But it is also a time when an honest man can park his car on the street in front of the house and wake up the next morning to see it standing, without tires and wheels, on blocks. The tires, of course, are parted from the wheels in another place and time and the tires are sold to other dubious patriots on the black market. Roanoke lawyer Arthur Smith, who was a government prosecutor during those times, remembers seizing 50,000 stolen tires in a Harrisonburg warehouse. Five thousand auto wheels are found dumped in a Kentucky hollow. There is counterfeiting of ration stamps for gasoline and sugar and people buy them, even though there is a war on.
Gasoline is the key to freedom of travel.
Sugar is the overwhelming necessity for the moonshine whiskey industry - which has survived any number of wars. The invasion of Europe shouldn't surprise people who read the newspapers. Plans are being made everywhere for church services when the word comes from Europe that the Allies have landed on the continent. In an interview with the Times' reporter, she recalls her last visit when a National Guardsman accidentally set off a tear gas canister during her performance. It may be that this guardsman will be with the 29th Infantry Division when it assaults Omaha Beach on D-Day.