Opting for an adventurous career

Serving in the Military as a career doesn’t give you much time to develop long lasting friendships because everyone is moving from one duty station to another every two or three years.  If you’re lucky you might see a former shipmate years later at a different duty station, but by then you both have developed different interests. 

            As mentioned earlier, I joined the Navy because of my cousin’s husband, Lou, and in a way to avoid the draft.  My original Navy pay was about $110 per month gross!  In 1968 my summer job paid $2.82 per hour which in those days was way above the minimum wage of $1.35 per hour. 

After serving about one year in the Navy I was earning the staggering amount of $170 per month and stationed in Hawaii.  With this “staggering” amount of income I took Christmas leave and flew home so, my fiancé, Diane, and I could get married. 

Diane had worked and babysat and sold my old car to put away enough money for our wedding and air fare back to Hawaii.  We were young and dumb and had no idea what we were going to do… we had nowhere to live and very little money left to survive for every long. We figured that we were in love, we were together in paradise… what could go wrong?

            I wasn’t authorized Navy housing nor was I allowed a food allowance as the Navy expected me to eat at the base Galley and live in the barracks.  My salty old Master Chief at the time, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam told me the tired old line “If the Navy wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one with your sea bag!”  Back then the Navy was a ‘man’s world.’  When I reported to my first duty station at Barber’s Point, there was a building with the windows painted over and set off in the middle of a field with 12 foot chain link fencing around the perimeter and barbed wire on top of that.  I was sure that it was the brig… but was told, nope, that’s the “wave cage” where the women sailors lived.  Today the Navy is an integrated Navy with women on ships and living in co-ed barracks.

            Back in the “old days” I couldn’t expect any help from the Navy with a new bride, and definitely wouldn’t dare ask the Navy for help… so I had to ask family for assistance if there was any help to be had.

            We returned to Hawaii and with blind luck found a place to live… in a “tree house” on a farm in Waianae on the Island of Oahu.  We found a beat up old Volkswagen for a whopping $75… Diane helped the old Japanese couple, who owned the property where our “tree house” was located, with the care of their farm animals in exchange for allowing us to rent our tree house rent from them for $75.  I called the place we lived in a “tree house” because it was up on a platform in a group of trees.  I found out that our home was up on this platform to protect it from tsunamis… which I supposed were a recurring hazard back then as they are today. 

          The property was located just across

Farrington Highway

from the beach.  The entire time we lived in the place I was always worried that I would fall through the floor because it was eaten up pretty bad by termites. Diane, who was born and mostly raised in Santa Monica, California was just naturally a surfer, she was exceedingly happy with our situation.  After milking goats and slopping pigs in the morning, which she loved doing she could take her surf board, walk across the highway and surf the rest of the day until I returned home from work.

I was stationed a short distance away at Barber’s Point.  Barbers point isn’t named for any of my ancestors that I know about, it was named for a Captain Henry Barber who wrecked his ship on a coral shoal just off shore in the late 1700s.  

Our tree house had indoor plumbing and electricity, but was ready to fall apart from termite damage.  Diane loved that place.  I would bring home surplus paint that the Navy was going to throw out so we could paint our home.  We didn’t have much choice in the color of the paint… it could be bright red, yellow or Navy blue.  Diane combined the colors to make our little home bright.  I believe the paint mostly held the walls and floors of our place together.

Our tree house actually had three rooms, a bedroom, bathroom and living room. The kitchen was actually more like a closet. It had a small stove and sink. Diane had to stand in the doorway of the kitchen/closet to cook or wash dishes.

One day I returned home from work, went directly to the bathroom and sat down… to my surprise, Diane had that day decided to paint the toilet seat… it was close to dry, but not quite. Diane thought that it was really funny… I didn’t.  On another occasion, Diane was painting the ceiling in our living room. We had to have two old refrigerators to store our food in so the bugs, termites and possible mice couldn’t get to it.  These refrigerators were placed in one corner, so there was a space between the refrigerators and the walls. Diane somehow slipped off the top off a refrigerator, while painting the ceiling, and got stuck between the walls and refrigerators. She spent most of the day stuck until I got home… I thought that it was funny, she didn’t.

            We had a small 10 inch black and white TV, a half dozen wooden crates we used as our book shelves and entertainment center and an old iron framed bed with a lumpy mattress, that came with the place.  We also had two large brightly colored pillows for our furniture that doubled as a couch or chairs.  We were still in our 60’s hippy lifestyle, so we were very trendy.  We could pack all of our household belongings in the wooden crates, load them into the back of our Volkswagen and move within minutes… we didn’t have much of anything and very little money… but we were in paradise.

            After all these years, Diane and I have promised each other that after we die and head for Heaven that we will meet back at our tree house in Hawaii to live in our Heaven for eternity… of course one of our granddaughters overheard our conversation about this and asked if she too could move in with us.

            After Hawaii, the Navy decided to send me to a squadron at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington… another paradise.

            By now we were eligible for base housing so the Navy put us up in a small cottage on a hill overlooking the Harbor and small town of Oak Harbor, Washington.  We could walk across a broad lawn… which was maintained by the Navy and walk along the sidewalks of town and window shop… we still didn’t have any money so window shopping was a great activity for us.  By now I had been promoted to Third Class Petty Officer.  Then President Nixon got us a substantial pay raise and I made Second Class Petty Officer, so we were able to buy a brand new Ford Pinto hatchback… a reliable car that we could make road trips with. 

By being promoted to a higher pay grade, the Navy also made us move to “upgraded housing” which placed us near the airstrip of Naval Air Station… I wanted to stay in our cottage near Oak Harbor, but the Navy said no.

            Shortly before we moved out of our cottage, Diane had found out that we were going to be parents. At Whidbey Island I discovered that a couple of buddies from little league and high school, Jack and Bobby, were also stationed there. We would get together often for picnics and camping trips.

When Diane was about 6 months pregnant we got the news that Diane’s father had passed away while visiting Mexico.  We loaded up our Pinto and headed home to make arrangements for his funeral. 

Brian was born January 11, 1972 at the Naval Hospital at Whidbey Island.  We were on pins and needles for the month before he came.  At Christmas we went down to Seattle to see Uncle Alvin and his family.  Then on the way home to Whidbey, while waiting in line for the ferry, Diane thought that she was in labor… of course we had to clear out a bunch of cars waiting in line so we could get out of line to make it to the nearest hospital… false alarm.  There were a couple of more false alarms.  The doctor told us that we will have plenty of time to get Diane to the hospital when she went into labor, so I took his word for it.  In the wee hours of January 11^th Diane woke me to tell me that she thought that she was in labor… remembering what the doctor said I told her we had plenty of time then I went back to sleep.  I finally got up, as Diane’s water had broke and she was in fact in active labor… we made it to the hospital in plenty of time as Brian was born later that evening.

My buddy Jack and his wife had a baby boy about the same time that our son, Brian, was born. When the boys were about three months old, We thought that it would be a great idea to rent skis and a camping trailer from the Air Station’s Navy Exchange to go up to Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains to go skiing… none of us knew the first thing about skiing. I had a flash back to when my Dad tried to ski down a ramp from our garage/barn roof in Iowa and missed the ramp altogether.  But, I figured that I could ski. I was able to ski down the bunny slope with a bunch of kids, but couldn’t get the hang of stopping, I had to grab a hold of a kid, a tree branch, fall on my butt or ski into a bush to stop. Jack and his wife didn’t even try. I figured that Diane, being the surfer that she was would get the hang of it… but, first you had to get up to the top of the bunny slope by grabbing a hold of a tow rope… I got the hang of it, but Diane grabbed the rope and went head over heal up the hill until she let go of the rope… It was a funny sight.

After one night in a small camping trailer with two crying babies, we decided unanimously to go home… We never tried skiing again, or camping with babies.

            A couple of months later I had to deploy with VAQ-131 onboard the USS Enterprise of the coast of Vietnam.  It was a sad time, I was going to miss Diane and my new son.  Diane kept me up to date on Brian’s accomplishments, crawling and potty training… I had a bunch of great pictures to keep in my locker to look at but didn’t help me much from getting home sick.

I did have a girl in every port while serving in the Navy… my wife, Diane.  As I decided to make the Navy a career while serving on the USS Enterprise in the war zone of Vietnam, they allowed me to reenlist and receive a tax free bonus of about $8,000… we were rich and Diane became a career Navy Wife.  In addition to getting a tax-free bonus for reenlisting I was given the choice of orders… I picked Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily.

We were able to pay off our 1972 Pinto hatch back, with some of my reenlistment bonus, buy some baby furniture for Brian and a new washer and dryer.  The Navy packed up our things and shipped them to Italy.  Diane and I packed up our son, Brian, dog Snoopy in our car and headed for Florida where I was to attend some advanced training.

We were able to rent a mobile home in a trailer park bordering a swamp in Florida while I attended school.  One day Diane had Brian and Snoopy out in our small yard playing when all of a sudden Snoopy started barking at the swamps edge… a big alligator was crawling out of the water.  Diane grabbed up Brian and Snoopy and headed indoors.  To this day, Brian has a terrible fear of alligators.

While in Florida, we were involved in our only car accident when a couple of girls, rear ended our new “paid for” 1972 Pinto hatch back.  The car was totaled, so the insurance company allowed us to get a new 1973 Pinto sedan with upgraded wheels, hood pins and a racing stripe… we were styling then.

After I graduated from the advanced training we loaded up our car with Brian and Snoopy once again and headed for New York where I was to turn the car into a shipper for it to be sent to Italy.

We spent the night in New York, getting up early the next morning to fly to Italy.  One thing about Italy in 1973, it wasn’t anything like the United States… no fast food places at all.  When you went in somewhere to eat, expect to eat a lot and spend a lot of time in the restaurant… no fast food available here!

After a short layover in Rome, where we got something to eat, and Diane was pinched on the butt by some Italian Guy that she tried to punch, and the Italian pilots settled their short lived strike, we finally boarded our plane for the trip to Sicily.

One of the best things about the Navy is when people receive orders they are also assigned a sponsor from their new duty station to help them get settled in to a new and sometimes foreign environment.  Our sponsor picked us up from the airport in Catania, Sicily and drove us to the Italian Motel that we would call home for about a month until we could obtain an apartment in one of the surrounding communities.

The Motel had a restaurant so that’s where we ate every night.  I discovered that the easiest thing to order was Veal Parmesan… which I was pretty much sick of by the time we moved out of the motel.  Our sponsor and his wife were wonderful in that they went out of their way to show us the local attractions and were instrumental in finding us our apartment in Bel Paso, a small mountain community on the slopes of Mt. Etna.

At the time, newer apartment buildings in Sicily were left unfinished on the outside of the building… I was told it had something to do with taxes, anyway, we found a really nice place to live… a huge three bedroom apartment with marble floors and a terrace off our living room and bedroom.  Brian’s room was large enough where he had a virtual playground in his room with a swing, his choo-choo train and a bunch of toys that were scattered everywhere most of the time.

Our dining room window overlooked a common court yard we shared with an ancient Catholic Church… whose loud bell echoed through our apartment pretty much every hour.  We eventually became accustomed to the bell.

One day when I came home from work, the Italians were shooting off fireworks and really having a good party all over Bel Paso.  When I got in the door I found Diane and Brian under the dining room table scared to death.  With all the noise and hooting and hollering going on outside, Diane thought we were at war.  When she found out what was really going on, she relaxed and had a good time the rest of the time we lived there.  It seemed that there were a lot of Saints the Italians had to celebrate.

Diane met one of our neighbors… a school teacher who taught English at the local school.  The kind lady introduced Diane to many of our neighbors who were all very nice.  The Italian women fell in love with our blond haired blue eyed Brian.  He was very spoiled in that town and learned to speak Italian by playing with the other little kids in the neighborhood.  While living in Sicily we discovered that Diane was pregnant with our second child… the Italian women were beside themselves with this news.  They were always bringing something for Diane to eat that was supposed to help with her pregnancy… much of it was good except for the squid or octopus.

The local ladies also taught Diane how to make authentic Italian dishes.  One of our favorite stores was the local bakery which always smelled so good.  There was also an establishment on the corner where we could order espresso or a Gelato.  At the local flea market we could order these really good rice balls with cheese inside… I don’t remember what they’re called.

As there wasn’t a hospital close by in Sicily for Diane to deliver our baby, the Navy sent her to the U.S. Naval Hospital Naples, Italy a couple of weeks before her due date… it turned out that she was in Naples for almost a month.

Brian and I would pack up our Pinto on a Friday after work and head up to Naples.  We had to cross over from Sicily to the mainland of Italy on a ferry at the Messina Straight… it was always an adventure.  When we were driving up the Italian autostrada we were always passed up, like we were standing still by the fast Italian and German sports cars.  I’m sure those drivers thought my 1973 Pinto sedan with Mag wheels, hood pins and racing stripes was a funny sight… but I thought I was cool at the time.  And of course, there were no fast food places for Brian and me to stop at to grab a quick bite to eat.

With Brian only being two years-old at the time, he was always drooling, peeing or pooping his diaper… and he loved playing in the dirt, so by the time we pulled into Naples after a long road trip through Italy with no fast food and picked up his Mom, he was pretty rank… even though I always made sure we started out our trip clean and would always stop to change his drawers when need be.  Regardless, his Mom was always pissed off when she caught a whiff of him.  To this day, nearly forty years later, she still brings those things up when she is trying to make a point about my laziness or procrastination.

Finally after several long weeks, Diane was able to bring our new son, Christopher, home.  We then had two blue eyed blond haired boys our Italian neighbors could fawn over and spoil… we always joined in the community celebrations and had a wonderful time.  We had mixed emotions when the Navy finally gave us a house on base, and we had to move from our Italian neighborhood.

We just got settled in to our on base housing when the Navy gave me orders back to California.

The Navy’s recruiting slogan for a while was “It’s not just a job, but an adventure!”  Try flying from Catania Sicily to Rome to New York and then to Los Angeles all at the same time with two small boys… now that was an adventure.