Pay Attention to Your Life

I believe that if one sells their soul for fame or fortune then they will eventually have hell to pay… whether you have faith or not, our history shows us that this statement is true.

There are those who obtained what they thought was very important to them only to discover that it caused great pain.  Perhaps they reached the pinnacle of their life early and then had to live on for many years on the downside of that high to the end, always missing what they once had.  How many once famous people have recognizable faces but seem to be adrift because no one cares about them anymore because their talent burned itself out, or they no longer have a purpose in people’s lives.

I thought that I had a goal once… a goal that would have destroyed me and the ones that I love if I had achieved it. Fortunately I discovered the path towards that goal was fun, but the goal was not really my life’s purpose.  For a long time I thought that I needed to have someone write a script for me to have a personality or purpose. I discovered that I have a whole team of writers giving me purpose. My entire family is the team who give me my personality and purpose. I am very grateful for that discovery. My destiny was and is my family. Our children and grandchildren give us our immortality if we can leave them with good memories of us and life lessons that they can pass on to their descendents. Only then will the memory of us will live on long after we are dust. I like being referred to as Husband, Dad, Grandpa, Brother, Uncle, Cousin and Friend. But with some of the grandkids living just across the street one of the titles can be exciting. There is currently a television advertisement on when a little boy cries out “Grandpa”… that startles me every time, it will wake me from my nap quicker then anything because I think that something has happened with one of the kids and they are seeking my help!

As I stated in an earlier blog, if our heavenly reward is to relive our life experiences over and over again as if it was the first time, then we need to create as many good experiences as we can right here on this earth. Don’t drag dreadful experiences to the grave with you because wouldn’t it be hell to have to relive those bad memories for eternity?

A very smart young lady that I know told me that it is very hard going through life being angry all the time… it is much more fun to be happy.

I was once required to attend a self awareness seminar at my work several years ago… the one thing that I can still remember from that experience was the question that was asked..."at the end of your life do you want to say I wished that I had spent more time at work, or more time with loved ones?"

In my work I have to read and watch a lot of news. I can see the hurt, that perhaps well meaning people, can have on others because they are trying to push their own values on to the masses. I see politicians trying to twist the truth around to fit their needs.  I thought that I had one way of looking at things once until I happened to have a hate spewing (self-proclaimed) Marxist professor for a required Sociology Class and a quiet and very polite Political Science professor directly following.

Because of the type of job I have some people ask me what my political leanings are, I reply it depends on the issues. I do know that some of the news that I digest each day makes me feel really sad. Sometimes I get angry, and sometimes I can’t help but think how some very smart politicians can think that the masses are really stupid.

I see conservative pundits every day bad mouthing “public employees”… I am a public employee, most of my adult life I have been a public employee. First serving in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and now working for the Department of Defense as a civilian employee. I tried working in the private business world. But quickly found out, in my case, that private business owners sometimes aren’t very loyal to employees. Working as a “public employee” you work for the public, and for the most part the public is very grateful for the service that is provided to them

I recently read in a liberal leaning newspaper that a mock congressional hearing was held by a former house speaker and her only “expert” witness was a law student who wanted the government to pay for her birth control. Many people took this seriously and became really upset about it… or at least is seems they are really upset... maybe it is just an act.  My thought was “o boy” I can’t wait to see how the late night comedians handle this one. But of course if they did anything with it or not, I wouldn’t know, because I can never stay up late enough to watch.  I imagined that the lines would go something like this… “Apparently the law students at Georgetown law school are learning how to screw people, and like a good lawyer they are just trying to get someone else to pay for the malpractice insurance.”

Until next time, pay attention to your loved ones, think for yourself and be aware of the lessons others are trying to feed you...and live everyday like it is your last day… one of these days it will be.

What beholds our future?

By Dan Barber

Every week I read a lot of news from many sources, and from the news that I read this week I would like to make a prediction.

I predict that a new technology will be invented within the next year and shortly thereafter will be made available to the public, and because of the clever marketing of the company who owns the new gadget, people will camp out on hard sidewalks for a week or more just so they can be the first person in line to buy this new miraculous ‘doodad.’

What kind of prediction is this you might ask? Not much of one, because we see this scenario in the news quite often.  What isn’t in the news is that the ‘doodad’ has become obsolete almost immediately because the same engineers in the same company who created ‘doodad’ has now come out with a new and improved ‘widget,’ which the company’s marketing folks will convince hoards of people to pitch their tents on Main Street so they may have the honor of being the first person on their block to replace the old ‘doodad’ with the new ‘widget’… am I boring you with this story? I’m certainly bored.

Some technology is really great.

When I was returning home from Vietnam, I needed to call home from the Philippines’ to let my wife, Diane, know that I was on my way home and would be there in a couple of days. The call only took a couple of minutes, but cost me nearly a quarter of my weekly “tax free” income of a Navy second class petty officer in 1972. We didn’t have the convenience of free calling cards or cell phones with unlimited minutes. 

A massive improvement in communications was just appearing on the horizon.  Pay TV (cable) was a major source of debate between politicians, and the broadcast executives representing the 3 national networks, and the Federal Communications Commission.  Public meetings were even held so the average person could let their feelings on the subject be known. See how that has worked out. 

We can now sign up for “cable/satellite” TV, the Internet and our home and cell telephone service all with one company!  Because of the new technology of cell phones you can even save a bit of money by not having a landline phone at home.  The monopolistic telephone companies can no longer charge us whatever they can get.

Now my wife can talk to her sisters and cross-country friends on her phone for hours, or until the battery dies, for just one low monthly fee of just a quarter of a week’s pay. I also have hundreds of channels to surf through on my big flat-screen high-definition TV while at the same time surfing the World Wide Web on my cell phone, or any number of new thing-a-bobs I might be willing to camp out to buy at any number of big box discount department stores. But because of where I choose to live, I would have to drive for nearly an hour to get to one of those big box stores… a fact I am rather proud of.

To the horror of those network television executives back in the late sixties, because of all this new technology I can record what ever I want to watch, even out in the middle of the Mojave Desert without a 100’ tall TV antenna, whenever I want to watch it… and I can even fast forward through commercials.

Sometime in the future those unsightly telephone, television and electrical transmission lines that scar our landscape will be a relic of the past when every newly constructed building, development or home will be required to be self-sufficient with its own power source from a combination of solar, thermal and wind power. Perhaps some other new source of power will be discovered and put into use. Also, the kids can also create their own TV programming, filmed of course in front of a large mirror with their latest edition of a smarter cell phone with a video camera application and broadcast those programs world wide, via the latest social media program.

This can only be possible if the “public utility” companies, energy companies and governments can figure out a way to get out of the way of each other and let it happen.

What are you going to do when everything is gone?

By Dan Barber

My horoscope read today that I needed to write… Well here is another entry to my blog spot on my philosophy, right or wrong, it’s my thoughts on the mystery of life.

I just read an article about how the web split in 2011.  First we had the World Wide Web (WWW or web)… but now we have applications (apps) and the “old fashioned web.” In an earlier post I babbled on about my phobia about computers and the new definitions of every day words that used to mean something else, but now have a different meaning altogether… like backup, server, crash, hacking, cracking etc. Language has been evolving ever since our first caveman lexicographer starting calling a rock something else besides “rock” when they discovered that they could use the rock for cracking nuts, it then became a “nut cracker.” Then an industrious clan educator painted a picture on the cave wall to educate others in the clan how to use a rock. Our very first dictionary was actually a “Pictionary” and some Anthropologists and some Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) researchers have spent their entire careers trying to figure out what our ancestors were trying to say with these Pictionary’s. 

Now we need a dictionary to tell us what acronyms mean… the Navy has had one of these dictionaries for years… I keep it nearby on my bookshelf at work. I work at the Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms (NHTP) on the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC)… in military speak it would be pronounced as Nav-Hosp 29 Palms at the Mac-Cack-See… in texting it would probably look like (NHTP@MCAGCC).

Now everywhere I look people are holding their various communications devices and typing away with their thumbs in an acronym language that is totally foreign to me. My teenaged granddaughters are constantly pecking away at their cell phones instead of talking on them. I think the funniest thing that I ever heard involving acronyms was in the Neil Simon play “The Odd Couple” when Oscar said (paraphrased) “It took me a half hour to figure out that FU on the note that you left on the fridge that said, ‘need milk FU,’ meant Felix Unger.”

When I signed away two years of my life on a contract to get a cellular (cell) phone, I told the young sales girl that I only wanted a device that I could make and receive phone calls… I didn’t need a camera, the cell phone screen was too small for me to watch TV, I didn’t need to send or receive e-mails, and I didn’t need to know where on the earth that I was positioned at any given time… although at my age my family might find that particular “app” handy when I get lost while taking a walk in my neighborhood.

Our Southern California electrical power supply utility company just announced the other day that they were going to have to cut off power to different areas of our community for several hours so they could make repairs to the electrical grid. In our local community underground chat room, people were in an uproar over what were they going to do without power… no cell phones, no television, no lights, no computers! “How are we going to be able to charge our cell phones, read our book apps on a dead reader?” Perhaps we should not be so ready to do away with print newspapers or books… all you need to read one of these at night is a candle. A fire in the outdoor fire pit would be nice while star-gazing at our pollution free desert sky is a possibility, face-to-face conversation with family or friends is could be a positive experience… no batteries or charger required.

Maybe the Inca’s and Hopi Indians, and even the “web-bot” app have it right about life as we know is about to end in 2012… What are you going to do when everything you do in your everyday life is gone?

The Ingredients for a curious mind

By Dan Barber

Now that I have some age and maybe a little bit of wisdom, I can look back on my life with wonderment and with some disappointment. However, I would never change a thing even if I could, because if I were able to go back in time to correct some mistake I made or change some decision, then everything that I now know would be gone, and everyone who I love could possibly disappear from my life.

I take that back, since I wrote that statement some months ago something horrendous happened to my family, something that I never dreamed would or even could have happened… the one thing that I might go back in time to try undo would be to tell a loved one that everyone loved him and we would go to any length to protect or help ease the pain and to please don’t give up on us.  Perhaps the lesson that we learn from a painfull loss is to express our love and support to our loved ones now… show them that they are important and loved. One of the most important things is to show them that we are supportive and not judgmental.

Life is a mystery but simple… it only gets complicated when we continue asking questions that there are no answers for. I tried in my simple minded way to explain this in an earlier post… we should live everyday as best we can, because no one ever comes back to explain what awaits us after we die… or have we failed to listen and learn or trust what we have been told or experienced? I believe that I mentioned this in an earlier blog, but it might be worth repeating here. I met my wife in California but learned a couple of years after we were married that our grandfathers were buddies back in Nebraska when they were children. I confirmed through the census that they lived within a couple of blocks of each other in Omaha at the same time. Was it fate that I would meet my wife because of some mysterious connection between our grandfathers?  Or have we always been connected in previous lives and continue to get back together in reincarnations.

I also mentioned in an earlier blog that my Grandson explained to his Mother one day when he was 3-years old that he died before when he was 8-years old and when he woke up she was his new Mommy. And he insisted that he wasn’t in family photos before he was born because at the time he was dead.  Then there is my other Grandson who mysteriously taught himself how to read before even starting kindergarten. He is still reading at an advanced level and can complete his math homework in a very short period of time. His Dad says that he looks at the math problem on his homework and calculates the problem in his head then writes down the answer within seconds. This grandson considers the work that he is given at his school is beneath his abilities and calls it “baby work!”  Was this child born with the intelligence to do his school work assignments with ease, or was it a learned ability carried forth from a previous life?

I believe that all of our loved ones who have passed on are still with us… and if we pay attention can still sense their presence.  When I was a child and we had assemblies at school for some award I received or some program I was involved with I could always tell that my Father was there just by hearing his distinctive cough… it was always very comforting to me when I heard that cough, I’m still listening for it.  My Grandfather was always gardening or watering his garden with a garden hose by hand, which is something that I do today, and he is always there with me telling me “atta boy.”  He was also always painting something or refinishing furniture so the smell of fresh paint or varnish is always very comforting to me.

All of this is solid evidence that my loved ones will always be with me.  Yes it does hurt when they pass on, but if we truly have faith that they will always be with us but at the same time believing that are in a way much better place for them then the pain is much less for those of us left behind.  When my father was on life support and my siblings and I had to ask for that support to be terminated because we knew that it was our father’s decision, still left me feeling bad about it for a couple of weeks until I had a dream where I asked my father if he could come back to life would he? His response was no… he was having way too much fun reliving the experiences in his life as if it were the first time. That dream… if it was a dream…made me feel much better.

I hope that when it’s my turn to pass on that my loved ones won’t mourn my passing, but celebrate my life instead, and be happy for me, because I plan on realizing a life-long dream of finding the answers for the true meaning of life and maybe having the opportunity to relive my happy experiences… especially moving back into the Hawaii tree-house my wife and I lived in when we were first married.

I have not been to church on a weekly basis in a long time, when I was a child I attended every week, until after services one Sunday I purchased a soda from a machine located in a community center next to the church. A stern looking lady told me that I would go to hell if I drank my soda. I sucked it down because I was thirsty, I don’t believe that I broke any of God’s commandments… at least I hope not. 

My belief in God didn’t end on that Sunday… but my belief in what adults told me about what I should or shouldn’t believe about God or the church did.  On the rare occasion that I do enter a church, I wonder if God is seeing me there, and I know that He is, just as He is seeing me watching the wonderful sunrise that He created.  I don’t have to be in a ‘man-made’ church to have a conversation with God I can have a conversation with him everyday in the temple that he built called the universe.  Everyday I thank God for my life, my children, my grandchildren and all those who I love.  Scientists have explained that the Universe was created in a big bang, but they have yet to explain what sparked that big bang.  I do know that one day the ultimate truth will be revealed to everyone.

In the mean time, I would recommend that everyone should strive to live a happy life and treat everyone kindly, always offer your hand in friendship, not in hate.

I saw it written somewhere that laughter is exercise for the soul… I think that I will watch a comedy on TV and get some exercise.

Life is an adventure

Life in the Navy was an adventure… during my career it seemed that time just moved so slowly, but after 20 years it didn’t seem that bad, but what has really whizzed by since then has been the last 22 years since I retired from the Navy.

I think that everybody complains about some of the duty stations they’ve been assigned to and then can’t wait to get orders to another assignment. But, when the transfer is completed, they wind up missing the duty station that they just left. I found out that regardless of the duty station, whether it’s a great place or crappy one, when you leave it you’re going to miss it. 

What I discovered that when I returned to a crappy place that I thought I missed… it was still a crappy place, and it wasn’t the place that I missed, it was the people that I knew at that duty station that I missed. I discovered that a place does not make a community, people make up the community.

I spent 20 years pretty much being homesick for the community where I grew up. When I retired and moved back to that community I discovered that I had very little in common with anyone in the old neighborhood. My childhood friends moved on in their lives with family and new interests, just as I had.  I then realized that I became homesick for the Navy.

Fortunately, I was able to get a good job back in a military town… Twentynine Palms, Calif. When I moved here it felt like I had come back home. My neighbors were either retired military like myself, or they were active duty, or they worked at the base. There is nothing like the camaraderie you have with your co-workers, and in a military town your neighbors.

I see young people coming out here to the desert for duty, and if they don’t have a family or a car there isn’t much for them to do except hike in the desert… which they probably do as part of their training at the base. Many of them try to stay fit so they run, play sports and run some more. If they have a young wife, they might get involved with other young couples. One night my wife and I went to the drive-in to see a movie here in our town, which is probably only one of a very few drive-ins left in the United States.  We saw young couples and young families arriving before dark to get set up for the movie. They had brought their pot luck dinners to share with each other and later to enjoy the movie together… as a community. That took me back to when my family and I would get together with our friends at those crappy duty stations… we might have a potluck dinner then play board games or cards because the duty station didn’t have English language TV. Or we might all get together to go camping somewhere.  One time we even caravanned up through Italy and camped on the side of the road at night. We got to share a great adventure by visiting Taormina, at the Messina Straight, Pompeii, Naples and Rome all during a four day road trip.

Out here in Twentynine Palms you can pretty much tell where a retired Marine lives… if they don’t have the National Flag and the Marine Corps Flag flying on a pole in their yard, you just have to look at their garage… if the door is open to tell that they were a Marine… a place for everything ship-shaped and squared away. On the other hand if your children followed you out to the desert to live near Mom and Dad, then they need someplace to store all of their stuff… so in my garage, there isn’t any space to put anything else… I have to carry my golf clubs around in my truck because they won’t fit in my garage.  My wife and I are now way to old to try and ride a bicycle… yet we have a half a dozen of them stored in our garage. When our kids moved out we made them take their beds with them… but now they are stored in our garage.

My Grandfather was a Marine for maybe two years, but the discipline he obtain in the Marine Corps stayed with him for his entire life. His garage was always squared away. Oil was not allowed to drip from any ones cars who dared park in his drive way.  Weeds were not allowed to grow in his lawn or around his prize roses.

When grandpa was working, his shoes were always spit shined and his suits neatly pressed and his tie tied with a double Windsor. Come to think about it, after he retired his gardening clothes had to also be pressed, and his work shoes shined.

Life in the Navy can be measured in duty stations… during this time we were here… then this other time we were over there.  We think that we missed the disco 70’s altogether because we spent most of that time overseas somewhere or moving to or from a military base in the states.

There were, movies and TV shows that came and went that I am just now discovering in the discount video bins at my local super duper discount stores.  Some of the fashions that were around in the 70’s also seemed to come from the clown acts of the circus… Big shoes, Neon suits and Big Hats…  We did witness a streaker at a ball game on the base in Sicily in the early 70’s… the guy didn’t run very far until he was apprehended by the base security officers.

Our two sons had no idea what TV was until they were nearly 3 and 4 years old. We arrived at my parent’s house after being picked up from the airport following a trip half way around the globe. The TV was tuned to some program about cave men fighting dinosaurs. Our oldest son became very upset that those cavemen were going to hurt the dinosaurs.

Back in California I was stationed at Naval Air Station Miramar… now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.  We were close enough to be able to drive up to Rowland Heights on the weekends to visit family there.  We found a great house in Poway, not too far from work at the air station.  Then the news came that Diane was expecting our third child… on Friday the 13^th of August 1975 our daughter Kimberly was born at a civilian hospital in Escondido, California. Now we could mark our duty stations by where our children were born… Brian at Oak Harbor, Washington; Christopher at Naples Italy and now Kimberly in San Diego.

The Navy wasn’t satisfied by just leaving me alone to work at Miramar; they decided that I should go to North Island Naval Air Station.  Not too far from Miramar, but a mess to have to drive through during rush hour traffic in San Diego.  We decided to move down to Coronado to be closer to work.  We found a relatively cheap house to rent while waiting for Navy housing.  I saved money by riding my bicycle back and forth to work at North Island, and when we were finally assigned base housing in San Diego I learned how to use the public transportation system so I wouldn’t have to drive in traffic and to save money on gas.

With almost ten years of active duty behind me, I decided to enlist in the Navy Reserves and go to school full-time on my GI Bill and Weekend drill pay.  I quickly learned that I needed to make a bit more money, because we no longer had health insurance, which was badly needed when our daughter broke her collar bone when she fell off a swing and then a short time later she came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized.  I got a job at Beckman Instruments in La Habra, California. A short time later my old scout master and brother-in-law’s uncle introduced us to the union so we could get a job on the back lot of Disneyland.  Tim went to work on the cars of autopia and I went to work checking the air pressure on the tires of the Monorail train... of course I had other duties, like trimming the tree branches away from the monorail track and cleaning stuff off the track that patrons threw there during the day.  I made good money doing this, and really enjoyed working in an environment very similar to the military.  Disney has a dress and grooming code for employees…I had no problem adapting to those rules with my ten years of military service.  My children really liked the fact that Dad worked at the coolest place in the world, especially when I would drop them and their Mom off in the morning before I would report to work… after I got off in the afternoon, I would scoop up some very tired kids from a bench by the Small World attraction and load them in the car at the employees parking lot.

My shop and the parking lot was just behind the Small World attraction… the only drawback about working in such a location was the “It’s a Small World” tune… many years later it is still embedded in my brain!... I think that I should get disability compensation for such an injury.  Now that I’m old the “

Happiest Place

on Earth can really PISS me off!  You have to pay a huge admission fee to stand in line for two hours for a two minute ride.  But of course you can make a reservation for that ride and report later in the day.  If I wanted to take all of my grandkids to Disneyland I would have to get a second mortgage on my house to buy the tickets.

Thank goodness that my wife made me reenlist in the Navy so we could retire with a pension and inexpensive medical coverage. We are happy with our life… we have our children raised and we get to see our grandchildren quite often… I don’t think that we will ever move again, we have found paradise and the grass isn’t greener here on the other side of the hill that I have to mow, because we don’t have any grass here in this beautiful desert.  The air is clean, we are in small town America where it isn’t over-crowded and everyone knows everyone else and it’s not possible to have traffic jams in town unless the Marines schedule one at the Main Gate to the base… which they do most every morning now that we have terrorist threats to worry about.  We also have a couple of Little League fields where I can sit with my neighbors, friends and family and watch my grandchildren play ball.  My wife, Diane, and I can literally walk out to our back yard and explore the vast Joshua Tree National Park’s hiking trails and sites… life can hardly get any better.

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.

Moving at lightning speed through life

I just attended another Navy Hospital Corps ball; I have lost count of how many of these events that I’ve attended over the years.  The guest speaker was a retired Marine Sergeant Major and a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam…he brought tears and laughter through telling the story about his military and life experiences. Many of the young Sailors and Marines in the room knew what this man was talking about because they know of the comradery they feel with their fellow brothers and sisters in uniform, and many of them have also witnessed first-hand the devastation that war can bring.

These annual events are held to celebrate the milestones of the organization that the attendees belong to and the pride they have of serving their country in uniform. The many young people at this celebration were still in or barely out of the teen years, but with a chest full of medals.

I never had to go onto a battlefield, but I saw many young people who were severely wounded either in body or mind… years ago I had a co-worker who served in Vietnam with the Army. He decided to reenlist in the Navy. This Sailor suffered from severe and untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Which is better understood, and better treated today. Back during Vietnam those returning home from war with this disorder were many times treated like outcasts or criminals because of their “bad” behaviors. My co-worker was very polite and respectful to everyone; he never got into trouble or tried to hurt anyone. The reaction this Sailor had when he heard a loud noise was extreme fright… I don’t know what ever came of this Sailor, but I hope that he received help for his crippling wounds of the mind.

I decided to join the Navy because I wanted to be the master of my own destiny… I didn’t want to be drafted and I didn’t want to go to Vietnam. I figured that by joining the Navy I would be safely assigned to a ship that remained far away from the shores of Vietnam. I thought that being in the United States Navy would be a really cool thing to belong to, and it was, and as it turned out the best decision I ever made.

As I already mentioned, I obligated to join the Navy on July 8, 1968 and met my future wife, Diane, on the same day. This happened because I went to visit my cousin, Dale and his new wife, Cathy, to tell them about what I had just done.  Dale was not only one of my cousins, but my best friend.

It was there at my cousin’s apartment when I met Diane, who just happened to be at Dale’s house visiting her sister… my cousin’s wife.

At this time I was still working on my shyness around girls.  I thought I could ask my cousin or his wife to “set me up.”  Of course they were really enjoying themselves at my expense… finally I had to ask Diane directly if she would go to a movie with me because her sister told her I wanted to say something to her… I was trapped.  She came outside, where I was helping my cousin with the barbecue, and asked me directly “Do you have to say something to me?”  I almost melted.  I mumbled out “Do you want to go to a movie with me or something?” She replied “I don’t know.”  I stupidly came back with “You don’t like me?”  She smiled and agreed to go to the movie with me… the rest is history… but to this day she enjoys embarrassing me all over again and again by relating this story to whoever will listen… I just tell her that my line worked!

We started dating regularly and six months later I entered boot camp in San Diego on January 14, 1969.  As Diane was a ward of the Los Angeles County Foster Child Program, my parents were able to qualify as foster parents to Diane.  She moved in with my parents while I was off serving in the Navy.  This just gave her more ammunition to embarrass me all over again by telling everyone, that she married her (foster) brother! 

We were married on December 13, 1969, a day after Diane turned 18.       

Diane and her six siblings were all placed in foster care after her mother had died of leukemia when she was about 8 years-old and her father was unable to take care of all the children because of his poor health.  Diane tried to stay in contact with her family, but as a child it was very difficult… this resulted in some of her siblings not being very close with one another.          

As a ward of the state of California at the time, when a foster child turned 18, the state would turn them out into the street for them to make their own way.  But Diane had plans… she managed to earn enough money to pay for a beautiful dress, rent a hall in Norwalk, California and pay for our wedding reception afterwards.  We were so young; we spent our first night together as husband and wife at a hotel across the street from Disneyland and spent the next day at the park.

After Diane and I were married, Dale was then my cousin, best friend and brother-in-law.  Unfortunately, when our father-in-law died a couple of years later there were some harsh words between myself and Dale.  Cathy and Dale eventually divorced and we were never close again. 

When you’re not paying attention things will change or disappear altogether and you won’t notice them missing or the change until it’s too late.  The same is true with people… life is short, sometimes shorter than expected. 

Fast forward about thirty-five years to the future, Dale’s father, my uncle Eugene died.  I went to the funeral where Dale offered his hand, I hugged him instead.  We reminisced about the old days in Rowland Heights and the fun we used to have.  We talked about our children and grandchildren… we were having a good visit there at Uncle Eugene’s wake, then Dale closed his eyes and died.  I am saddened that my cousin, best friend and former brother-in-law had died at his father’s wake, saddened by the years we lost, but at the same time was grateful for the short visit we were able to enjoy before he passed.  Dale will be missed and I’m sure he is in Heaven enjoying new adventures.  I found out that same day that another opportunity was lost when I learned that a good childhood friend, Ed “Eddy” Murphy had just died. 

Three years earlier Eddy, as I knew him, sent out a message to our high school alumni, inviting everyone to a Mega Reunion.  I considered sending him an email saying hi… but I was busy, and I was sure he was busy, so I didn’t do it… also I had prior commitments with a earlier Hospital Corps Birthday Ball being held at the same time as the High School reunion.  I now wish that I could have at least said “Hi” to Eddy.

Enjoy your family today… reconnect with old friends… life really is too short.