Memories

My Anne claims that she can remember from her early youth but I honestly struggle with what are memories or pictures you have seen over the years. I know that with my Dad’s heavenly homecoming I wanted to reflect on some memories or snapshots to honor my Dad for his loving care over my life.

The first picture is from a young couple, which had just gotten married and moved to an Air Force Base in Massachusetts. I know that there was a hurricane that did considerable damage on Cape Cod. The pictures, which reflect my infancy, show a couple with smiles gloating over their son. I’m thankful that I wasn’t a junior because I couldn’t have stomached my Dad’s middle name, Larue.

I don’t see any pictures of the time that my Dad was away for a year in Iceland. My assumption is that my Mom went back to St. Louis and stayed with her mom while my Dad lived away for the longest period of time during his military career. It is clearly during this time that I mastered ‘potty training’ and made my way on my own to the bathroom and did my business! (My Anne still laughs at my Mom’s bragging of how all of her sons walked, talked and were potty trained by 1 year of age.)

Again I only have a few picture of our time in Michigan when my dad went back to college to get his degree. My brother Mark joined us during our stay in Ann Arbor. My impression was that I was the helpful older brother that adored his little brother. My brother might challenge this legacy with his own of me being the abusive older brother that always got what he wanted.

Our next move was to Omaha Nebraska while my Dad was stationed for I believe around a year before transitioning to B-52s and living in Sacramento. My only brief memories, these again are pictures I remember, were of the neighbor girls, that were twins and Mark and me. I think I had my first crush on one of these girls that must have been 4 years old.

Now my memory and real life comes into focus as we move to Mather Air Force Base in California. Here is where I grew up as a little kid with memories of a Dad who played baseball with me all of the time. Yes, he loved smoking cigars and both my parents were baseball fanatics. I think I had the early dilemma of deciding between being a Cardinal fan or a Giants fan. We attended church regularly and I have this memory of both parents always reading the Bible to us before going to bed and then we would say the Lord’s Prayer together.

Yes the story that stands out most was the couple of days I ditched school while in Kindergarten to avoid this blonde girl that wouldn’t stop kissing me. Looking back I was rather foolish to not allow her to continue. As the story goes I played hooky for a couple of days. I can’t fathom that my Mom didn’t realize I hadn’t gone to school the first day. I walked out of the door on my way to school and just hid in the bushes until my Mom left for shopping or playing Bridge. I thought I was so smart in coming home at the right time and making up that I had been in school.

It was the next day that my big surprise came. I did the same routine with hiding behind some bushes thinking that this would protect me from my parents finding out about my ditching. The teacher had called to find out why I wasn’t in school and my parents I’m sure had this sense of oh he’s not in school? I wonder where he could be and then figured out that I had been ditching. This time my choice to come back to my house to play before my Mom appeared backfired on me. I find my Mom and Dad waiting for me and now I know that I’d been caught and that life was going to come to an abrupt end.  I can honestly say that this was one of the few times my Dad spanked me but I could tell it was hard for him not to be laughing at me. I explained how I was being kissed by this blonde girl and had no choice but to flee from school.

I do remember my First Grade teacher, Mrs. Melster, who played the accordion. She was a rotund stocky woman who had a big heart and loved music. I have to admit that picking the accordion as my instrument of choice had everything to do with this teacher. Fortunately for me my Dad had already acquired an acoustic guitar. This bigger than life older teacher inspired all of us to love instruments and music. I owe her for my passion for rock music when I became a teen.

Now my fourth grade teacher was a totally different story she too was an older woman that had red hair and freckles. She prided herself on making sure that everyone underlined their last operation when they did long hand division. She had this thing for rulers and hitting your knuckles if you didn’t do exactly as she said. I can remember complaining to my Mom and Dad but to no avail. She’s the teacher and deserves some respect. My response was I don’t think so!

I can remember one of our yearly trips to St. Louis to see all of the relatives. I have to be honest that neither of my parents showed any signs of racist tendencies even though they both grew up there. It was the week when JFK was assassinated that I was taught a lesson on race and diplomacy. My mom’s mom, Grandma Red, was a total racist that believed that skin color was either a sign of God’s blessing or the opposite. As all of us were captivated by the news that our beloved charismatic president had been shot and then discover that he actually dies. After hearing this news I get this lecture from my Grandma Red. She was so quick to educate me on why all people who are dark skinned clearly have something wrong with them. She used the N word, which I had never heard before. I ask my Dad what this was all about and then he screams at Grandma for what she had said. He was quick to clarify the truth about all people so that I now understood that my dad should have been a racist but choose to be different growing up and was a great example to me of being opened minded.

The images in my mind of life on Mather AFB was playing outside in the dirt, having a little bike and our dog, Penny, who was a boxer. It was moving to Merced on the way to Glasgow Montana that ultimately would change my life. I didn’t understand that a war was about to unleash its force in Southeast Asia. Neither did I understand that my Dad’s task in life was to fly these huge monstrous planes and drop bombs to stop the VC from taking over. I had grown accustomed to life in sunny California and now my world would revolve around snow and the extreme cold.

I have lots of childhood memories of Glasgow. We first lived in a newer but smaller house that had a huge mountain of dirt behind it. I can remember getting a few of my friends together and we began a tunneling expedition to see if we could dig out a castle beneath the ground. I can remember the look of all of our parents when they visited our home away from home to discover that we had dug out this gigantic cave that could at any moment come collapsing down on us. My best friend’s dad was the Base Commander. He had one of those huge tractors come and dig up our underground castle. I don’t remember getting spanked but only a lecture on being safer and thinking before I did something so crazy again.

It was during our time in Montana that I saw my Mom become my guiding light in that my Dad was gone most of the 5 years we lived in Glasgow. I had fallen in love with guitars and actually according to my brother’s story was able to get my dad to buy me a Stratocaster Clone by falling to my knees and crying for it. Regardless of whether this myth is true I got the guitar and an amplifier. This began my rock and roll days where I connected with other friends that played instruments and the birth of garage bands happened.

Yes, I had my first real girlfriend and crush on Mrs. Williams our 6^th grade teacher. I can remember a neighbor girl that was a few years older, Christina that was more like an older sister than girlfriend. We hung out all of the time together. She attended a Catholic School in the town and had to wear this uniform all of the time. My only tragedy living at this first house was when one of the neighbor guys, who was not liked for some reason, ended up colliding with my air rifle. I can remember seeing the look on his face when he hit the gun and was left with two large circles that began to bleed. His mom rushed over to accuse me of attempted murder only to have my Mom help solve the problem by giving him first aid that saw him recover rather quickly. Fortunately for me we moved to our big house that happened to be miles away from this house.

My life in Montana now consisted with doing Boy Scouts and playing baseball. I had little to do so a bunch of us with our Scout Master’s assistance became Eagle Scouts at a very young age, like 13. I can remember the Eagle Scout Award Ceremony and how proud my Mom and Dad were of me that day. They were both dressed to the T and made this something I will remember forever. It helped when my sister in-law gave me back my Eagle Pin. I can remember doing a few of the merit badges with my Dad who was part of our troop.

I did have a baseball life with Little League and Babe Ruth. The highlight, which I could brag about, was a Little League playoff game in Canada where I was the pitcher and had gotten myself into some trouble. I was also able to hit so I was a homerun machine that day with 3 homeruns in a row. This became a Bennett legacy that hopefully overshadowed my crying episode in the music store.

Memories are an amazing gift from the past that can impact our future!