Charles Young

Letters from the Attic: Save the Last Dance for Me Charles Young

FASCINATING . . . MANY WILL APPRECIATE THE NOSTALGIA AND PERSONAL LOOK INTO THE GREATEST ERA OF OUR AMERICAN HISTORY -Dr. Bruce Shields, Professor Emeritus, Yale This personal history recalls family, love, and young romance beneath the roar of a raging war, building on letters stored away during World War II. A widower now remarried, Charles Young retires from a long teaching career in Greece and returns home to Connecticut with his wife, Mary. After they move into his old family homestead, they discover a box of letters in the attic. One letter at a time an early life is revealed. Charles was just finishing junior high school when World War II broke out. He was a boy then and deeply in love with a girl named Launa, with whom he'd meet at night in the park every full moon-until they were discovered and Launa was sent away. There was nothing to keep them together but their letters. In 1943 Charles was accepted into a naval program at Harvard University. Away from his family for the first time, he kept in contact once again through letters, which included a detailed account of his service with the marines during the battle of Okinawa and the final surrender by the Japanese in Tokyo Bay in 1945. Sharing a cache of letters from the early forties, Charles recalls family, friendship, and love throughout his life.