A Time To Let Go

I wrote this as an exercise in an Effective Writing Course at Lockheed shortly after Marilynn died of breast cancer January 18, 1988. The assignment was to write a one-page paper using only one-syllable words, and read it to the class. When I finished reading this, the only dry eyes in the class were mine.

Hon, they say I have to cry for you. At the least, Doc says I have to. And not just for me. For Bruce, Scott, and Jeff too. If I don’t cry for you, it seems none of us will ever be whole. So I have to let go of you, and the way to let go is to cry.

That’s what they say.

Hon, you know it’s hard for me to cry. And I don’t know that I want to let go of you, even if Doc says I have to. That is, I have to if I want to be well.

When I got home that day and saw you on our bed, so still, so cold, I felt lost.

Lost, and sad like a lead weight was on my heart. But you were at last at peace and free of pain, and your smile was sweet, just like it was back in the days when sick cells were a bad dream. When each thought was not in some way tied to fear of where the cells were, and how bad the pain would some day be.

It would have been so easy to pity you, to say life had not been fair to you, that you got a bum deal. But that would have been to not see the fierce pride you had in all that we had done with our lives. The way you would say, “This is our home,” in any place we put our bed. Then pack up and move to some far land, with no gripe or words of fear or loss. “Just make sure they pack our bed,” you would say.

How could I cry while you were in our bed? In the bed we used for over 25 years to make love, to make up, to make plans, and at last to make peace with what we both knew, that you would one day soon die in it. I still hear my words: “What can I do for you, what can I say?”

“Just hold me,” you said.

Then I held you, but I could feel your strength would not last long, and that your iron will would not be enough. Then you just let go. With no last word for me or look, or sigh, or sign.

So I guess I’ll do what Doc says I have to do. I think I’ll have to make a plan. I’ll pick a day, like the last day of next week. I’ll make it my day to cry. To let go. But not now. It’s time to go to bed.

Thirty years later, and I still haven’t cried, Doc. Can I ever be well if I don’t?

Our 2008 Christmas Letter

Alice and I were walking Buddy to Cook’s Beach, about 15 minutes away, and I realized I hadn’t started our Christmas letter. What to write about? Travel! Of course! Question: “Alice, besides the two weeks in Guatemala, can you remember anything else?”

After about half a minute of silent walking: “We visited Carol on Maui in January, and then we went to Peleliu for a week. Remember when we were leaving and you asked who won the Super Bowl, and a woman said the New England Patriots? Two days later you learned it was the Giants.”

“That’s right. New York. New England. Very confusing. Then what?”

“We went to Istanbul for a week, then over a week in Budapest for your four teeth implants. It’s a shame that one fell out a month later. On the way back we stopped in New York for ‘Wicked,’ ‘Phantom,’ ‘Chicago,’ Sunday services at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, and a day in the American Museum.”

“The Baptist church choir, ’Phantom’ and ‘Chicago’ were great. It’s a pity ‘Wicked’ wasn’t. I hope that implant can be fixed without a third trip to Budapest. Anything else?”

“Well, in early July went to Temecula for your oldest son Bruce’s and Lisa’s marriage.”

“Of course I remember,” I said, realizing I’d forgotten until Alice reminded me. I congratulated myself that at least I remembered that we went to Guatemala City, Antigua, and the Mayan ruins at Tikal for two weeks in early September. While in Antigua, we hiked several miles up and down an active volcano, periodically in driving rain, with a group of a dozen Israeli students, all much younger than our children. Guatemalan cowboys followed us for most of the hike up. “Taxi?” they kept asking us, waiting for us to wear out and rent their horses. We didn’t, and we kept up with the youngsters.

“Anything else happen?” I asked.

“Well, you know, the President thing,” Alice replied.

“Of course, how could I forget?” Actually, I hadn’t. With all the hours we put in, there’s no way I would forget that Alice is now her Book Club president, and that I’m the president of Gualala Rotary.

2009 will be a bit quieter. We plan a driving tour to Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore in May. Then in November, when I should be writing our Christmas letter and mailing the cards on time, we’ll be in India for three weeks. Needless to say, I’ll be in the usual last minute panic to get our cards out, the same as always.

It’s a family tradition.

Alice, Michael, and Buddy

When PG&E Came to Town

Not long after we moved into the old abandoned high school building, in early 1950 Pacific Gas & Electricity (PG&E, aka Pacific Graft & Extortion) came to Point Arena in a big way. Up to that point in time the generating plant on Windy Hollow Road on the north side of Point Arena stood by itself to provide power to Point Arena only.

That all changed with the building and opening of the Point Arena Radar Station. PG&E sent in large construction crews with heavy equipment. They used the large open space on the west side of the old high school building as a parking area for the equipment. The space had been graveled at one time, but neglected, and now with the heavy equipment parked and moving over it, it soon became primarily mud and mud puddles. After a period when it went from bad to worse, PG&E brought in gravel and spread it generously on the mud and in the mud puddles. It helped. Now when we walked we crunched over gravel, instead of splashing through mud.

Our main purpose for the large, open, flat area, when it wasn’t covered with PG&E equipment, had been as a playground. In dry weather it wasn’t too bad before they put the gravel down. After the gravel, it was a worthless playground the year around. However, that didn’t stop us from trying to make it work. It was so big, so open, so flat, it was hard to give up on it.

It was good for baseball until the batter hit the ball. If it was a grounder, it would never take a straight, predictable hop. If it was a fly ball, trying to keep your eyes on the ball while running over gravel was an accident in progress. Usually a few fast running steps was all it took to lose your balance and fall onto the jagged rocks. When you took your eyes off the ball to save yourself from falling, the ball usually found you. Either way, a thoughtful friend like Bob Seymour would shout, “Way to go, Grace!” as you picked yourself up and inspected the torn knee of your pants, and the blood seeping from the cuts.

I can still see a semi-circular scar on the heel of my right palm where a sharp rock peeled the skin back when I tried to break a fall with my hand.

It didn’t take long until we gave up playing baseball on the gravel, and used the baseball diamond on the Elementary School grounds. It was actually a fair baseball field, with an ancient wooden backstop, and fragmented pieces of chicken wire occasionally stopping foul balls, wild pitches, or errant throws before they landed in the cypress trees beyond.

The faults of the school baseball field really didn’t bother us except during the rainy season. The field had been in heavy use for so long that the pitcher’s mound was a hole, the batter’s box was a hole, and the first, second, and third bases, and the basepaths, were in holes. The holes weren’t very noticeable, and weren’t problems until it rained and water accumulated. The flooding field didn’t stop our games, but we did have to improvise. The pitcher and batter would move to adjacent areas of higher ground, and if the puddles weren’t too big, the bases would move to the closest almost dry ground.

Trying to field ground balls in the mud, and chasing down fly balls was still challenging, but when you inevitably slipped and fell, landing in soft mud was much nicer than on sharp gravel.

My brother Ronald and I still played in our graveled yard when it was just the two of us. Sometimes we would disagree about whether a pitch was a strike, or how many strikes we had, or if we had struck out. Not very often, but every now and then, a disagreement would lead to a fight. Since I was much bigger than Ronald then, I would win our fights even though he was tough and scrappy.

One day I pushed him down, and started to walk away towards our house. The next thing I remember was lying face down on the ground, and the back of my head hurting quite painfully. I put my hand where it hurt, and when I brought my hand back it was covered with blood.

Even at his young age, Brother Ronald had excellent hand/eye coordination, and a good throwing arm. He invariably precisely hit whatever he was throwing at. In this case he was throwing a rock he picked up out of the gravel, and his target was my head.

When I saw the blood on my hand I let out loud cries, which brought Pop running from our room in the old high school building and to my rescue, I thought. However, he ran right past me and started spanking my brother. As I moaned and cried louder, Pop spanked Ronald harder.

About then I heard Mom call from the doorway, “Stop spanking that one and get the other one to the Medical Center before he bleeds to death.”

Pop reluctantly stopped spanking Ronald and stood me up to look at the back of my head. Mom brought a wet towel, and cleaned the blood away to uncover a shallow two-inch gash.

“It’s going to need stitches,” was Mom’s verdict, which inspired me to resume crying even more loudly, more from the thought of getting stitches than from the pain, which was already subsiding.

Pop drove me downtown to the Medical Center. We still didn’t have a doctor, but the School Nurse, Helen Greco, was on duty. She cleaned and shaved around my wound, applied a generous amount of stinging disinfectant, closed it with three stitches, and bandaged it firmly.

Pop looked me over and said, “I think you’ll live.”

I thought it would be a good time to start crying again to see if Pop would resume spanking Ronald, but Pop and Mrs. Greco were chatting with each other, and with me, and I felt the time for crying had passed.

Even if it would get Pop to spank my brother some more.

Politically Incorrect Songs Mom Taught Me

The news the other day featured the huge, million-dollar mansion his parishioners were building Reverend Jeremiah Wright in Chicago, and it reminded my of a song my late mother wrote sixty years ago. It was a rousing pseudo-Negro spiritual she titled: “Sho’ Do Pay.” (Translation: It sure does pay).

The following is my best effort to reconstruct it from my memories of sixty years ago. I’m sure that somewhere in our boxes of family memorabilia I’ll find a copy of the words and music, but until then, this will have to do.

Sho’ Do Pay
(To be sung in dialect with religious
fervor)

I got myself religion
The other day
Went down to the church house
And learned to pray
But there’s just one thing about it
I’d like to say
Oh Brothers and Sisters
Does it pay?

You can talk about your Moses
And you can talk about your Josephs
You can learn all the
Good Book has to say
Then you start in a cryin’
Lordy there’s no denying
That old time religion sho’ do pay.

We’ll roll mostly sevens
Way up thar in the Heavens
And we won’t have to work a single day
There’ll be ham and fried chicken
There’ll be no more pot lickin’
And Saint Pete will double all our pay.

So I’ll get me a Bible
And I’ll get me a hymn book
And I’ll learn all the Good Book has to say
Then I’ll start in a preachin’
And I’ll have a camp meetin’
‘Cause that old time religion sho’ do pay.

God you know I’m a sinner
But I’d sure like to enter
Them beautiful Pearly Gates someday.
(This is a fragment, and I don’t know where it goes in the sequence, or what comes before or after it.)

Mom’s allusions to Negro gambling, laziness, and religious cynicism would not play well in our politically correct world today, but were accepted as stereotypical humor then. You can mentally substitute Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, or other get-rich-quick televangelists, and get the same effect. Without worrying about political correctness either, because white Christians are always fair game.

Just don’t mess with New Agers like Tony Robbins.

Mom was ahead of her time in commemorating in song the sordid wealth that would be showered on slick religious hypocrites. At the time she wrote this song, she may have read Sinclair Lewis’ “Elmer Gantry,” and probably read about Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson, but most probably she had heard of and observed things associated with religious revival meetings, and noted their similarities to the carnival sideshows and Snake Oil salesmen of her time.

And had she lived longer, to the Rev. Jeremiah Wrights of our time.

Taking the Long Way to Turkey in 1964

I enlisted in the Air Force in 1962, and after Basic Training at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, I went to Russian language school at Indiana University, then to radio intercept schools at Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo, Texas, and the National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland. By the time I finished all the schools and had orders to report to Karamursel Air Station, Turkey, I was less than two months from completing two years of service.

Marilynn and I bought a used 1958 Rambler station wagon for the commute from our apartment in Laurel to NSA, and when I graduated we decided to drive it to California where I would complete my thirty-day leave from the Air Force, leave Marilynn and eight-month old Bruce with her parents in Vallejo, and then go on to Turkey alone.

We decided we would go from Maryland by way of Long Island, New York, to visit Marilynn’s Aunt Helen and Uncle Jul in Levittown and take in the New York World’s Fair before departing for California.

Of course the roads and routes have changed a lot since late spring 1964, but I remember that getting out of New York and through New Jersey onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike wasn’t bad. The Pennsylvania Turnpike would have been great too, except we had to stop overnight in Carlisle to repair a small hole in the radiator.

Looking back, I can’t believe the old clunkers I used to buy and drive because we couldn’t afford better, and the innocent faith we had that we could load our family and all our worldly possessions into one, and take off on a one-week, three thousand mile trip across country with $200 cash in our pockets, about the same in our checking account, and a Chevron credit card.

What adventures we had, by just being young and foolish!

I’d do it all again, only this time I’d take more pictures.

Cross country travel was more fun and interesting then. Once the more populous eastern states were behind, the roads were almost all two-lane and went down all the Main Streets along the way. However, before you knew it you were across the Mississippi, and towns became fewer and farther between, and so did motels and gas pumps.

We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to visit my mother’s youngest brother, Uncle Richard Stonemetz, and his wife, Aunt Shirley. From Cheyenne heading west you would see a sign about every fifty miles or so giving you the miles left before you got to Little America, an “oasis for the traveler” located somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, almost three hundred miles from Cheyenne and another 150 miles to Salt Lake City.

I can still remember the relief I felt approaching Little America. The sun was down, and I could see the lights far ahead. Soon we pulled in and parked next to a gas pump. Fortunately Little America took every gas company credit card, because I only had the one from Chevron. All around us were trucks, most of them with their engines idling.

We drove a short distance to a parking space at the café, and I carried sound-asleep Bruce in while Marilynn prepared a bottle for him. Then we sat down to our burgers, fries, and cokes, all for about three dollars.

Then it was time for me to get us a room. I had already determined that there were many vacancies that evening, indicated by a lot of empty parking spaces, and the waitress had told me that there were a couple of motels within ten miles heading west. Armed with this information, I entered into negotiations with the motel desk clerk, and got a reduced rate for the night.

For the next six years, as the need arose, I would look for vacancies and negotiate for lower prices rather than reserve rooms in advance.

It wasn’t until we got to England in 1970, and I realized my pay as an officer was now enough to bump us up into the middle class, that I finally started making advance reservations and quit negotiating room rates.

However, in the late spring of 1964, those days were a long way ahead and I wasn’t really sure that our life would ever be significantly more prosperous.

Anyway, after Little America we still had almost 900 miles of driving and two or three nights in motels before we would arrive at Marilynn’s parents’ house in Vallejo.

Most of the traveling west of Omaha was through “almost no radio” country, although as the sun went down and we searched for signs of gas stations, cafes, and cheap motels, the radio dial became flooded with signals from powerful stations all over America.

Of all those stations, I have a special place in my heart for KMOX, St. Louis, a place I apparently shared with most of Middle America at that time. After driving west for two days and almost a thousand miles from St. Louis, I was still in St. Louis Cardinals country.

I doubt there has ever been, or will be again, a force that unified and united a culture to the extent that KMOX did for the Mid-West for a half-century after its start-up in 1925. I still prefer to get my news and sports delivered with a flat Midwestern accent; it just sounds more interesting and believable that way.

The rest of our trip took us through Salt Lake City, then into Nevada through Wendover, Elko, Winnemucca, and Reno (where we were married almost two years before, in November 1962), then down through Sacramento to Vallejo, with a fun dinner stop at The Nut Tree in Vacaville, our only “extravagance” since leaving the World’s Fair in New York.

We stayed with Marilynn’s parents for only two days, then drove to Point Arena to stay with my parents while I worked for almost a month at the Bojock Lumber Company. Pop was the Bojock millwright, had worked for its owner, Chub Ohleyer, for many years and had arranged a job for me while I was on leave from the Air Force.

Working in the sawmill was hard, enjoyable, and paid well, but all too soon I was saying goodbye to Marilynn and Bruce, to Mom and Pop, and was in San Francisco boarding a Pan American 707 on my way to Turkey.

The sadness I felt at leaving didn’t stand a chance against the joy I felt for the anticipated adventures ahead.

I boarded the Pan Am 707 wearing civilian clothes and a big smile.

The New Budget Officer, RAF Bentwaters, 1970

In my previous post we arrived at my new base in the UK and we spent the first six weeks living in the Coach and Horses, Melton, while I worked constantly, then searched long and despairingly for a house for us.

I arrived at RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, UK, in early January, 1970, a 27-year old 2nd Lieutenant with wife, Marilynn, and three sons ages 6, 3, and 1. I had just completed an MBA at Michigan State, and the Budget Officer job at Bentwaters would be my first Air Force duty as an officer. Since I had spent my six enlisted years as a Russian linguist radio intercept analyst, clerk typist, and/or college student, I knew absolutely nothing about Air Force accounting or budgeting.

Apparently the Air Force wasn’t concerned, because no mention was ever made of sending me to any school to train me for my new job.

When I reported for duty as the Budget Officer, 81st Combat Support Group, 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, I found that my predecessor, Mr. Byce Pierce, had transferred from RAF Bentwaters to an accounting and finance job on RAF Lakenheath nine months before my arrival. During that long vacant period, the Budget Office had operated with only two people, TSgt Phillip Ashcraft and UK civilian clerk Art Sharman. Their happiness at my arrival was tempered with the immediate recognition that I didn’t know the slightest thing about the Air Force’s accounting and budgeting system.

Another thing that happened the week I arrived that tempered their joy was the simultaneous arrival of the “call” to begin preparation of the Fiscal Year 1971 Wing Operations Operating Budget and Family Housing Budget. The preparation of each of these hundreds of pages documents is a harrowing and challenging activity at the best of times. With a new untrained and inexperienced leader, and a just installed new tape and hard drive computer (Burroughs 3500) to replace the old punched card one, a Burroughs B-263, the budget preparation tasks looked impossibly difficult.

Looks weren’t deceiving.

For the next six weeks each of the three of us worked forty or more hours of overtime each week, but even though each of us worked the same long hours, this arduous workload was not evenly distributed.

At 27, I was the youngest, but my position as Budget Officer and my total lack of accounting knowledge gave me few duties I was either required or capable of performing. Fortunately, writing the budget narrative (borrowing heavily from the previous years’ budgets) and proofreading the typed printing masters were important jobs that I could do well without grasping the underlying details and concepts.

TSgt Ashcraft was the Noncommissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of Budget, and was ten years older than me, and very calm and affable. He was able to get a lot of information from a wide variety of activities and individuals, and incorporate it into the Byzantine budget formats. I didn’t realize until much later that Air Force budgeting was in a period of transition and upheaval when I arrived. My ignorance of what preceded the new system led me to believe that I was entering an established one, when actually it was in complete disarray and groping its way in the dark from being a tightly centrally managed one to responsibilities being distributed throughout all levels of Air Force management. TSgt Ashcraft was struggling to make the transition, and for the most part I was unaware of it.

Arthur Sharman, the UK civilian budget clerk, was twenty years older than me, and I owe him a lot for my eventually successful career in budgeting. Art handled the most precisely demanding elements of our budget, the pay of civilian employees and the contracts and services provided through the British Ministry of Defense and Department of Environment (DOE), which performed the functions performed at stateside bases by Air Force Civil Engineering. He also ably liaised with the financial officer of the DOE, Mrs. Iris Fletcher, a very able and slightly built but imposing woman in her fifties who Art nicknamed the Dragon Lady. Between the two of them they wielded a surprising amount of power over most of the physical plant of the two air bases which were operated by the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, Royal Air Force Bases Bentwaters and Woodbridge.

The problem we all faced was that the newly responsible financial managers had no training or experience in their duties under the new program. Being an overseas base compounded the problems, because both military and civilian managers and personnel were normally rotated back to a stateside base after three years, and there were very few with any knowledge or experience in financial management.

I thought I was stepping into an existing system and that I had to find out what everyone was doing so I could learn and get up to speed, and they thought I was there to lead them.

It could have been a classic example of the blind leading the blind, except I didn’t know they were blind and waiting for me to show them the way.

Somehow we got the budgets finished on time, although Phil Ashcraft was visibly exhausted, and Art Sharman suffered a minor stroke and was off work for about six weeks to recover. Although the budgets were in, we continued working many hours of overtime each week, even after Arthur came back to work.

Not long after Arthur came back, Phil Ashcraft finished his tour of duty and went back stateside. Arthur and I anxiously awaited his replacement, another TSgt named Robert Clough, coming to us from a Defense Contracting Agency job in Paramus, New Jersey, and prior to that, a year at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam.

As we awaited TSgt Clough’s arrival, we continued to burn many overtime hours on tasks such as loading budget targets in the Base Accounting system on the B-3500 computer, and corresponding supply and equipment targets in the Base Supply system on the Univac 1050-II computer system.

Working with Base Supply was particularly difficult, since they operated in accordance with their own sacrosanct regulations and procedures which seemed to be in competition or opposition to the overall budget process. We were in a constant fear that Base Supply would not issue a critical maintenance part because of a shortage of funds in a unit account, thereby resulting in delayed repairs to an aircraft delaying mission accomplishment, and the blame placed on us.

The Supply system seemed to be run by its cranky computer. When there were problems, and there were endless problems, the usual explanation for not fixing them immediately was that “the computer won’t let us.”

We had very little information about TSgt Clough, but information in some of his records we received before his arrival showed he had experience working with Base Supply.

The fateful day finally arrived, and I made the short walk from Accounting across the highway to the parking lot in front of the Base Reception Center to meet the bus carrying Sergeant Clough and his family from the UK arrival base, RAF Mildenhall. The bus pulled in, and Sergeant Clough and his wife Lorna, plus two sons and a daughter, got off. As I gave Sergeant Clough a warm welcome I noticed he was overweight and his uniform more unkempt looking than expected even considering the long flight and bus ride.

He introduced me to his family, then announced that he was “on the Road program.”

“What’s the ‘Road’ program?” I asked.

“Retired On Active Duty,” he replied.

The Coach and Horses

When we arrived in England in January, 1970, I reported for duty as Budget Officer at the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, UK, and my sponsor, Captain Troxel, had reserved temporary lodging for us in The Coach and Horses Inn, Melton. Our two rooms were upstairs above the Pub, one in the front of the Inn, the other in the back. Bruce, 7, and Scott, 4, got the front room, and Marilynn and I, and one-year old Jeffrey, took the back.

Both rooms were small, and since the Earth had experienced a quarter-century of global cooling, the rooms also were cold. That winter, all of England seemed cold and dreary. The UK was just then beginning to exploit its North Sea gas fields, and almost all of England was still using coal-fired fireplaces and furnaces for warmth.

Our rooms had small electric heaters, fueled by the shilling coins we fed into them.

We had breakfasts in our room. We set a box outside the window, and it stayed cold enough to keep the milk, cheese, bread, condiments, and a few other perishable items fresh. I had lunches on the base, and Marilynn and the boys would join me or have sandwiches in the room. Marilynn and I had almost all our dinners in the restaurant of the Coach and Horses. Before having our dinners, we would order dinner for the boys and feed them in their room, then go to the restaurant for a quiet, relaxing meal. I worked my way through the menu top to bottom (several times), but Marilynn had halibut every night.

I rode the bus to the base and back for several days, then bought a used 1962 Morris 1100 automobile.

On most winter days a noon walk was like an evening walk. The Sun, never seen, provided a feeble glow through the thick overcast, and brought little warmth. In the far northern latitudes of the UK, the Sun apparently rose after 9 am, and presumably set about 3 pm. The black of night briefly was interrupted by the dull grey of day.

The air was redolent of coal smoke, and the exteriors of buildings were grimy with soot.

I loved it.

My wandering soul was home. I had found where I belonged.

In retrospect, my reactions to England were probably what you would expect from someone who loved reading the adventure classics of English literature, and watching movies like “Twelve O’clock High,” “Mrs. Miniver,” and “Ivanhoe.” Even “The Quiet Man,” set in Ireland, made my heart yearn for an English home I had never known. Just a picture of a John Constable painting of the English countryside made my chest ache in longing to return to a place I had never been.

Marilynn, although not as smitten as I was with England, adapted quickly and enjoyed our new adventure, just as she had in Turkey six years earlier.

Our temporary stay in the Coach and Horses began to have the feel of permanence. Our arrival in January, 1970, followed the arrival of the 67th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, which had just been kicked out of Wheelus Air Force Base, Libya, by “Colonel” Muammar Gaddafi “Duck” in late 1969. Every house I hoped to rent had already been found and rented by someone from the 67th. While I was tied down working twelve-hour days, seven days a week, preparing the Fiscal Year 1971 budget – I arrived the same week its preparation began – the 67th AARS personnel and their families had plenty of spare time and resources to be very formidable house-hunting opposition.

One day I skipped lunch to drop in to the Base Housing Office to see if, by some miracle, something had popped up and gotten past the 67th bird dogs. Just as I reached the office door, I heard profanity muttered by an Air Force Chief Master Sergeant who was getting out of his car in the parking lot. Among the expletives (deleted) I heard him say something about how !@#%&*! it was that the Air Force would make a senior NCO and his family move again after they had just found a home and moved in a few months before.

“Excuse me, Chief,” I said, “could I beg a few moments of your time?”

I guess he noticed my 27-year-old face didn’t go with my 2nd Lieutenant bars, so he cordially explained he had just received reassignment to RAF Upper Heyford, near Oxford, to be the aircraft maintenance nanny for the F-111, a versatile swing wing tactical bomber due to arrive at Upper Heyford in September, 1970.

He had found a big, four-bedroom farmhouse in Saxmundham a few months before, was all settled in, and now he was going to Base Housing to let them know it would soon be available to rent.

“That won’t be necessary,” I assured him. “I’ll rent it.”

“Don’t you want to look at it?” he asked.

“No, it’s perfect,” I replied, and arranged to contact the owner.

The owners, the Underwoods of Bury St. Edmonds, seemed happy with the arrangement. I was happy to find the Underwoods would charge us the same rent as the Chief’s family, 52 pounds ($125) a month. The Underwoods assured me they would be delighted to continue driving to Saxmundham once each month to pick up the rent in pound notes, no checks please.

The Chief and his family were packed quickly by the Air Force and moved to Upper Heyford, and our household goods, which were sitting in storage at the Felixstowe docks, were delivered immediately.

We moved into The Street Farm, Saxmundham, the 16th of February, in the middle of the strongest (and only) snowstorm we experienced the five years we were in England.

The Street Farm was at the top of Street Farm Road, just a block off the A-12 highway (at that time; the A-12 has since been rerouted), behind the telephone building operated by the General Post Office, and past the office of the Suffolk Constabulary.

The Street Farm itself was a large, two-story farm house with four bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, two living rooms, a kitchen, dining room, pantry, bathroom, bonus room, and utility room downstairs. It had a large fenced yard with a garden in back, overlooked a pasture, and beyond it was barns, stables, and an old dairy no longer in use. On the other side of Street Farm Road was a smaller house for the farm’s caretaker and his family.

We lived there for four wonderful years.

(Please click on the highlighted text to bounce to the next installment about my baptism into Base Budgeting at RAF Bentwaters)

Words Mean Something

Forty-five years ago today I took the Oath of Enlistment at the Armed Services Induction Center in Oakland, California, and began a twenty-one and a half year adventure in the US Air Force.

"I, Michael Bruce Combs, do solemnly swear that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America; that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies whomsoever; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Just over six years later I took the Oath of Office as an officer in the Air Force.

"I, Michael Bruce Combs, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

In 1991, seven years after I retired, I packed my Air Force dress uniform and went to Germany on a vacation with Alice. While there I administered the Oath of Enlistment to re-enlist my oldest son, Bruce, for another six years in the Army.

Evelyn, Bruce, Alice and I, and Leaha and Melicia at Bruce's Army reenlistment, Germany, 1991

“I, Bruce Allan Combs, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the president of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

The Oath

Salute from the proud father

Certificate of reenlistment

About six years later, Bruce was stationed in Ft. Polk, Louisiana. We visited with Granddaughter Ashley as Bruce and his wife celebrated their Tenth anniversary with a ceremony to rededicate their marriage vows. Bruce cleverly had me wear my dress uniform to his unit headquarters before the ceremony, and happily surprised me by having me re-enlist him again.

Fifty-seven years doesn’t seem that long ago. I vividly remember my first night in the Air Force in an old two-story, single-wall barracks at Lackland Air Force Base. Our barracks, and many identical buildings on Lackland, were left over from World War II, and had been condemned years before.

There I lived for eight weeks of Basic Training, and then for another six weeks on Casual Status awaiting assignment to Indiana University for Russian language training. It was the start of a very enjoyable and satisfying Air Force career.

But my first night there, 3 Aug 62, lying on my military bunk, still wearing civilian clothes, sweating, too tired to fall asleep, worrying about what the next day might have in store, I wondered, “What am I doing here?”

In that Lackland barracks, on that hot August night, I wasn’t the only wonderer.

Those old, condemed barracks were still in use six years later when I went to the Medina Annex of Lackland Air Force Base for Officer Training School (OTS).

During my three months at OTS I lived in a two-man room in a dormitory instead of an open-bay barracks.

However, I started OTS the first week of July, 1968, so it got as hot as Basic Training six years earlier.

It brought back memories, but even on that first night back, tired and sweating profusely again, this time I didn't wonder why I was there.

Walkie Poos

While stationed at RAF Bentwaters, U.K. 1970 to 1975, we lived on The Street Farm, Saxmundham, Suffolk. Marilynn was very active in the Officer Wife’s Club, and one of her friends was Ida, the wife of LtCol Bill Juhrs, our Base’s elderly Safety Officer. In the early spring of 1972, the Vice Wing Commander and his wife gave them a puppy. They loved the puppy, and Bill took it with him all day in his pickup as he made his safety rounds, but the puppy was too active for them to care for and exercise in their small house and yard on base, so they sadly gave it to Marilynn.

Dilly on The Street Farm, Saxmundham, U.K. 1972

When we got Dilly, she had already left most of her puppy days behind. She was still playful, but also well trained, and never gave us any puppy problems such as messing in the house, or chewing on things.

Dilly was a wonderful dog for our family. She was medium size, short black hair with white patches and tummy, long legs and body, deep chest, small waist, about 35 pounds, loved to play with me and our three sons, was a fast, tireless runner, and was never heard to bark. She whined softly once, when I accidentally stepped on her paw, so I knew she wasn’t mute, but besides that she was silent.

She had been named for the couple that originally gave her as a present, Richard and Phyllis = Dick and Philly = Dilly.

Jeffrey and Dilly after a busy day on The Street Farm

Dilly was a perfect dog for farm life. The Street Farm was surrounded by fields for running, and the wheat and barley fields, which the British called “corn,” contained many hare for her to chase.

One rainy afternoon I took Dilly for a walk in the fields, and just after we passed the last farm building, a hare dashed across the recently plowed field. Dilly was off after the hare in an instant, and was gaining on it rapidly when the hare made a sharp left turn back towards the farm buildings. In my mind’s eye I can still see Dilly suddenly turning left as hard as she could. She had been running much faster than the hare, and it was difficult to change direction at high speed on the wet, plowed earth. Her body was almost parallel to the ground, her legs churning, her tail lashing like a whip to steady her balance as she turned and slid, and was suddenly running at full speed again and gaining on the hare as her body coiled and uncoiled with each bounding stride.

I still get tears in my eyes thinking about it. Dilly running at full speed across that field was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

The hare darted into another sharp turn, and Dilly slid – turned - clawed her way after it again. And again. And again, and just when I thought the hare “was a goner,” it reached the safety of the thick brush beside a small farm pond.

If Dilly was disappointed, it never showed. She sniffed a bit, then pranced happily back to me with what I was sure was a doggy smile.

Dilly knew how to relax

One of the many characters on British television was a woman who had a show on dog training, and one of her catch phrases was “walkies,” to signal a dog it was time for its walk. Marilynn and the boys quickly taught Dilly that that was the eagerly awaited signal for me to take her on her evening walk. Since one of the purposes of the evening walk was also to give Dilly an opportunity to “poo,” the signal quickly became, “Dilly! Walkie poos!”

That was all Dilly needed to hear to race to the door and start a hopping, tail wagging dance while waiting for me to get the leash and let her out.

Safe sunning and dignity go together

Our wonderful five years in England ended all too soon, and we set off in February of 1975 for Scott AFB near Belleville, Illinois. One of the last things I did before we left England was to deliver Dilly to a kennel that would care for her for a month, and then ship her via air cargo to Lambert Field in Saint Louis.

Bruce and Jeff love Dilly

We soon found and bought a nice house on the south side of Belleville, and Dilly made herself at home. As with most homes in Illinois, ours was only a block from a cornfield. Dilly may have been disappointed there weren’t as many hare, but probably she felt the number of feral cats abounding more than made up for the lack of hare.

The thing Dilly liked most about Illinois was the snow, and what she liked most about snow was snowstorms. During the winter it was already dark when I got home from work at Scott AFB. We usually had dinner at about six, then I would settle back to read the newspaper. However, this bucolic, relaxing scene never was destined to last long if a storm was blowing through. If the wind was howling, the snow blowing, the boys knew it was time to announce: “Dilly! Walkie poos!”

Dilly would run to the door, both body and tail wagging vigorously, looking at the door, looking at me, looking back at the door, almost beside herself in eager anticipation. I put on my sweater, thick parka, thick socks, felt insulated snowmobile boots, snowmobile mittens (very handy, even if, like me, you have never ridden on a snowmobile), and wrapped a scarf around my neck. Finally I got a flashlight, and Dilly’s leash, and opened the door.

Dilly would dash out the door, leap over the bushes by the porch, race across the snow-covered lawn, cross the street, and into the cornfield. I would plod along behind, the Incredible Bulk, hardly recognizable as human under thirty pounds of cold-weather gear and wishing I had more.

In the meantime, Dilly would be gloriously running, bounding, sliding through the snow covered cornfield. The stronger the wind, the heavier the snowfall, the entire better to Dilly. We never had a blizzard in our four Illinois winters, according to my Illini neighbors, although I thought they must draw the dividing line between a snow storm and a blizzard awfully high.

We left Scott AFB and Illinois for Hickam AFB and Hawaii in the summer of 1978. Marilynn had just had a mastectomy for breast cancer, leaving her with an eight-inch open incision where a breast had been. With our two youngest sons, Scott and Jeffrey, she went back to California by plane to stay at her parent’s home in Vallejo. I loaded a rental truck with all the things we didn’t ship to Hawaii, attached our red VW station wagon with a bumper hitch, and set off with Dilly as my companion. My mother-in-law, Priscilla, drove our 1974 Jaguar XJ6 (a memento of England) with our oldest son, Bruce, for companionship.

Along the way we stopped briefly in Bellevue, Nebraska, to load some household items that Marilynn’s recently divorced sister Deanna wanted from the house where her ex-husband, an Air Force officer, still lived while working at Offut AFB.

When we arrived in California I immediately put Dilly on a flight for Honolulu, where she was transported to the Animal Quarantine Station in Halawa Valley to be held for 120 days to prevent rabies from being introduced in Hawaii.

Dilly had already been in quarantine for 30 days when we arrived in Hawaii, with 90 days to go. This started one of the most heart-warming, heart aching periods I have ever experienced with a pet.

We would visit Dilly at Halawa about once a week, and Marilynn and the boys insisted I go in her cage first. The reason was than she was so overjoyed at seeing us, she would jump all over almost uncontrollably for several minutes, wagging her whole body, paws on my chest, licking me, finally settling down to let me pet her quietly and rub her tummy.

When she had calmed enough, Marilynn and the boys came in to join us, and Dilly made the rounds of greeting each and letting each know how much she loved and missed them.

Then it would be time to leave, and she would watch us intently, tail still wagging constantly, and then we would be out of sight. I would imagine her sitting there, silently watching, waiting for us to come back.

September 1978 finally arrived, and Dilly was finally free to come home with us to our townhouse on Fox Boulevard, Hickam AFB. It was small, three bedrooms on two floors, about 900 square feet, but it was comfortable and airy. One of the good features was a fenced back yard, small, but a nice area for Dilly to relax and stretch.

Her big event each day was still the evening “walkie poos.” After sundown, Dilly and I would walk about a block, past the tennis courts and baseball diamonds, past the base library, to the big lawn lined with cocoanut palms surrounding the Base Headquarters building. I would let Dilly off the leash, and she would trot over towards the bushes next to Headquarters.

The big attraction for Dilly was the feral cats that the ladies working at Headquarters put out food for every day. The cats would prowl around the building each evening, and Dilly would search for one to chase. As soon as she spotted one, the chase was on!

Since Dilly never gave a warning bark, the first sign of danger the cat would notice was a flash of white fur on the chest of a hard-charging black dog.

The cat would bolt towards the safety of the bushes around the building, with Dilly in hot pursuit. Not only did the bushes give the cats sanctuary, but there were also holes in the vents that the small cats could dive through to get away under the building, that were much to small for Dilly to follow behind.

On our usual half-hour “walk,” Dilly would usually get to chase three or four cats. She would bowl over a cat now and then, but I never saw her bite one (or be bitten). It seemed harmless - fun and exercise for Dilly, and a break in boredom for the cats.

When the Air Force gave me a humanitarian reassignment to Travis AFB in 1982, to be near Marilynn’s family in Vallejo for help and support during her cancer treatment, we picked up a new addition to our family just before we left Hawaii.

Our eldest son Bruce was given a little black kitten he named Ash for a “graduation” present from one of his classmates at Radford High School. We sent Dilly on a cargo flight back to California, and I carried Ash on the plane back in a little basket I held on my lap or set on the aircraft floor between my feet.

It didn’t take Ash and Dilly long to become good friends and play together. Dilly would jab her nose at Ash (now usually called by her nickname “Ashley”), and Ashley would sit up and jab with her forepaws like a boxer. Then they would curl up and sleep together.

The family considered Dilly to be my dog because she seemed to be next to me most of the time. Ashley was Bruce’s, and Marilynn said she would like a pet of her own. We found an ad for kittens in San Francisco, and Marilynn fell in love with a lively little white one she named “Dusty.”

Dusty and Ashley both got along wonderfully with Dilly, although they didn’t seem to care for each other at all.

When Ashley wanted some excitement, she would pounce on Dilly in our living room, and then race away down the hall towards the rear bedroom with Dilly in pursuit. As often as not, Dilly would soon race back into the living room with little Ashley in pursuit. They would fly over and across the couch, jab at each other a few times in the middle of the living room, then the pursuer would again become the pursued, and switch, then switch again.

Surprisingly, with all the mad running and rough play fighting, I never saw or heard any anger or injury, and nothing was damaged or broken.

Besides not barking, we had never seen Dilly swim, so one day the boys gently carried her into the swimming pool and released her. Without kicking, splashing, or any other motion, she sank slowly in about four feet of water and stood on the pool bottom looking up at me. I jumped in and pulled her up to the surface, then set her back on the pool deck. At no point did she show any sign of distress, nor any sign that she would ever try to swim.

About a year later, about the time of her fourteenth birthday, it seemed she became weak and feeble almost overnight. I took her to the veterinarian, and he said she wasn’t sick, just old, would probably die soon, and that there was nothing that could be done to make her get better.

I took her back home, but she was so weak she couldn’t go out for “walkie poos” anymore, and she looked very distressed as she had an accident on the floor for the first time in her life.

Marilynn and the boys said goodbye to her, and I took her to the vet to be euthanized. I wanted to be with her when she was put down, to have her head on my lap and be petting her, but the vet didn’t allow it, so I gave her some last pats and rubs and left quietly.

I don’t remember driving home.



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