This is the youngest pic I have of Dad. Yes that's Aunt Ev too.

    The picture that pops up for me is Dad in uniform. Usually Khaki but I can remember him in Dress Whites. That was a sharp outfit. If I remember he wasn't fond of the whites.

    Dad could sleep at the drop of a hat or so it seemed. He could also go without sleep longer than anyone I've ever known.

    This pic was taken about 50 years ago. I knew this kid! I knew his dreams & desires. His hopes & wishes! Did he make it? I sit here on January 30th, 2009 and tell you YES! 50 years later and the things he thought were important still are important and are the bedrock of his reality.
    This is a testament to June & Leland West
     To 'The Kids' we know if the world had our Mom & Dad there'd be no problem,.

The Round Table

    Once again in Brunswick and we've picked up a round oak dining table. I want to say the first time there cause I remember it coming from an antique store in Lisbon Falls but hey it's a ' Memry'. It was with us at PT Mugu. It was in the garage for awhile and for some reason I left a can of transmission fluid on it that left a stain. For some other unremembered reason this was common enough knowledge that I was charged with & justly punished for the crime. The punishment was to sand away the stain. People transmission fluid on oak goes real deep. Like several inches. I'd never run a sander before but every day after school I'd go out and sand. Finally got to what I thought was an agreeable amount of the offence removed. The table got a new stain and finish and was reinstated as the dinner table. I got to sit in front of the ex stain. It slanted radically towards you. I'd over done the sanding. It was actually a blessing if properly managed. It kept the juice from the peas out of your mashed potatoes but dangerously close to your lap. Later the center column was removed and it did time as a coffee table.
    When we moved into the cabin here 25 years ago there was a round oak table sans center column in the living room. It's still there. It wasn't sanded.

Zipidee!

President Kennedy

    The Unc's at Pt. Mugu right now so I'll go there with him.
September of '63 a little over two months before he was assassinated JFK came to Point Mugu. We lived on base & I wanted to get out to the greeting area at the runway early but because it was a school day had to go to school and then be bussed back with every body else. Needless to say being late made getting to the front of the crowd hopeless or so it looked. As he was walking down the line shaking hands I dropped to my knees and shoved my hand through the hips & legs in front of me. As a hand gripped mine and shook the bodies in front of me parted just enough to see that amazing smile as he looked me in the eye and moved on moment gone but cherished forever.
    Pt. Mugu was as close to Country Club living as I ever did or ever will get. There was a Bowling Alley (25 cents a game), a Theater (Saturday Matinee 10 cents), a swimming Pool (free) Baseball Fields, a Hobby Shop all of it within walking distance of the house. There was also a base beach that we could ride our bikes to. On the forth of July We had our own private fire works show.
    Ever hear of Grunion? Well they're little fish that come ashore at certain Moon phases to lay their eggs. You just scoop them up with your hands and put them in a basket. Or so I've been told. We were never at the right beach at the right time. After our second failed attempt I had started thinking that we were being led on a West Coast version of a 'Snipe Hunt'. But it was a legit event.
    I've posted before about Unc & I living in a camping trailer in the back yard.
    Dad wanted a fence in the back yard and a privacy screen around the back porch, very California thing the screen. He found out that they were throwing away old bunk beds from the enlisted barracks so he brought them home. We had to take the runner off of each side rail using a torturous device known as a 'Yankee Screwdriver'. The space between each fence post was therefore the length of a bunk bed, he height of the privacy screen was the length of a bunk bed. Now for the color. While at the base dump acquiring the fencing material Dad comes across discarded 5 gallon pails of paint. Well the only color of paint used on a Naval Base is Battle Ship Gray. That's the color we painted the fence & the privacy screen.

    

1956

   As you can see this is not 1956. But that is the Ranch Wagon in question many miles later.
   I can remember the previous car. It was a green 53 two door Chevy. I remember riding in the back window to allow more space on the back seat.
    On my comment to your post Unc I'll correct me. Christmas of 55 you were 6 & I was 4. But my memory, and we both no that we're dealing with very fragile tools here ;~), has us aquiring the Wagon in Kansas City while stationed in Olathe. He bought the White Wagon in Bama the year this pic was taken, if I'm not mistaken and we returned to Maine. But at 4 years old Kansas City & Birmingham could very well be the same place. In 56 I turned 5 while we were stationed in Olathe and we were in school in Bath Maine the next fall.
   I do bow to Unc's memory him being 2 years older ;~)
   

Work Ethic

   Dad had the strongest work ethic of any man I’ve ever known. Taking the same Station as Unc I’ll use Brunswick, but the first time there not the second, as an example.
   Dad had four children in 1956, Ray, Ric, Rob and Sheri. He was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy and had been for all of six months or so. He also worked part time at a gas station just off base. It was a Shell station owned by Dave whose last name escapes me. His duties on base were very time set and it allowed him to commit specific time to Dave. While working for Dave he met Mr. Zaymore. Mr. Zaymore was developing a housing development in Lisbon Center, a small town nearby and needed a surveyor. Dad had never done any surveying before but since it was just a matter of math took that job also (Dad was a math wiz, he could do stuff in his head I still can’t do on paper).
   Dad wound up buying the first finished house in the development. I took this picture of that house on a trip to Brunswick about 12 years ago. There was no garage and our side yard went all the way to the highway.
   That he worked & worked & worked didn’t keep him from having hobbies or spending time with us. One early hobby was leather craft (I still have some of his tools) and there are still examples of his purses in the family. His hobby in this house was building & flying model airplanes. The kind where you build a frame and cover it with paper and very toxic ‘Airplane Dope’ that stiffened and strengthened the paper. Hours of labor in the basement. There was a young guy in his squadron that helped. I remember the day of the first flight. The engines on these little planes made a real high pitched racket and Dads friend was good at getting them started. The plane was controlled by strings attached to the plane and to a handle. Dad was at the controls in the middle of the yard and his friend got the motor screaming at its highest pitch. The friend releases the plane and it starts off across the ground. Dad pulls back on the appropriate string and the plane leaps into the air – racing into the sky in the blink of an eye. It then raced down as fast and SLAMS into the ground at Dads feet. Months of labor for seconds of flight. That ended Dads airplane building & flying hobby.
    I can’t remember all of the ‘side jobs’ he had but I do remember he was always doing

There's another Dad at 1st station Brunswick story in the Archives. March 22 2008.

Bush is gone! Send him to JAIL!

Failing to prosecute previous administration crimes is asking for those crimes to be repeated! Clinton didn't pursue the S&L or Iran Contra scandals and because of that we have the mess we're in now. If Obama overlooks the Bush administrations crimes they will come back and repeat themselves.
Good lord people! Demand that your legal representatives hold acountable those that have acted in your name acountable for the actions the've taken!!!!!
They Tourtured, Taped and Taken your youth to an un justifiable war!!! Be MAD!!!

Jack Frost

At 7 AM this Saturday morning it's 15 below 0. There's few good things to say about that except "Man I'm glad I'm in here!" Most of the windows in our house are double pane. This is an insulated window and doesn't frost over. A couple are still single pane and do. Here are two pics of the window overlooking the lake from my computer. Morning has broken.

Happy? New Year!

The ‘New Year’ has different meanings in our house and that’s OK.
For me it marks a point for reflection of the past. That past isn’t always confined to last year. I usually recount to myself those things that have been positive for me in the last year but when I venture further back it’s usually to bring to mind individuals that are no longer with me.
Jacci on the other hand considers the first day of the ‘New Year’ as the starting point for a better year than the last. The Christmas tree will come down today and by sunset tomorrow all of the furniture in the living room will be relocated. A ’fresh start’ is how she sees it.
There’s a lot to be said for the attitude as long as it’s kept positive. In my ‘Happy New Years’ wishes for others I’ve wanted to convey that positive aspect of the date. Especially with the economic situation and the transfer of attitudes that our government is about to go through. I’ve held back from expressing that because I do think that a lot of the issue is due to discussing the issue, over & over & over.
One individual that appears in my ruminations every year is Dad. Dad used to say, when he heard people bemoan the money used for the ‘Space Program’, “There’s no cash register on the moon, all of the money spent is spent here on Earth. Most is spent here in America”.
Folks all of the money that has been taken from our economy is still here. Question is will our government have the BALLS to get it back from those that stole it. I truly believe that it’s been stolen. A theft sometimes is obvious. Someone puts a gun to your head and takes your money. You’re left with no way to feed or care for your family. Do equal results come from an equal action? We now have many citizens that can no longer support their families due to job loss or diminished retirement investments. Thing is there’s no video showing a gunman. There are tracks though and I feel it’s the responsibility of my government to follow those tracks and to punish those guilty of these crimes. To retrieve the BILLIONS of dollars taken from our economy by greed.
To see our government merely rearrange the furniture and get a fresh start will be not only criminal but suicidal.
To quote Bette Davis “Hang on it’s going to be a bumpy ride”.