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wodin · 09-13-2016, 02:31 PM

I was born and raised in western Wisconsin, near Saint Paul Minnesota in the forties and fifties. After graduating from high school and enrolling in the local cow college (University of Wisconsin at River Falls) where I learned to play poker, euchre, pool, and schafkopf in the student union for a year, and little else. When the administration suggested that I might benefit from some life experience elsewhere, I decided to join the military.

Just after the Christmas of 1962 my Mother and Father drove me to Wold–Chamberlain Field, now Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport. In those days we didn’t know about wind chill factor, but we understood mercury in the thermometer, and the mercury said it was 18 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Wold–Chamberlain Field didn’t have jet ways so we had to walk out on the tarmac and climbed up one of those stairways on wheels. The wind was whistling across the runways, and the snow was up to my little okole. I climbed up into a little twin engine propeller driven airplane and we flew to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

At Sioux Falls we transferred to a little four engine propeller driven airplane, and flew on the somewhere else. After several somewhere else’s, several little airplanes and twelve hours, picking up several more Navy recruits along the way we arrived at San Diego.

We got off the Airplane (by then it was a Boing 707 four engine jet) and walked through this tunnel thing that rolled right up to the plane. We followed the signs to the baggage area, and out to a bus that was to take us to the Recruit Training Center, and it was EIGHTY THREE DEGEES F. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, and if I NEVER saw snow again it would be too soon!

In the course of my Navy career, I did have occasion to see snow again, but I was able to pull strings to minimize it until I ended up at Pearl Harbor for the final three years (twilight tour). After they piped me over the gangway, I was casting around for what I would do with the rest of my life, and I had an occasion to have breakfast in the restaurant at the top of the Sheridan Waikiki. It was a beautiful late November Saturday morning, temperatures were in the eighties, the humidity in the forties, and the sun was shining off the blue Pacific. I looked out the port side and saw Diamond Head and Waikiki beach. Then I looked out the starboard side and there was Ala Moana Beach Park and Honolulu Harbor. If there was a more beautiful place in the world, God hadn’t shown it to me, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

I’ve been here for nearly half of my life now, and if I never see snow again it’ll be too soon.

09-13-2016, 02:31 PM	#28644
wodin Illiterate Posts: 10,279 Karma: 37848716 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: The Sandwich Isles Device: Samsung Galaxy S10+, Microsoft Surface Pro	I was born and raised in western Wisconsin, near Saint Paul Minnesota in the forties and fifties. After graduating from high school and enrolling in the local cow college (University of Wisconsin at River Falls) where I learned to play poker, euchre, pool, and schafkopf in the student union for a year, and little else. When the administration suggested that I might benefit from some life experience elsewhere, I decided to join the military. Just after the Christmas of 1962 my Mother and Father drove me to Wold–Chamberlain Field, now Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport. In those days we didn’t know about wind chill factor, but we understood mercury in the thermometer, and the mercury said it was 18 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Wold–Chamberlain Field didn’t have jet ways so we had to walk out on the tarmac and climbed up one of those stairways on wheels. The wind was whistling across the runways, and the snow was up to my little okole. I climbed up into a little twin engine propeller driven airplane and we flew to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. At Sioux Falls we transferred to a little four engine propeller driven airplane, and flew on the somewhere else. After several somewhere else’s, several little airplanes and twelve hours, picking up several more Navy recruits along the way we arrived at San Diego. We got off the Airplane (by then it was a Boing 707 four engine jet) and walked through this tunnel thing that rolled right up to the plane. We followed the signs to the baggage area, and out to a bus that was to take us to the Recruit Training Center, and it was EIGHTY THREE DEGEES F. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, and if I NEVER saw snow again it would be too soon! In the course of my Navy career, I did have occasion to see snow again, but I was able to pull strings to minimize it until I ended up at Pearl Harbor for the final three years (twilight tour). After they piped me over the gangway, I was casting around for what I would do with the rest of my life, and I had an occasion to have breakfast in the restaurant at the top of the Sheridan Waikiki. It was a beautiful late November Saturday morning, temperatures were in the eighties, the humidity in the forties, and the sun was shining off the blue Pacific. I looked out the port side and saw Diamond Head and Waikiki beach. Then I looked out the starboard side and there was Ala Moana Beach Park and Honolulu Harbor. If there was a more beautiful place in the world, God hadn’t shown it to me, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I’ve been here for nearly half of my life now, and if I never see snow again it’ll be too soon.