sailors and marines pushed forward to form a long line. After their duffel bags were loaded we civilians climbed aboard. There were four seats left for us, the only females on the bus.  They were tiny jump seats with no backrests that folded out into the aisle. Our journey across America that was supposed to take three days but instead took eleven was beginning.  

        When we arrived in El Paso, hot and tired, our luck ran out. My mother learned that buying a bus ticket during World War II didn’t mean a ride straight through to home.  Home to us was the little town of Moundsville, West Virginia. The pull of Mom’s big family was so strong and we hadn’t been with them in over three years.  I couldn’t wait to see my Grandma and Aunts and Uncles. Best of all, I would celebrate my thirteenth birthday with all my cousins.

        It was the beginning of June and V-day had been declared on May 8^th.   Dad tried to persuade Mom that as soon as the war in the pacific was over gas rationing would surely end. He could drive us all back to West Virginia then. He couldn’t discourage her.   Mom wouldn’t wait.

        She had spent the war years in Arizona, homesick, away from her mother and sisters. When I came home from school for lunch, I could always tell when she had a v-mail letter from Uncle Joe or Uncle Harry. She was sad and frustrated because every other word was blacked out with the censor’s pen. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. I think if she could have shared letters with her sisters every day it would have been of some comfort. In those days, families didn’t get on the telephone and call long distance. No one could afford the charges.

        Her younger brothers, Uncle Joe and Uncle Harry, were still fighting in the Pacific. The stress of not knowing where they were, if they were even alive, was getting to her. Those baby brothers that she carried on her hips when she was a little girl were in daily danger of being killed every day.  When Mom was growing up older sisters substituted as the Mother many times. They had the responsibility for taking care of younger kids in the family.  Mom needed her family now.   “Besides,” she pleaded with my Dad, “Mary Ann can’t go home by herself.”

        Train travel was limited to the troops so the bus was the only way to go.  There were no restrooms on the buses during the 40’s. Every couple of hours the driver pulled into a little wide place in the road where there was usually a dirty little café. It soon became a pattern. When the two older girls descended from the bus a group of young soldiers formed a circle around them. Mary Ann tossed her black curls and laughed at their jokes. Then Mom’s hand gave a little forward wave. The circle males broke good-naturedly so the girls could follow us inside. 

        The restrooms were even dirtier than the grimy waiting room cafés and Kilroy was always there ahead of us. On the back of every door in the stalls was a little man with his long nose peering over the wall. Close by was a slogan, written in lipstick; “Kilroy was here.”  I didn’t learn till years later that Kilroy was an inspector of navy ships during the war and signed his name…Kilroy was here. Somehow it spread to become a running