Many Moves

Sitting at Omer and Carol’s kitchen counter on a Friday night, rather late for a “happy hour,” eating tuna wiggle, telling stores,  I do not recall how family vacations (or lack thereof) came up.  My parents moved, packing up the entire household and setting off to new Army housing every 2 to 3 years until 1969 when we moved to San Diego. My Dad retired from the service there . I attended 6^th grade through  4 years of undergrad college in San DIego. That’s why I call it my hometown.

The Moves:

Ft. Carson, Colorado (my birthplace) to Ft. Eustis, Virginia – a car trip with me as a 1.5 year old

Ft. Eustis, VA (where my brother, Brent, was born)

Chicago, IL while my Dad was in Korea

Ft. Mason, California to Green Bay, Wisconsin – 4yo me and 2yo brother (started kindergarten)

Green Bay, WI to Ft. Bliss, (El Paso) Texas

Ft. Bliss, TX to Lamont, Illinois – 6 yo me and 4 yo brother

Lamont, IL to Portage, Indiana

Portage, IN to an American Army base in Illesheim, Germany

Illeisheim, Germany to San Diego, California (by car from Washington, DC to San Diego)  with 11yo me and 9yo brother

That’s 9 moves before 6^th grade and a lot of car trips.

The LAST thing my mom wanted to do on “vacation” was pack up the car and drive anywhere. We didn’t.

Judd’s remembrance is packing up the car EVERY spring break with some combination of his 4 brothers and having his parents take turns driving overnight from Maine to Florida to go camping at Juniper Springs.   Mapquest puts it at 24 hours Kittery to Ocala but that’s 2012 highways….  I believe it took longer in 1965… in a station wagon with no seat belts…. How did they ever survive?

Carol says HER parents used to drive to Florida every year for vacation and camp in Ocala National Forest too. She remembered fondly one year  (she must have been 13 or 14 yo) when a boy from a neighboring camp came by and asked if she wanted to hunt for armadillos. She told the story with little hearts in her eyes like she had instantly fallen in love the “boy next door.”  Judd said HE used to hunt for armadillos there. “Wait a minute,” says Carol, looking astonished, “How old would YOU have been.”  They do the calculations. “What year was that?”  “Did you actually catch any armadillos?”  and all the while Omer and I are thinking this is a buzz word for something else that goes on in the dark in Florida….like cow tipping in Maine or watching the submarine races from the scenic points of San Diego.

Maybe it was the post-prandial beverages talking after that, but we left quite convinced that Carol and Judd knew each other in a previous life and perhaps were childhood lovers….. at least for one night.

p.s. they did NOT catch an armadillo that night. (Sounds suspicious, huh?)