NPR this morning had a wonderful and uplifting story about the town of North Platte, Nebraska, who organized a welcome for every train of soldiers that passed through the town during the Second World War. NPR : North Platte’s War Effort They would use their own money and rations to make sandwiches, coffee, popcorn balls ó all for men who would be in town only for ten minutes while the train re-fueled. The girls from the town would make popcorn balls in the middle of which they would put slips of paper with their names and addresses. The girls and soldiers became penpals and a few even got married after meeting through the popcorn balls.

It is the kind of story that made me proud to be from the Midwest. I can easily imagine my grandmother and her friends in Scranton, Iowa, doing the same thing.