(Street fair in Misawa City, 1978)

Since the military services are, not to put too fine a point on it, a male dominated environment--- the services run from 3% female (Marines) to the %14-16 female (Air Force and Army)--- this tends to encourage a pretty frenetic social life… Read full post »

1. Bring a gun. Preferably two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. Move away from your attacker. Distance… Read full post »

A certain  picture hung in a black frame, in the back bedroom of Granny Jessie’s house in Pasadena for many years, a black and white photo of four graves piled high with flowers. Only recently did my mother realize, upon looking closely at it, that the flowers were… Read full post »

 (Another essay from a couple of years ago, when I was still trying to get my second venture into historical fiction published the traditional way.)

 Or this one would, if it weren't a weekday. Besides the slow corrosive frustration of dealing with the various submissions processes of the b… Read full post »

I used to be a feminist, a long time ago and another century, when it used to mean that you were bright and adventurous, and the life choices presented to you— the options that your mothers and grandmothers had were about as appealing as a plate of cold gruel. My Grannie… Read full post »

 Oh, Greenland is a dreadful place, it’s a land that’s never, ever green
And there’s ice and snow and the whale-fishes blow, and the sunlight’s seldom seen,
Brave boys, and the sunlight’s seldom seen!

Read full post »

(JP and I,  around 1963)

(Rear: Sgts Butterfield, Festa,Thomas,Menaul, Buonarobo, McLendon

Front: Lts Francis, Dodge, Chandler, Becker)

 The ten men in this picture assembled in May of 1943 at Eprata Army Air Base, Washington, a place of which Jimmy-Junior wrote in disgust, “They have me living in… Read full post »

(Wintertime at Misawa AB, 1978)

A single woman in the Air Force barracks, being in a rare, precious and much pursued category needed to develop a certain amount of street smarts (or brutal realism) vis a vis the male of our species, subcategory/… Read full post »

... It just gets parked in new premises, every couple of years. Summertime is the favored PCS, or Permanent Change Of Station time for families with children, but it’s not like there is a really good time, just a least worst time to pack up everything you own and vacate the… Read full post »

(Great-Aunt Nan, Camp Lee, 1944 “Overseas Cap Issued”)

My great-aunt Nan was Grandpa Al's younger sister, born in Reading in 1903. They were the children of Great-Grandpa George's second marriage, to Alice Page of Middlesborough, Yorkshire, who had trained as a nurse, until sh… Read full post »

(Blondie in Nauplion, Greece, 1982 - she is the little girl on the far right)

When I was 16 and half years old, I went to Europe with a troop of teenaged Girl Scouts and made the happy discovery that I blended in. Being plumpish and fairish,… Read full post »

On a mild spring day, my daughter and I walk on a narrow trail, trampled out between tall grass and wildflowers grown knee-high, waist-high, shoulder-high. A light breeze ruffles the flowers, around which orbit a fair of butterflies. We are on a quest, looking for the past, and exploring the ruins… Read full post »

My dearest daugher, known as Blondie, for the exceedingly fair color of her hair,  first raised the subject by asking, in that deliberately casual way that teenagers have of raising that issue that is of supreme importance to them:
"Mom... do you think I could make it through Marine Corps basic t/… Read full post »

And some things which should not have been forgotten....

Have not been, because they are either funny or excellent cautionary tales. The Teflon Man, for instance: he bestrode the small world of military broadcasting, providing a rich legacy of horrible gaffes, cringe-inducing mis… Read full post »

We took a road trip, my daughter and I, in the summer of 1990. We lived then on the northern outskirts of Zaragoza, in an urbanization by the main road towards Logrono, so one summer day we packed the tent and our sleeping bags, and a little gas camp stove in… Read full post »

(The Lesser Weevil and Spike)

So, now that my daughter Blondie and I are supporting a houseful of critters… some of whom interact agreeably with each other, and some others of whom maintain a guarded distance and a policy of non-recognition, and one who spits and snarls… Read full post »

We were on our way to Granny Jessie's house just before Christmas, not over winter fields and woods in a sleigh, but in our parents' main car, the aged jade-green Plymouth station wagon. Mom was somewhere along Foothill Boulevard short of the turnoff for Descanso… Read full post »

While not quite achieving Melrose Place-like high drama, living in a barracks and keeping attuned to your friends love-lives is about on par with one of the duller soap operas. Of course, where the walls are tissue-paper thin, and there are only two communal telephones, one is made rather… Read full post »

(The house, in winter 1992)

I had no idea who had lived in the house before. I found it by accident, taking a shortcut between two housing listings in South Ogden, one of which proved to have been rented by the time I got to it, and the other which… Read full post »

(Sgt Mom -  pre-Sgt, pre-Mom:  at Misawa AB, 1978)

The women-only barracks was the only one that contained a working kitchen. Once upon a time, all the female troops were assigned to a WAF squadron, and lived in the WAF barracks. The WAF separate command was long… Read full post »