In the Fall of 1954, my dad, the Chief, traded in his '53 Chevy on a brand-new 1955 Forest Green Chevrolet 210 (that means it had two doors and a door post), with the first edition of the small block V-8 engine (265 cubic inches), a two-barrel carburator, and a three-speed standard transmission. It was his absolute pride and joy (next to mom, my sister, and me). Little sister cried as they took the black '53 Chevy onto the lot and we loaded up into the new ...
Every now and then a headline will grab you by the heart and you fill up with emotions you didn't think you had. When I heard that General Schwartzkopf had died this evening, it affected me that way. I haven't thought of the man for a few years at least. I was one of half-a-million soldiers who served under the lead of "Stormin' Norman". He was a real soldier; when he was put in charge, he took charge. Later, after he retired, he kept his...
The weather-guessers have been telling us for days that there was an increasing chance of snow Christmas eve and through into Christmas Day. Last night as we were loading the kiddies in the cars and giving and receiving Christmas hugs and wishes, the tiniest of flakes began to drift down. By the time we got the last of the grandkids secured and the doors closed and the motors started, the snow was falling in earnest. We do this every year, but...
We got some snow last night and the trip to church this morning was more like we are used to this time of year. We have been basking in Spring-like weather the last few weeks...but no more! Three inches of snow is managable but the deep-freeze temperatures are startling after such a mild autumn. The roads were very icy and slick. Listening to the cars in the neighborhood spinning their tires and making that "zzzzzzz" noise reminded me of a night more than twenty...
Every time I drive south out of Raton, New Mexico, I have a little bit of that fear thing tingling on my neck. The emptiness of the rolling prairie is kinda frightful. Us in-the-know folks refer to it as the I-25 corridor, because that is the route I-25 takes...and it is well known for smuggling dope, people, and who knows what else. Of course, since NAFTA, I-25 has been rumbling with truck and bus traffic from Mexico...no need to smuggle anymore, just load it on any ...
My mom, Betty Lou, and I had an unusually close relationship. She was married at 16, I came along at 17, and she was divorced by 20. She used to say that we raised each other. It wasn't always easy for either of us. I remember one hot Sunday when we were getting ready for church, she dressed me up and went to get ready herself. My shirt was starched and scratchy on my neck and it was hot and I was sweaty. So I filled the utility sink in the garage ...
Thomas R. Fuge, MC's father, the senior living vet in our family, a man who served in WWII in the China/ Burma/India Theater. Served his country with honor, returned to start a family and a new career in the fledgling TV industry, became an electronics engineer, finished his career as the manager of quality control at Honeywell's Black Canyon computer manufacturing plant in Phoenix, AZ. He had a successful insurance business for several years after leaving Honeywell. &n...
I've been trying to avoid too much post-election palaver about who shoulda and what they coulda. I am depressed enough already. After the fact, everyone is an expert on what happened. One phrase comes to my mind over and over: Train Wreck. And while I was having that phrase pop through my vacuous mind, two separate stories about trains piqued my interest: 1. In Gabon, a West African country, the unloading of a new, huge, American-made locomotive didn...
Fletcher Parkway comes out of Fletcher Hills down a grade into the northwest section of El Cajon. Back in the day, the big rigs used to run with little or no muffling and they would ride their Jake Brakes (a Jacobs Engine Brake that basically turns the fuel off to a diesel engine's cylinders and turns it into an air compressor to aid in slowing the truck ) all the way to the bottom of the grade. Late in the evening, when the traffic had thinned out, the trucks would rat...
He started his military career as an aircraft mechanic. He went to flight school and became a pilot. He flew P-51s in Europe. He was shot down over France and spent some time evading the Germans while helping the French Underground. He was able to get back to England and convince Eisenhower to let him fly over France again (policy was that escape-and-evaders could not fly over the areas where they had been captured). He returned to combat over France...
I remember Alex Karras as a fierce defensive lineman on the Detroit Lions. But I remember him better as a naturally funny guy who never took himself too seriously. In an interview on an afternoon talk show in the seventies (probably Mike Douglas but I'm not sure) he talked about needlepointing his friends names on their jockstraps for them and when asked if he missed the NFL he responded by saying that he missed the comraderie and nowdays hung around in the showers at t...
In the years I worked at Headquarters, U S European Command(HQ USEUCOM), I met a lot of folks who had been or would be famous for one reason or another. Some of the people I worked with should have been famous; there were some real heroes in the mix there. I even had the chance to spend some time with ADM Ruge, a well known figure in German military history. Another figure from US military history that I met was General Ira Eaker. Although I only had one a...
They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. You should see some of the things that can be designed when the committee is made up of Army lieutenants! This memory was jogged during a little back-and-forth with Pontogubb this morning. He mentioned having a trailer hitch cover that looks like a claymore. In the process of imagining what that would look like, another frightful memory crowded in and I thought I should share it with you. When we got to the desert in '...
Several years ago we were in Phoenix to celebrate MC's parents special February: Their fiftieth anniversary and his birthday. We had a little free time and were driving east on Bell Road, marvelling at all the growth and how busy everything was. Even in February we had all the windows up and the AC blowing full blast (although we once survived there with two cars that had no AC, we are no longer "acclimated"). Even with all the windows up, the AC on full, and o...
Stuttgart, Germany was heavily damaged during WWII. Most of the downtown area was screwed up pretty badly. When the war ended, the troubles didn't. People lived in bombed-out basements, drew water from puddles in bomb craters, and don't even ask where the bathroom facilities were; they weren't. People begged, scavenged, sold and traded, and did whatever they had to do in order to survive. The main source of food was the American GIs who occupied...