This Is My Life

The Major Things Surrounding My Life

I was born 31 December 1954 at Camp Lejeune, NC.  Born a Marine Brat!  The only son surrounded by 5 sisters; 3 older, my twin, and 1 younger.  Boy was I ever in trouble.  Cold war is still going on. Dad is home for our births.  I got the brains; she got the looks.  Nothing to really remember except major surgery at age three (1958) (before shatter glass was used in bathrooms).  One fraction close of severing my jugular vein, live went on. Dad was home then and not stationed overseas.  Marines then sent promoted NCOs somewhere for 6-months after promotions.  Dad seemed to be at Okinawa, or some place in the Pacific Ocean.  Next moment in time is in Topeka, Kansas, age 5 (1960), looking at a F5 tornado as mom is pushing us kids into an underground shelter. Do not remember the move, but we moved to Bartow, California and somewhere along the way we spent time in Newton, Iowa and spent time with grandma and aunts on the farm.  Having to wait to the next school year due to age, this time was without dad during those 6-month periods.  Got the measles and the house was dark until we got over that.  We moved to the country on a small ranch in Hinkley, CA (it is now a PG&E waste site. The movie Erin Brockovich is true.  I lived there.  No money for me until I get cancer.).  We raised chickens, pigs, and Herman our bull.  The next major event was playing king on the haystack and being pushed off and breaking my right leg in a green line fracture.  Every one of the kids thought I was playing wolf and just left me there.  I did manage to crawl some distance of maybe 50 feet before giving up.  Older sisters come home and wonder where I am … out by the cow, playing wolf.  Says his leg hurts.  Needless to say, 3 days in traction, 3 months in casts, and having home school during that time.  When I got that cast off, I ran everywhere I went to.  By age 8, sometimes for the 10-miles trips to visit friends, I rode the bike, but other than that, I ran.

 Ran to school, ran home. Ran in front of my school bus as I had been kicked off (I had an attitude) during the morning, beating it to school. I ran in front of the bus going home twice daily.  This really pissed off the driver. If she went faster, I got faster.  By the end of the 6^th grade, I had gotten pretty fast.  Herman decided he wanted to play rough with dad, so he became food for the freezer.  Dad retired from the Marine Corps in 1963 after being told he had to go back to Okinawa for 6 month if he wanted to be a Sergeant Major or become divorced.  Military life has its tolls. Interesting fact, gasoline was .249 per gallon. Vietnam brought death to the local community and also led to the other brothers to go to Canada as a protest. 

Mom had a heart attack and wanted to be near good doctors, so we moved to San Jose, CA.  Stanford Medical Center was her choice of care.  Middle school was 7^th & 8^th grades.  I got hurt messing around with golf clubs, putting around on the grass.  A friend took a full swing and hit me in the head.  Ouch!  Compressed skull fracture!  Hard headed, it did not knock me out, but did make a mess with all the blood.  EMTs could not do much because parents were not home at the time (after school).  One of my sisters drove me to Moffitt Field AFB to the ER.  Don’t remember much about the ambulance ride to El Camino Real Hospital, but I had come close to death again.  Died during recovery, brought back to learn how to avoid contact and live a life again.  There is no bone in this area.  I have a hole in my skull.  No more contact sports allowed.  At least I can look into a mirror and see if I am alive.  Look for a pulse.

November 1963 was a day I remembered very well.  All the students were wondering … who and why someone would want to kill the President.  Things changed in our thinking as we realized we were going to remember this day for the rest of our lives.  Little did we know of the events that would start to shape our lives!

Jumping through time:  Beatles songs, Wolfman Jack, berlin wall built, JFK moon speech, sputnik launched, Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show, Marilyn Monroe dies, Cassius Clay boxing match, GI Joe figures, Sending US troops to Vietnam. Black Panthers Party, Draft Protests, Star Trek TV series, Super Bowl I, 3 astronauts died on the pad,  MLK killed, My Lai massacre, RFK killed, USS Pueblo captured, Zodiac Killer, Manson Murders, Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, Woodstock concert.  This was the 60’s for me.  The era of Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll.  Haught & Ashberry is still the same today as it was in the 60’s.

Spring 1969, I ran the 7K Bay-to-Breakers race in San Francisco, CA placing 498 out of over 10,000. I still have the certificate to prove it.  Saw Wilt Chamberlin at Candlestick Park as I went by. Not hard to see him above the others.  It was not a political statement as it is today with the naked runners.

June 1970, my dad died in a car accident.  We moved to Salinas, CA, overlooking Half Moon Bay.  Mom died in October from a massive heart attack.  The truth was that she said to my next older sister that she could not go on any longer without dad.  Poof! She was gone.  WHAT A YEAR!!! How I pulled my butt out and did not fail all of my high school is a wonder.  Oh yes, I was still running on track and cross country teams.  Got a mile run time of 4:55 and a 2-mile run of 10:34.  Kind of ran out of steam at this point.

Moved in with my older sister in Barstow, CA and completed High School in 3 years, but still went my senior year (1973), just to piss off the Principal.  Attitudes do not necessarily change with time.  Traded track for tennis.  Won the school cup by beating them all.  Retired my T-1000 racket! I sold it 3 years ago to a sports collector; one less thing to collect dust.

 Jumping time again:  Kent State shootings, MASH TV, Mark Spitz wins gold at Olympics, Munich Terrorists attacks at Olympics, Watergate scandal, Paul Getty kidnapped, US troops come home from Vietnam but with crowds wanting to assault them; No welcome party!, Nixon resigns, Patty Hearst kidnapped, Author Ash wins Wimbledon,  learned about germs that will kill e.g. Ebola virus, Elvis dies, Roots mini-series, 1^st Star Wars movie released,  Jonestown massacre, Iran went religious, Mother Teresa gets Peace Prize, Nuclear accident at Three-Mile Island, and the Walkman.  That was my 70’s.

Became a tax payer to support the nation.  Worked at Vons, and Safeway, moved to Utah and worked in the Space Shuttle Industry from 1977-2010.

Time warp:  John Lennon killed, Mount St. Helens erupts and sends ash for miles, Pac Man released, Rubik’s cube,  Ted Turner creates CNN, Regan shot, Princess Diane wedding, AIDS, PC’s, E.T Movie, Cabbage Patch kids require me to spend$$ for them, Star Wars Space Plan (missile defense), Sally Ride becomes 1^st woman in space (cool person, but opinionated), poisonous gas leak in India, New Coke, Space Shuttle Challenger incident (that hurt, because I knew some on board), Chernobyl Nuclear disaster, US bombs Libya, Mir Space Station, Pan Am Flight 103 bombed (saw plane in Chicago two weeks earlier), Berlin wall falls, Exxon Valdez oil spill and China Tiananmen Square massacre. The 80’s for me.

All during these events, I spent more time in the Florida Space Center or Vandenberg AFB, than in Utah.  The security levels changed with the tides of world order. 

Hubble Telescope, Operation Desert Storm, Rodney King issues, internet, World Trade Center bombed, OJ Simpson trial (if the glove fits, convict), Rwandan genocide, sarin gas attack in Tokyo, Oklahoma City bombing, mad cow disease, Unabomber, Princess Diana car accident, US President impeached and acquitted for not knowing what improper sex was, Y2K, Columbine shootings, USS Cole bombed.  I lost my oldest sister to cancer.  The 90’s and 2000’s were not a blink in time.  It changed us as much as the events of WWII changed that generation.

With all of this going, how did we keep on track and not become paranoid is a wild guess.  On some things, we become agitated and up our guards, but things changed when the two airplanes ran into the World Trade Center – twin towers and they implode.  The Terrorists struck our homeland!  Another ran into the Pentagon and still another was stopped with all lives lost onboard.  America was now involved in a long battle that is still being fought today.  The culprits sought after was Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban.  Islamic fundamentalists on a jihad (Goes against the principles in the Quran). The warning was issued that there was no place on this Earth to hide.  We got Saddam Hussein (and all of his deck of cards), Bin Laden, and will continue searching for the others.  I have seen my youngest son deployed three times to Iraq, and am glad to have him home.  He had a close call on one deployment, so it is close to the heart when the news reports say more soldiers have died.  We cannot forget the Space Shuttle Columbia re-entry disaster.  Going green was not a good thing to do for this application.  Foam will not stick to a surface that cannot be cleaned properly so it can adhere.  They are still finding small pieces of debris today.

What makes this time different is the speed of communication and the forms we use.  Cell phones are now mini PC’s.  The main media (NBC, CBS, and ABC) have shown their bias and there are now multiple alternative sources to get the real truths.  Their side, our side, and the truth.  That is the truth!

Economic woes we have seen are how fast the world markets can take investments and crash to nothing in a heartbeat.  I know some that have lost millions in the market.  Housing tied to the market and government ties to give everyone the American Dream, whether or not they can afford it later.  We still have not recovered and it may take another ten years to do so. 
 

  Somewhere in there I raised three children and am not living with my youngest son helping him raise his son.  Got retired at 55 years old.  Went back to school.  Culinary was my ambition.  Started in Colorado Springs, CO and now at 58, collecting my pension, I am 9 classes away from completion of the culinary program.  I have been busy with all of the classes, but sometimes overwhelmed with the term papers and plenty of research.  Whether or not I complete the program, I have met interesting individuals, interacted with educators and enjoyed the ride.