Old Memories - Tell Me Yours!!!

[Minnymouth]

Hey Robivi3,
I remember my dad's old Studabaker and old Buick...good old cars.... The "ice storms" in Ohio back in the late 50's where you couldn't step out the door without bustin' your tail!
I remember the day JFK was killed.....then King, then the other Kennedy guy... for days we watched funerals on TV and school was out in honor of these men.
I remember listening to taps at the base during the Vietnam War.... I heard them every evening at bedtime and everytime a plane landed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base with casualities coming home...."taps" sounded all day long!!!!!! Such a sad sound too....
I remember my brother (2 years older) and my boyfriend, and lots of kids we went to school with leaving for Vietnam..while we all stayed behind with our "prays, hopes, and dreams"...
I saw the Vietnam War "stop" and all the soldiers come home, those that survived. I had neighbors "who were sprayed with "agent orange"- whose lives were never the same....friends who lost limbs and to this day still have nightmares.
I remember the "wild 60'S" - YES I'M A FLOWER CHILD..... and we all were NOT drug users, pot smokers, and we all did not believe in "free sex" - DUH...... BUT
we did break away from the traditions of our parents....
we made our "own way" - the 60's kids!!
I remember KENT STATE (close to my house) and all the protesting. Everyone thought "they were right"..... I remember the National Guard being called in for Dayton, Ohio and Kent State. Curfews was installed everywhere, you couldn't be out on the streets after 6pm.....
I remember "sitting and watching" the biggest TORNADO EVER....come across the sky and destroy Xenia, Ohio in 1974 --- NEVER IN MY LIFETIME DO I WANT TO SEE ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN......"DEVIASTATING". I saw the destruction up close and personal......friends of mine lost their homes and started over again.... (fortunately I was "safe" - under a concrete porch on the ground with a shelter dug out underneath it. My friend, me and her 9 kids took shelter there. We were miles away, but it still blew windows out of her house from the pressure...
IT WAS HUGE - The movie "twister", I believe has some scenes in it from the actual tornado.... Lots of Xenia, Ohio is still parking lots now, many of the business never even rebuilt...
My brothers helped with the cleanup and we listened to sirens for days......

Yes the "past" holds lots of memories, many sad ones.....
many filled with fears, anxiety, and wonder - at all the things going on around me!!!
I, myself, was a "part of history" - living in the 50's,60's,and 70's....
Now my life if fairly peacefull, another generation is fighting the wars (we have one every 10 years it seems).
I'm like you - gas was $.17 a gallon when I had my 1966 Ford Mustang convertible (LOVED THAT CAR). Gas stations gave away glasses, pop, green stamps, all kinds of things to get you to buy their gas. During the holidays they gave toys with a gas purchase to help people do the Christmas shopping cheaply for their kids...

All "memories of the past", of days gone by, and long since "forgotten".....

Robivi3 - we both could write a book on our experiences and the things we lived thru.

How's that for a "trip down MEMORY LANE??"

MINNY

[Minnymouth]

I have pictures of all the deviastation that took place in Japan during the 50's. What "Hiroshima" looked like (up close and personal) after the A-bomb was dropped. My uncle was one of the "escort pilots" for the Nola Gay...which dropped the bombs!
I also have pictures of the "burning chambers" in Germany - my dad was there during WWII...when all the Jews were killed. He was on the beaches in Normandy, helped liberate France and Italy, and helped free the Jews..
I have inside a B-52. and fighter planes many times, (I dated pilots, co-pilots, and flight engineers - and my dad worked on the flight line).
I have sat in a "similator" and watched men as the upgraded their flying status.
I have been in the test chambers at WPAFB when NASA was there instead of Florida.... (my dad was head mechanic at the base on the flight line).
My dad worked on "test planes" for Gus Grissom and John Glenn - astronauts... he knew them personally...
My past and my families past is full of history.....
As a teenager, my dad took me to the base to see and go in and look at - AIR FORCE ONE... Kennedy was President then... and the plane was at the base temporarily. Very interesting.....

I've been very fortunate to be in a postion to "see" a lot that most kids will never see or experience.....

Look into your past - I'm sure it has it's moments too.

Minny

[robivi3]

Min, you brought back my old memmory of seeing Kennedy. My dad was a staunch Republican, my Mom was from a working class Democrat family. My mother took me out of school and we all went down to see Jack Kennedy (my dad never said JFK or "John"), Kennedy was a vet so to my Dad it was a personal sort of comaraderie thing. I remember it because I kept following this little white kid around who was there with his black maid. We sat on the curb and watched the Motorcade.

Also, one other thing you'll remember Min, you flew in a suit for men and dress for girls. This casual thing was unheard of. A suit was required on a plane for men and dresses for girls. Pilots were huge, tall godlike figures who were well respected. Many had flown to Japan and Germany back then, of course most of them had never landed there, ya know what I mean!!! John Glenn, Alan Shepherd, Werner Von Braun... those were Giants then, not mortals. I flew ALOT from Nashville to Memphis as a kid and rode in the cockpit frequently. The attention to a child then was unreal. I saw Apollo 13 in the VAB while she was prepping. Apollo was important even to kids, we all felt part of the collective effort. I remember that whole July week very well. I remember Military people flew in dress uniform ALWAYS. Whisperjets, Astrojets all the big thing back then. I remember my Dad introducing me to a Sgt. going to Vietnam on the plane on our way to JFK in NY and I recall asking myself where's his parachute and how's he gonna' jump out in that uniform with all those medals?

Our World existed in the shadow of WWII and the midst of the Cold War. Kids aren't even taught abouth the standoff with the Russians in 73' and the big birds having the Silo's prepped for launch. The 84' invasion of Lebanon demonstrated how close Isreal came to a Soviet invasion, massive loads of stored weapons from the day.

My Dad saw MacArthur land in the Phillipines and loved the man dearly. I remember my Grandfathers tears as we watched Truman's funeral on TV. I later learned about a thousand other memmories my Dad shoved down in order to get on with life and after seeing Saving Private Ryan i understood him a little better. That man shouldered alot and didn't whine once. I remember that up until the sixties he gave himself daily liver shots because of the damge done during his fours of Jungle warfare. The liver issue remained for his whole life. He refused a medical discharge in 45' because as he told me, I might have had a VA pension but my career with Bell would have ended there. What and attitude!!!!!!!!!!!!! He told me that the first time he paid a bill in person in 1937 he walked through the switching office. He fell in love with the technology and went to work ther in 39' against his dads wishes.

In I believe May of 45' (he signed up on Dec. 8 41') he declared the War over in the streets of Manilla with both warring parties present and had to be tackled down. He was found to be delirious with fever and flown to San Diego in a tub of ice. He refused medical discharge vehemently and served until wars end, but as he'd been overseaes three years he never went back. He was honorably discharged. To him money for sitting at home on his ass would have been disgrace to him and his father and his dreams.

I remeber him being sent to NY to learn binary numbering???!! I use it everyday now, back then it was irrelevant to me, but he claimed it would revolutionize our lives! In 1965 we got our first pushbutton phone, no joke, I asked him what the tic-tac-toe was for. He said that one day you would do bank transactions with it! I never asked again, it was gibberish. But he was on the ground floor with that stuff and devices and things were in our home before thay were publicly available.

And I remember my cousin Matt and me laying on his hardwood living room floor in Mississippi watching Jack Lalane 40 years ago and the man is STILL around!!!!!!!

We had a Chris Craft Cabin Cruiser here in Miami and i remember we hit a submerged marker (#11) and a propeller came off. On our way back to key Biscayne Marina we ran out of fuel in one tank, broke a fitting and had to hand siphon. All while the Coast Guard was telling us that we were in "restricted waters" AKA President Nixon's compound!

And Min, my Grandads last car? 57' Desoto a "Republican Car" as he might say. Remember laughing when you saw a Nash Metropolitan for the first time?

[Minnymouth]

Yep, I remember a lot of that stuff too!!!
Back in the 70's I was transferred to Spartanburg, SC.... I got sick and had to go to the doctor. Well, to my SURPIRSE, when I got there, I was told to go out and come in on the "white side"!!!! I had entered to waiting room for "colored only". Me, being from the North found it shocking, needless to say...
I remember when segragation started, the riots in Mississippi and Alabama...the busing of students to "my high school" in the early 60's....
I lived in Georgia in the late 70's and early 80's. I heard "Yankee" every time I opened my mouth...
My dad never talked about WWII and he was on the front lines. When a documentary would come on he'd get up and leave the room. My brothers were the same way about their time in Vietnam, and still are!!! God only knows, what they saw and did!!! They sure don't want any reminders...

We had the 1st black and white TV on our block in the 50's, before that just radio......(needless to say, OUR LIVINGROOM was like grand central station...)

Yes, Robivi3,
We have both seen a lot - experienced a lot - and learned a lot - from our past.

Personally, I wish I could go back in time and look at your past and experience it also. Remember the "time machine" - maybe that is in "our future"!!!!

Minny

[robivi3]

Hi Min,
My dad would only talk about the war if he brought it up, never discussing the battle issues, only this buddy or that. If you brought the war up, he would never respond or say, that's over and done. He got hooked up with that damned VA for medical reasons (liver, not drinking), Hep from using second hand needles in the Jungle because jaundice and malaria. he was old and they talked him into "counseling" at his FREAKING age and his younger wife went for it to get benefits. It dredged up things that were horrendous and caused alot of misery for him. That was another issue, I was his guardian for awhile, but she had youth and beauty and he had a beautiful Condo in Bal Harbor, good savings and a healthy pension and she won out. As the Judge said, "eccentricity is not a reason to make you his guardian" (it was with his wishes at first). Now, she has durable power of atty., he lives in a crappy retirement home (NO REASON TO), she lives in bal Harbor and has a home in switzerland and believe it or not I got a call years ago from a collection agency trying to collect for her furs. They were throwing paint on them in NY at the time so she had a deal with Nieman Marcus to get 'em cheap. Life is complicated sometimes!

I'd have never known and he would be fine except for that damned VA. No wonder so many guys still fight Vietnam, the beauracracy has them by the you-know-whats!!!!!!!!!!!! There is no sadder hospital to visit than a VA facility. My dad saw orderlies commit abuses that would make you cringe. The nurses in certain wards were slightly above animals UNTIL they found out you had an Attorney then they were sweet as pie. A friend was put in Ward 13d here for getting angry at a pharmacy clerk who would n't pull his ready medicine off of a shelf. The bag was there with his name on it. Arrogant, useless beauraucratic pieces of dung, I dealt with them with my Dad.

[Minnymouth]

Yeah, I dealt with the VA Hospital with my dad back in 78.....was pretty bad then too.......once the vets got down on the death list, help flew out the window!!! It was "hurry up and die" somebody else needs your bed......
They said he was combatable (so they stripped him down and tied him). He slipped out of the hospital (in the middle of winter 1978 - bad winter) in his housecoat and went thru the emergency room and caught a ride home with someone he knew.... Hospital was 75 miles from our house.
When they called and said he was "missing".... I asked "how did you loose him??"....
He caught a ride home and went to his sisters house. We found him and had to take him back to VA or loose his benefits...
He wasn't in there for long, I took him home, but I found him "tied to the bed" when I got there......DUH
You don't think I didn't make "heads role" - thru my Congressman!!

Minny

[robivi3]

Min, I don't know if anyone here is tied to the VA. I'm sure there are decent folk there to but my experience was that they are HORRIBLY ABUSIVE and WELL above the law. My hate for the organization is very deep. My father was overdrugged horrbly until the lawyers walked in. After that as far as the Nurse Beasts, Orderly Beasts and sub human Josef Mengele Pchycs were concerned it rained diamonds and snowflakes when they saw me. When you enter that system you are a nothing.

The drugs dissappeared the day Howard Rosen appeared with his briefcase and secretary! My Dad claimed to have seen numerous people beaten and tied and was even pushed himself as an old man. Simply put, I hate the people and the organozation, sorry...

[Minnymouth]

Our VA Hospital here, was "known" for lots of "testing"......they used the guys for testing new drugs, procedures etc. If they died, duh, was on their way out anyways.....
There was a guy at the VA in Lexingon back in 78 - he supposedly was in a veg state. But if you spoke to him he blinked to answer you (yes or no), squeezed your hand in response, and often moaned when you started to leave the room. Yet HE WAS NOT COHERANT.......HE WAS A VEG!!! Tell his family that, and me too...... No he couldn't speak like me, but his actions were strong and he could get your attention.
But for him - no excercise of any kind, just lay there and rot....if he got a cold, little was done for him, considered it a waste of meds.....
I sure hope they have changed all that now..
I'm like you, most of the folks I came in contact with were abusive, rude, showed no compassion whatsoever.
Maybe "times" have changed - I sure hope so!!! All I know is WWII vets sure didn't get a "picnic trip" in later life for fighting the war.....
If a man is "willing" to lay down his life for you, me, and our families - then - if he gets injuryed - why can't we see that he gets the best medical care possible when he returns?? Is that too much to ask from our society?
My friend that got sprayed with agent orange in Vietnam calls himself "test turkey". Says they keep treating him as an experimental case. There's really nothing that they can do for him......but they keep "testing" to see if they can.. and he keeps "grasping at straws".
From his looks - they have done more damage then good.....
Many vets are promised benefits - yet never see them!! Or they "quit doing that" when the time comes the vet needs it...
Some things are just a "sad situation" - but it doesn't need to stay that way.

Well I'm thur ventin' - I guess!!

Later Robivi3

[Minnymouth]

Yeah, a lot of "it" stopped when I came into the picture too!!!

Amazing how quick they respond when you say "sue" and "Congressman"!!!!

Minny