Last week I sent for a set of aluminum tumblers.  I admit the motivation was mainly nostalgic; my grandmother had a set of these colorful glasses, and so did my mother.  But another reason I wanted to find a set was deeper than that.

I was born in the March after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941.  I don’t remember World War II, but my uncle served in that war and was wounded in New Guinea. About every family we knew had some family wound from the war.

But I do remember having to have government stamps to buy gasoline.  I remember what we called “butter” was really Oleo, a white shortening like Crisco to which we added a tablet of yellow coloring (like the tablets for coloring Easter eggs) that we mixed into the shortening to look like butter.

I remember that my beautiful mother wasn’t able to buy sheer hosiery, and that we had to peel the foil attached to our gum wrappers to use to cover the cardboard cut-out shapes of bells, stars, and pine trees for trimming our Christmas tree.  We saved the Gold Stamps and S & H Green Stamps we got when mother or daddy bought groceries or gas until we had enough to fill stamp-books we traded for a new toaster or a tricycle.  Metal was used for the “war effort”, because evidently we were pounding plow shears into swords (or guns or tanks or airplanes).

We did all this saving and scrimping because a mad terrorist dictator and several other madmen were eating their way across Europe and the United Kingdom intent on taking over the world and destroying every democracy where people had a voice enough to insist on personal liberties.

When the war was finally over and the allied countries got a chance to begin the long process of rebuilding, we were finally able to get things like fine fabrics and metals.  One of the easiest metals to access was aluminum because it is the most widespread metal on earth (more than 8% of the earth’s core mass) and the third most common chemical element  (after oxygen and silicon).  Coating alloys of this common metal made it safe to use, and families were drawn to glasses and bowls made of this metal, maybe because metals had been so scarce.

Coated cookware of aluminum became available, too, and my mother had for years an incredible “waterless” cookware set called Miracle Maid. I had a set of my own when Bill and I got married and still have it at our log cabin in the woods.

But as a little kid I was drawn to the tumblers because of their bright colors and shiny metallic surfaces.  I loved that they would keep iced drinks (cherry Kool-Aid) cold, and cool my hot summer hands, too. After the drab years of the war when the world was building back and trying to flourish again, I felt like a princess holding these ice-filled sparkling tumblers of hot pink, blue, purple and yellow!

A few years ago, I found colorful ice cream dishes made of this metal, but it was just this week that I got delivered to our door this set of the tumblers of my childhood.  I love them!  And because of the shortages of the war years, I will never take for granted the resources we have now at every turn:  copper pots and pans, multi-layered cookware, yards of aluminum foil for grilling and wrapping, bins full of nails and bolts in every size, pewter candle sticks and decorative pieces….

We have buildings and bridges built of steel girders that hold tons of vehicles of transportation and metals so fine they can be pressed into the thinness of a fingernail are easy to take for granted.  I study the discoveries and inventions of new metals and alloys that can handle the smallest and finest of jobs.  I don’t know why they all work, but I will never forget the days when we had to save the foil from our gum wrappers.  I will tell my story to my grandkids who will smile politely and drink lemonade from these jewel-toned tumblers and never understand why they are so precious to me.

— Gloria Gaither