1965-66 - The Homefront

It has been said that Ginger Rogers did all Fred Astaire* did, only she did it backwards and in heels. That's my mom when Dad was having his Vietnam vacay.

Hughie got sent to Vietnam, if you haven't heard. His lovely wife, my Mother, decided to move us to El Paso de Robles (Paso Robles to you gringos out there), CA, population around 5,000. This was like an awesome adventure to a little guy like me, being a 1st grader.

She did that because her parents, my grandparents, lived there.

Even more important to me, and it is all about me, is that my cousin Gary lived in Paso Robles also. Better yet, we got to be in the same class that year. I heard rumors that the teacher quit after that school year.

It was a time where we would find golf balls and open them up and unravel the rubber bands inside to see what the core was.

We would look for bottles on the side of the road and redeem them at the little market and get candy with the nickel we got. 

We would play marbles.

We would drink Fizzies.**

We would eat apples from old orchards in the area.

We walked everywhere and were safe. 

Grandpa had a ritual every Sunday. After church, he would drive to a specific place to buy the Sunday paper from a newspaper rack. That was fun because of the funnies! It was always fun for me because the business in front of the rack was a barbershop called "Headhunters." I loved that name!

Another interesting story from that year is that everyone got sick...except me. They took turns taking care of me. When it was time to make me a lunch, the one who could stand looking at food would get up and make my lunch and then run back to bed. For those of you thinking, "Why didn't he make his own lunch?!" I was the baby of the family and the only male child. Lot's got done for me back in the day. (My wife had to retrain me and remind me that I CAN do some things around the house...women! Am I right?) Now back to me. I do remember not being able to get out of the house fast enough those days. For someone with a strong gagging reflex, it was imperative I escape as fast as I could.

Hughie sent us a picture of him in front of a building in Vietnam. In the letter that accompanied the picture, he mentioned that the building pictured was the hotel he was residing in. He had moved out and the next day the building was leveled by a bomb. There was always something in Vietnam!

We did get to see Hughie once and his wife, my Mother, got to see him twice in Hawaii that year.

*****

*Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were a singing and dancing duo in the 30's and 40's that made some good movies. Look them up.

**Fizzies were a flavored drink back in the day that would also carbonate the water, kinda like a homemade soda pop.