Moments in the Life of Charles Dailey
This page revised: 10/19/02

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FOLLOWING PEARL HARBOR
Within a day or so following the strike at Pearl Harbor, the U. S. Army occupied Sacramento Municipal Airport, situated to the west of us on Freeport Boulevard. Trucks and equipment rolled by our Fruitridge Road house for hours. Earth moving equipment was used to build horse-shoe shaped mounds, each holding an airplane.

We were instructed to put black-out curtains in place so the town could not be located from the air at night. The heavy, black curtains worked so effectively that a U. S. Army plane that came to check the city had to use a spotlight to even find Sacramento. (The division of the Air Force from the Army came after that time.)

In the years following, the airport was renamed Sacramento Executive Airport and is now used for general aviation.

Then came food and gasoline rationing. Each family was issued a Gasoline Rationing Card and a letter for the car window. People like us without a good reason to drive were issued "A" cards. Others received "B" cards or a higher letter. We could buy four gallons each week with our card. I don't recall that it limited our travels, because we did not use the 1929 Studebaker Dictator Six much anyway. The rationing was to save the rubber in tires, not gasoline.

1929 Dictator Six

Mother Dailey paid about $600 for the Studebaker. It had oak wheel spokes and black fenders. There are only three left in the United States and they sell for more than $20,000. I still remember the day that Mother Dailey got the car up to 45 miles-per-hour. What excitement. But only for about half of a mile.

On the food side, sugar and coffee were rationed. Probably the minor restriction there did not change our world much, either.

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