Patricia Weaver

My encore work has been to make a documentary about those of us who were children during WWII – the children of the Greatest Generation.

I was a six-year old tap dancer with a big band (Kay Kyser), and we entertained at the Veterans Administration hospitals in Southern California. I knew what happened to our men and women who went to war. I grew up pretty fast as a result of that experience.

At at 78 years of age, I had never made a film, but I completed a 45-minute documentary featuring several of us from that era plus material and music to make a very touching and important statement of what our country was like when we all worked together.

It is called “Echoes of World War II – A Bay Area Perspective.” I would like to take this film and show it with a sponsor to senior centers, schools and organizations, so people could see what working together as Americans was like. I believe that was the last time everyone worked together toward a common goal. It is my dream that our country could come together again.

All you have to do is watch the news on TV, I find our government leaders to be ignorant of our country’€™s history and unwilling to govern and support the American population. The ugliness, the name-calling, the disrespect I find just plain shocking. Perhaps seeing a different time, a different way of relating to each other might touch people to return to some of those ways of cooperation and caring.

I would like to think that Americans are better than those that are on television spouting such hate for low income people, elderly people, women and hungry children. It’€™s a pretty ugly picture for a wonderful country that we have.

Many people are in tears after the showing of my documentary. It is quite touching to see older people recount the WWII years and what happened to them and their families. Most people say that they haven’t thought about those years for many years and to see the documentary, hear the music of that era brings back much sadness, but also much good feeling about us as Americans and what we all did on the home front, no matter what our age. In order to tell the full truth about that era, people interviewed include Japanese elders who, as children, were taken to the internment camps in California.

Many younger people today don’t know any older people and have no idea of the creative thinking, the great ideas, the fun that an older worker would bring to any work place. My personal belief is that most situations – family, work, church -€“ are always improved if there are a variety of ages present and participating. I say, “Encores Away!”