My father disappeared for hours in the evenings. I learned much later that he was down in the dark, dirt-floored basement working on his latest project. It was a secret that he didn't want a certain person to know about. What was he doing down there? He was building an army jeep for his son who was obsessed with knowing everything about "The War." And, he wanted it to be a surprise. When I first saw what he had built, I was amazed at this wooden, olive-drab painted, riding-toy creation that my dad had made for my brother to "drive." Funny, but the most vivid memory I have of that jeep was that it had wooden wheels. Not wooden wheels with tires, but all wood that my father had made from boards, connected together, cut in a circle and painted to match the rest of the jeep. Until years later I didn't understand why Dad had not used "real" wheels. Now I know. At the time Walt was making this jeep for his first son and namesake, rubber was a precious commodity reserved for the most part for our military. We were at war and everyone was involved. This cartoon drawn on this date, when we were barely three months into World War Two, has special meaning to me because of those wooden rubber-less wheels that I remember most about that riding toy...one that my father had lovingly built from whatever materials he had available.