When I first arrived at Patch Barracks in the fall of 1977, I was a buck sergeant - a "retread", which means I was working my way back up the ranks after a three-year break in service.  I had gotten out of the Army as a Staff Sergeant in 1971, and then  I came back into the Army as an E-4 in 1974.  It took longer to get my rank back than I had anticipated but that is another story...maybe later.  In any case, money was tight, and MamaCharlie and the kids had to wait to come to Germany until housing was available and we didn't know how long that would be. 

I don't remember how I got connected with the Youth Activities people, but they needed bus drivers to get the kids to different events around Germany:  Swim meets, bowling, skating, ball games, etc.  They paid off-duty GIs to drive the buses but had a hard time finding enough of a driver pool (reliability was the main problem).  I started driving the kids around after hours and on weekends;  the YA people liked me because I was always there when I said I would be...and I would be sober.  And I liked them because each trip was worth about twenty-five to fifty bucks and sometimes there would be two or even three trips a week.  Sadly, some weeks there were no trips at all.  But the extra money meant that I didn't have to drain bucks from the family account, and could actually put some money into preparing for my family's arrival.

  The YA bus was an Army 25-passenger bus that the kids painted a yellowy orange and named the Patch Pumpkin.  The Support Activity maintained the bus and supplied the fuel so all I had to do was show up and drive...oh...and I had to know where I was going.  It didn't take long to get familiar with most of the places we went.  For larger parties or when the parents were going along, we had access to the Support Activity's 55-passenger buses.

The swimming pool in Vaihingen was only a ten minute drive.  The ball fields of neighboring kasernes were at varying distances and sometimes the swim team had to go quite a way to a meet.  There was a roller-skating rink at the kaserne in Nellingen (only about ten miles from Patch), but I always told them we had to leave an hour ahead of showtime.  No one questioned why until one afternoon when the YA Director was chatting with me and she asked me point-blank if I was padding my hours with this early start.  I was shocked.   It never entered my brain that they would think that.  Being in the Army kind of insulates you from thinking about the time clock.  Soldiers' pay is the same no matter how few or how many hours you work.

I had to 'fess up.  I didn't know how to get to the kaserne at Nellingen.  Everytime I took the kids over there, I got lost in the city and had to drive around until I found one specific ARAL gas station.  When I saw the bright blue ARAL sign at that particular station, I was home free.  I knew how to get to the gate of the Kaserne from there.  She laughed at me gave me an easy set of instructions to get to the base in Nellingen and laughed her way back to her office. 

I didn't tell her that the kids, almost always the same group, realized after awhile what was going on and every trip to Nellingen they would scan out the windows and help me find the right gas station.  "There it is"  "No, that's not ARAL..."  "Is that is?"  "No...that's Esso.."  "Hey...I see it...isn't that it over there?"  "Yeah!! That's it...hey there it is!"  It became a game that was almost as popular as spending time at the skating rink.

That night I followed her instructions to the letter, got lost, drove around until I found the ARAL station, and then drove up to the gate.