Read Online B000U5KFIC EBOK by Janet Lowe - Free Book Online

Once he is
the center of attention, Nathaniel's crying stops. The family reports to Grandad that no damage was done. Charlie continues to read. "I didn't
think so," he mutters. By the end of the day, Nathaniel is boasting to his
pals that he fell all the way down the stairs and didn't even get hurt.

    THE 1940s BROL'(;HT TI 110`1011, AND CHANGE both to America and the Munger
household. Some of that change was to be expected because Al and
Toody's children were growing up. As rumblings of war were heard from
across the oceans, first Charlie, then Mary, and finally Carol left for college. In the middle of those natural transitions, a dreaded inevitability
occurred-the United States was dragged into World War II.
    Charlie was 17 when he left, in 1941, to enroll in the University of
Michigan where he majored in mathematics-and never after, except for
visits, returned fo Omaha. Mary Munger chose Scripps College in
Pasadena, but Carol followed in her father's footsteps and went east to
Radcliffe, nominally the women's college at Harvard at the time.
    At Ann Arbor the students, including Charlie and his roommate, Nebraskan John Angle, listened to Bing Crosby records, watched young
Bette Davis at the movies, and explored new academic vistas. Charlie was
introduced to physics. "To me, it was a total eye-opener," he said. Although Munger only took an introductory level class, it was the physicists
approach to problem solving that made a lifelong impression on him.
    "The tradition of always looking for the answer in the most fundamental way available-that is a great tradition, and it saves a lot of time in
this world. And, of course, the problems are hard enough that you have to
learn to have what some people call assiduity. Well, I've always liked that
word-because to me it means that you sit down on your ass until you've
solved your problem."
    Munger says that if he were running the world, anyone who qualified
to do so would be required to take physics, simply because it teaches a
person how to think.
    "I am in no sense a working scientist or a working amateur scientist,"
Munger concedes, "hut I have a very deep appreciation of science and I
find the methods used are useful outside of science."
    But he was not to have a long period of tranquil studies at the University of Michigan. Instead, the prospect of war was troubling the minds
of most Americans. The political temperature was rising in Europe, then,
early in Charlie's first year of college, on December 7, 1941, there came
the surprise attack on the U.S. Naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. The imperative
of World War II forced many young men out of college and into military
service, and Charlie was no exception. He stayed at the University of Michigan through the end of 1942, then, a few days after his nineteenth
birthday, joined up.

    When Charlie enlisted, the war was well underway in Europe, Africa,
and the Pacific. Because he had been a member of the Reserve Officer
Training Corps (ROTC) in high school and college-a total of six yearsMunger was bored with marching. He decided against going into the infantry and to his everlasting good fortune joined the Army Air Corps.
    Charlie's mother was frantic about the safety of her only son, although Carol Estabrook said Toody Munger tried to hide her fear. Surely
Al Munger suffered similar anxieties, but to compensate, he threw himself into the war effort at home. Consequently, World War II became an
exciting time for Charlie's father. He cultivated a huge victory garden,
recruiting a nephew to work in it with him. Then he found a partner, a
priest who was a professor at a local Jesuit college and who had some land
in the country. Together they raised pigs so that they could have bacon
and other pork cuts, which were scarce because so much meat was being
shipped overseas to feed the troops. About the time their pigs matured,
though, rationing ended and pork products again became available at reasonable