Vacationing with Babe & Loree

 It feels like all we did growing up was move from one base to another, and therefore never went on vacation, but that isn’t true. We DID move a lot, but when I think back, I can distinctly remember some pretty fun vacations that Mom and Dad took us on between all the moves.

The big one when I was very little was a tour of Denmark and Norway in the Red VW camper (I think I was about three). I have no idea the full itinerary, but I know we camped next to a beach (I think near Copenhagen), and we visited a famous museum in Oslo that had a huge Viking boat displayed up on posts. It was glorious!

Back in the States, and living in California, we drove up to Washington to see Mom’s family, through northern California, stopping to see Aunt Jocie in Redwood City, and vising the Redwood forest. We actually drove through the tree back then. That’s also when I sliced my left thumb open trying to whittle on a stick. (I still have the scar). Must have been a long vacation because we spent a lot of time at the beach with all our cousins, and that may be when they bought the beach house from Ken and Carolyn.

Another time, we rented a houseboat on Lake Isabella, due west of Bakersfield, CA. I think we camped for a day or two. That was a lot of fun.

After Dad came back from Vietnam, and before we moved back to George, we drove from Washington to Minnesota to see the relatives on Dad’s side of the family. I remember being at John & Wanda Millers’ house, sitting on the front stoop, and watching a tornado off in the distance. The Moms put a quick stop to that: down to the basement!

In Libya, we weren’t there long enough. In Italy there were three vacations I distinctly remember, though I’m not sure in what order they occurred.

One was a trip to Rome with Grandma Branby when she flew over to visit. Actually the only time I ever remember her visiting us. I think we were there about a week. We took the train down and back, which was another adventure. The most distinct thing that stands out is the tour guide and his very broken english. Very fun and entertaining.

Another time Mom and Dad bought us skis and we all drove over the mountains and spent a week learning to ski in Austria. That was a blast. We were there with a couple other families, so lots of things to do on and off the slopes. The end of the week was a big ski race.

The third vacation was at the beach near Venice. We must have stayed at a hotel right on the water.

After Dad came back from Korea, we moved to North Las Vegas. Dad bought both a Camper and a speed boat.  With the Camper, we drove out to Colorado once or twice and stayed with Don in Snowmass or Basalt. We toured the Maroon Bells, Aspen, Glenwood Springs, and all the places in between. Dave and I went river rafting down the Roaring Fork River. That was a blast.

I think there was a ski trip to Snowmass at least once, because Uncle Don was working at Gene Taylor’s Sporting goods, right on the mountain, so we got some good discounts on rentals.

The move to Luke AFB (Phoenix) pretty much ended the big family vacations for me. To be fair, Dad decided to put in a swimming pool, and that was awesome!

My Senior year was jam-packed with activities, followed by a shortened summer when I was unexpectedly appointed to the Air Force Academy.

My favorite kid’s book

 Growing up I loved books and stories. We did the library summer reading programs at the local libraries wherever we lived: Washington, California, Libya, Italy, etc. It was like shopping for free candy!

When I was really young, we had the hard cardboard books that kids get, which seem to last forever… or get totally destroyed… by dropping  them in puddles, teething on them, spilling drinks or whatever. The Little Engine That Could. The Disney tales, Black Beauty, Gullivers Travels, Grimms Fairy Tales. We had bigger books too… some I ventured into and lost interest pretty easily. Not enough action; characters who didn’t spark interest; boring stories. But others that grabbed you and drug you through it till the very end. The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Beverly Cleary stories, Johnny Tremaine.

Once we started school it was the Scholastic Book program. They gave you this four or six page order sheet that had all  these new books that you could order and then take home and keep! Not just use, but read over and over again. I don’t know that I ever found many books I had to repeatedly read, but the idea that they were mine and I could, was pretty awesome!

I think that’s where I ran across my favorite book, though I’m really not sure: Ian Fleming’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” Not the movie version, but the original English version: Two kids have an eccentric inventor father who puts together this strange car, which slowly comes to life when needed. They get involved with smugglers and hoodlums, then get into dangerous situations, and the car, or their dad always finds an interesting way to get them out of it. In the end, they solve a mystery, stop a robbery, and the bad guys go to jail. Everything a 10-year old thinks is really cool.

Pretty sure I was reading Hardy Boys about that time, but  those were teenagers who could ride in cars and motor cycles. The Pott family had  kids my age. They didn’t treat adults like they could be replaced. To me it was very plausible, though I was pretty certain it was weird for a car to fly or sprout floats and cruise across the English Channel like a hover craft.

When the movie came out a year or so later, I enjoyed it, but it felt like a ripoff of Mary Poppins. Interesting story, but not as gritty or edgy as the book, and therefore not as real. It was probably the first time I understood the term “not as good as the book.”

Winnifred Lorean “Buddy” (Elder) Branby

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message ‘(S)He is Dead’.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

(S)He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W.H. Auden

If you get this far, here’s a quick and simple overview of this amazing woman:

She grew up in Central Texas. Her dad shipped out to the Aleutian Islands during WWII. Came home, got his teaching degree in WA, and moved his growing family back to TX. 

She met my Dad on a blind date. He was in pilot training, and her cousin suggested she hook up with his buddy for a dance that was about 1-1/2 hours away. Dad drove her home afterwards and slept in the car outside their house. 

They wrote letters to each other and he asked her to get on a bus and meet him in Las Vegas. In blind faith, she did, and they married in the “Little Chapel around the Corner.” 

Over the next 58 years she moved household and kids to California, England, California, Tucson, California, Washington (Vietnam), California, Libya, Italy, Washington (Korea), Las Vegas, Phoenix, Washington, Fallon, Nevada; Anacortes, WA; and finally..... Lodi, CA. My Dad was my inspiration, but my Mom was my life support system. ❤️

Sense of 'Mission, Spirit’ Bound Dyess Crewmen

 Mar 20, 1980

By LARRY LAWRENCE

The tribute of a squadron commander who is a veteran aircrewman set the tone Wednesday for memorial services at the Dyess Air Force Base chapel honoring six members of the 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing.

They died Friday in the crash of a C-130 transport in Southeastern Turkey.

Protestant services were conducted for Lt. Col. Benjamin H. Barnette, Maj. Michael L. Jones, Capt. Richard J. Wagner, Staff Sgt. Patrick L. Cypher and Airman 1st Class Howard K. Watkins. A Catholic mass was said for Sgt. George W. Moreau.

In an eulogy prepared by members of the wing, Lt. Col. Gene Hollrah, commander of the 772nd Tactical Airlift Squadron, lauded the men for their service and dedication to family, to each other, to the nation and to God. He noted their similarities and their differences.

"While they were among us, they seemed no different than other men...yet, they were as different as night from day. They were an aircrew; men of different means and background, bound together by a machine, a mission, and a spirit few men have known or can ever hope to know."

Friends and associates of the fliers came from home, from their offices and from the flight line to fill the chapel to overflowing long before the hour of the service. The fact that life and duties go on was reflected by those attending. Flight suits and fatigues mingled in the chapel with blue uniforms and civilian dress.

Hollrah, who as a navigator has logged thousands of hours of flying time, touched on the motivations, the hopes and aspirations of the airmen. He said their individual bravery and sense of personal duty made them willing to face up to the tough tasks of each day.

"With warmth and a sense of humanity, they carried out their duties, determined to see them through to a successful conclusion. Each possessed the unfailing formula for mission accomplishment those key elements of patriotism, self-respect, discipline and self-confidence, he continued.

He emphasized the great respect each held for the others when he said: "If ever you remember the security and love you felt when as a child you were rocked softly to sleep, then you know the tremendous trust they held in each other.

"...If ever you have watched the Stars and Stripes dip tug at the lanyard while from somewhere deep within a shiver of proud belonging welled up in your breast, then you know the endless love they had for God, country and the brotherhood of free men.

"They were an aircrew, called home by a loving creator when their work was finished. We must believe that their individual spirits live on in a place much better than this life and that the spirt that bound them together lives on in each of us present here today," he said.