Vivere la bella vita in Italia!

 Living in Italy was a huge part of growing up for me. We did a lot and shared a lot in those 2-1/2 years, so much so that it always seems like four years until you actually do the math.

We basically showed up in Aviano, Italy as Air Force refugees, chased out of Wheelus Air Force Base by Gahadaffi’s takeover in Libya. When we arrived we had no place to stay, so we lived in a high-rise apartment complex in downtown Aviano for probably two months until Mom and Dad found a house to rent in a little town called San Giovanni de Polcinego. We lived in a three story single house on the road to Pordenone.

Aviano is tucked up against the mountains in northeastern Italy. The weather was generally great all year around, but close enough to a lot of attractions. We could go skiing in the winter in a place called Piancavallo. Venice and beaches were only an hour or two away. (I only went to Venice to go to the Airport, but we did go to the beach).

We lived there for half of my 4th, and all of 5th and 6th grades. Our school was on the Air Force base, so we had to ride a bus. They didn’t have orange school buses, or the white hospital buses we rode at Wheelus. Instead a big touring bus made the rounds, stopping right out side our driveway to pick us up. Big plush greyhound bus seats, it was a fun way to ride to school.

I don’t remember much about 4th grade, other than the teacher really believed in reading, and had this one section of the room sectioned off as a reading section. She had placed plastic as a roof over a book case all the way to the wall, and had fish hanging from it.  She called it her reading cafe, and you had to reserve your time in it during lunch or free periods. 

Aviano was was where I really had my first foreign language classes. The DoD schools taught you the local language as part of the curriculum. That year we had a young girl called Senorita Gianinni.  In 5th and 6th we moved to a different set of builidngs and of course the teachers changed. Our Italian teacher was a Senora….

My 5th and 6th grade teacher was a Mr. Lorenzeti. Older gentleman with a mustache and beard. I aways considered him a hardass who made my life hard, but looking back I was probably a handful. I was definitely at the top of the class academically, and probably had more than a little ADD. I was a big talker in class, and for a while in 6th grade, I had a desk out in the coat room. Not that I minded much after the 1st day; it gave me more time to read.

Aviano is where I started playing football. I signed up to join the youth league. We practiced after school a couple nights a week out at the athletic fields next to the flight line. I would carry my pads to school, change in the bathrooms, then ride the activity bus from school. Dad would come pick me up after he finished work. We’d play our games on Saturday mornings. That was lots of fun. I also played baseball in the summer, but I’m not sure how that worked, and don’t remember much except being in a tournament during a week’s vacation at the beach, and Dad driving me to the game and back.  

That was the time Susan wandered off from Mom. No cell phones back then, so we didn’t find out till we got back, mid afternoon. The girls had been going to a local church nursery school and learning to be very good Italian speakers through immersion. So, when Susan disappeared, Mom was frantic and called the local Carbineri asking if anyone had found a lost American girl. “No, we only have this little Italian girl.”  Mom looked some more and then thought she better check again with the police. She decided to go check the girl out. Sure enough, It was Susan chatting away with the friendly policemen licking on ice cream cones.

We had a couple of families we were friends with. None lived nearby, but the Dads were all acquainted from work. My Dad ran the bombing range that all the air crews from across Europe came to practice live bombing. The Smith’s dad was a pilot, but not sure what he did at Aviano. Norm Lasher was an Intel guy. We took turns going to each other’s houses and hanging out. I think the last winter we were there, all three families piled in our cars and drove up to Austria and spent a week at a ski school/resort in Kitzbuhl, Austria. We had a blast! We started from zero and by the end of the week we were taking a tram up to the highest of the runs and skiing down. It felt like quite an accomplishment.

I kept skiing all through High School, college and until I came to Pennsylvania. Laura skis also, so we skied in both South Dakota and New York.  However, once we got up here, I found the conditions way too dangerous for my liking, and it just fell off my radar as something to keep up with. Probably should have got the kids snowboarding, but it seems life just got too busy.

We took one of the all time great vacations while we were in Italy. Mom and Dad took Dave and I to Rome. I think Grandma Branby came over for a visit, so we all took the train from Venice down to Rome and spent about a week. Saw all the things! Vatican City, the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Seven Hills, etc. Very fun!

We moved back to the States the Summer after 6th grade. Dad’s next job was back to flying in a Squadron, only this time in Korea. That guy got around! So we moved back to the Washington house for about a year and a half, and came back to American society, including the drama of the ‘1972 Olympics and Watergate.

5th Grade

Growing up with Dad

 My Dad, Harlan Elwood Branby, was born in Glenwood, Minnesota on 18 July, 1934.

He was an interesting guy. He was big, strong, handsome, in your face.  Very visceral. I think it came from being the youngest child in a very rambunctious house of six children; a sickly father, and a mother who had to do a lot of the parental heavy lifting herself. I don’t know for sure, but from stories I’ve heard from other cousins, alcoholism ran pretty rampant among that generation.
Dad was a solid-built guy. My Uncle Don, an All-American at the University of Colorado, got him a Football scholarship as a Left Guard, which led to ROTC and a career in the Air Force. After college it was pilot training in Georgia and Texas (or vice versa), and then on the George AFB, California and the F-100, where he married my Mother (met in Texas, and married in Las Vegas);  then I showed up.

There was a lot of training with Type-A personalities, and a lot of parties. I can attest that getting “off the farm, and into the streets of ‘Gay Paree’ is pretty liberating. Especially as a fighter pilot-to-be in the late 50’s.

When I was cleaning out my parents’ paperwork, I stumbled across this “autobiography,” which was a terrific find, and very enlightening…………………….

“I decided to write a brief history of my life not because I feel I ever accomplished any great feats, but because I felt there is more to a person’s existence than the fact that he or she was born, got married, had X amount of children and died. As the saying goes, “life is a bitch, and then you die.” I believe this to be an accurate statement as I look back on my life. Sure there are good times and bad times and alot of in between times that can’t be focused on, but as one experiences it all you find it difficult to understand what it all really means.

The average person spends about 70 years on this planet if he can avoid getting wiped out in an automobile or becoming the victim of some crazed idiot. During those seventy years the same average person spends 65 years of it working and sweating to feed himself and his family, getting his children through school and planning for those golden years and that edenis place to finally do and enjoy the things he has given up in order to provide a comfortable life for his family. At age 65 he is a crippled, worn out old man too tired to get up off the couch to do all those things he has been working so hard for all his life. Five years later he is dead and his obituary reads; he was born, he got married, he had four children and he died. Nobody cares enough to fill in the spaces. This why I am writing this; so my children and their children will know what goes in the spaces.

I was born in Glennwood, Minnesota, County of Pope on July 18, 1934, to Mr. Gerhard and Mrs. Esther (Helland) Branby. At the time I was born my parents lived on the old Helland farm in Barsness Township. About a year after my birth the family moved into Glenwood and rented a house from the Dietz family on North Lathrop Avenue. My dad went to work for the WPA (a government sponsored program that put in all the sewer systems in the town of Glenwood). I believe he made somewhere in the neighborhood of $45 a month. I was the last of six children. They were in order: Manfred, Bette, Donald, Wanda, Garfield and me.

Sometime around 1940 my Grandfather, Ole Branby, bought the house next to the one we were renting and we moved into that house. The address was 45 No. Lathrop. The house was small as I recall. A kitchen and living room downstairs and two medium bedrooms and one six foot by six foot bedroom upstairs. The boys all slept in one bedroom, the girls had the closet and Mom and Dad had the other bedroom. Talk about close living!

Life was tough I guess, but as I think back, we never seemed to suffer terribly. I suppose Dad worried a lot about the situation, but outside of being fairly stern he was never openly despondent about life. He loved to bitch a lot but we learned to live with that and I would guess we passed it off as his way of letting off steam and relieve the tension that must have existed in his life.

Dad was a diabetic and a serious one. That was one stigma that hung over the entire family as we witnessed his twice daily insulin injections, and every once in a while he would lapse into a coma and scare us all half to death. But, somehow he seemed to survive and he would be right back at it again. He was a man of “True Grit.” He could have given up anytime but he was too stubborn.

Mother was a truly magnificent woman. She struggled through raising six kids on a meager budget. With help from the farm: butter, eggs, meat etc. and some monthly support from “Direct Relief,” a Depression program, we all ate and subsisted fairly well. Mom made clothes, we always had a garden, baked all our own bread and all in all never really suffered.

Mom and Dad were never out rightly religious people, but they ensured that we children had a good Christian education. Sunday school was a must, and all the children went through Confirmation. Religion was not difficult to stress because it was a large part of the social life back then. Sunday school, Luther League, Confirmation, Church Ladies Aid Dinners were very prominent in our lives. I guess the reason our lives were filled with Church activities is that we didn’t have too many other diversions to fill our time. Of course there was not TV, very little organized sports outside of high school varsity teams, and all other activities involved the children: swimming, hiking, hunting, skiing , sledding, skating and fishing both summer and winter. To say the least, as a child I really had fun.

Academics were stressed within the family and within the school system. The academics in those days stressed the basics; reading, writing, and arithmetic. All the children did well in a tough scholastic environment. In those days, the opportunity to go to college were few for the average income family, so the high school system was more or less considered the so called finishing school. Today’s schools tend to be more of a preparation for college and do not emphasize true understanding of subject matter.

Participation was also stressed in our lives. Athletes and Band were very highly stressed. If you weren’t into athletics you were expected to be into music. As such there was much community support for both. We had a high school band concert and choral presentation at least once a month with standing room only attendance. We were good.

I played all sports except track. I lettered four years in baseball, two years in football and two years in basketball. I was never really great in any of them, but my best sport was football, which would prove to be the vehicle which would have a tremendous effect on my future. Thanks to my football skills and more importantly my brother Don’s skills and achievements in the game, I was awarded a Grant-in-Aid football scholarship to the University of Colorado. At the time I never really believed that I was good enough to play college football, but I found out that everyone tends to underestimate their abilities. I made first string on the freshman team as a defensive end and earned my numeral sweater. Freshmen were not eligible to play varsity at that time. Between my freshman and sophomore years the NCAA changed the rules on substitution and so we had to play both ways the rest of my career. I was switched to offensive right guard on offense and defensive linebacker. I lettered my Junior and Senior years.

To keep from getting drafted into the Army for the Korean War, I had to join the ROTC. At the time I did not realize the significance this would have on my future. Anyway, I did not want to be a ground pounder and brother Boben was going through pilot training, Don was in the Air Force ROTC and brother Manfred had been a World War II navigator in B-24s. I guess I really didn’t have a choice. Anyway, I stuck with ROTC even after the Korean War was over as I had decided I wanted to be a fighter pilot. And I became a fighter pilot.”

That last sentence is impressive. He even underlined it.

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My recollections early on are of flashes of us in England. (Chuck Yeager was his Squadron Commander) A vacation to Denmark and Norway in a VW Bus. Back in the states at George AFB before my sisters arrived. Swimming in the Officers club pool with this big safe guy who let me float round on his chest. A Christmas party at the Officer’s Club, where HE was dressed up as Santa. I didn’t recognize him because of the fake beard, but I remember vividly recognizing his wedding ring and getting so excited that he wasn’t Santa, he was my Dad! (Lots of shushing and moving me right along!)

Then he went to Vietnam. I was in first grade. My impression is they didn’t allow families to stay on base if their Sponsors were overseas, so we packed up and went to Washington and stayed in the beach house my parents had bought from Ken earlier. That was pretty much the only time in my life I remember having nightmares on a regular basis. It was a long year of sitting in front of the TV watching the news every night, hoping you didn’t see anything related to your parent. He came home for some vacation,… not sure sure what time of the year it was, other than we saw him off at the Seattle airport and it was really hard to say goodbye again.

(Probably summer of ‘66, Dad is back from Vietnam; my cousin Ricky Holland with me, Dave and Dad)
When he came back, we moved back to George AFB, and my sisters showed up pretty much nine months later! We lived on base until the girls showed up, then moved to our first off-base house in Victorville, right after. He worked like a dog on that lawn, putting in a complete sprinkler system and trying to get grass to grow. That’s where the street light curfews showed up. We just played outside till the lights came on, or you’d hear this piercing whistle…. Dad announcing it was time for dinner, and I was late!

I think the twin girls kinda overwhelmed him. Two boys, even as opposite as me and Dave were, were things he could deal with. Two girls at the same time…. lol! Thrilled but definitely out of his comfort zone. We took a couple of vacations. Back to Washington, to Minnesota; once we rented a pontoon boat on Lake Isabella, in California. That was a blast. Camping up in the Redwoods (I think that was just Dave and me in the VW bus.)

We got a dog, Trixie. A little black terrier. No idea why, but that was the first of many. It had puppies and Dad was not happy… probably because the twins had just arrive, or were about to. We were living on base at the time. I think he liked the dog, just not  the complications.

Cocktail parties were big back in the day. In England and at George, couples would take turns hosting. Everyone would dress up and mingle in the small base housing, or go out to “the O’Club” I remember getting up on Saturday mornings after people had been to our house, and there were cigarette butts in ashtrays and leftover drinks. When the parties were at other people’s houses, we’d have a babysitter, or we would be dropped off at the base nursery, where we would play and then get put to bed in a room full of bunkbeds, and our parents would pick us up on the way home late at night.

We moved to Wheelus AFB, in Tripoli, Libya, I think in early 1969. The trip over is a whole different story. but we left in the cold and got to Libya and stepping off the plane, we were met with a blast of hot air…. palm trees, everyone in short sleeves. I think my Dad really liked it there. He was doing well, and had been assigned as a Range officer for the gunnery range all the European fighter dudes came down to train on. I think he liked that job a lot. He knew a lot of people around the base, was relied on a lot to coordinate things with the local military, and he got to fly with different guys when they would fly in from Europe. I remember some school trip we went to the flight line (3rd grade or so) and had a tour. My dad walks by going to get into a plane. My chest about exploded with pride!

He would come home after work and strip off his flight suit, or his office suit, and just sit at dinner in a T-shirt. Afterwards he’d start talking about flying, and he would tell these long drawn out stories that would take hours it seemed, his hands in the air like two planes… and he would act out the fighter engagements. I just sat transfixed.

As I said, he interacted with a lot of people, both on and off base. He had a friend, a Libyan, who would come over for dinner once in a while.  One day, as a token for their appreciation for Dad’s efforts, they gave him a camel’s head to stuff and mount. Just a head. In paper. in a bag. Pretty sure Dad didn’t know what to do with it, so he put it out in the freezer on the back porch. And it sat there…. for months. We saw it every time we opened the freezer top to retrieve something. Eventually the wrapping paper tore, the head got freezer burn, and your just knew it was worthless. But there it sat, staring at you.  One day I told some friends about it, Took them over, and we poked out the eyes. The parents found out about it and got mad, but deep down they knew it was spoiled anyway, so I don’t remember getting in too much trouble.

Quadaffi took over sometime in the fall of 1969. We had just started school, and were suddenly faced with having to pack up and leave. School went to six days a week so we wouldn’t fall behind as we traveled to new bases in the middle of the school year. Dad got assigned to run the bombing range at Aviano AB, Italy. While all that was happening, we got another dog, Bipi, a little while cockapoo. Some guys brought it down from Germany and gave it to Dad. When it came time to leave, we packed all our possessions, sent them off in a van, hoping to see them again in Italy, climbed on some transport plane and took off for Malta, then Aviano. We got about 1/2 way to Malta and the plane announced we were turning back. We landed back at Wheelus, and the Base Commander, Col Chappie James, came on board, talked to Dad, and said we had to leave the dog behind because all animals had to be quarantined for six weeks before going to Italy. Us kids were devastated. Dad handled it fine, as anyone in the military would. And sure enough, weeks later, the dog showed up. (Several years later it was hit by a car when it got out of our yard in Polcinego, and we buried it in the back corner of the yard of the house we were renting). Dad really liked that dog.

By this time I was in 5th and 6th grade. I was very much into reading everything I could get my hands on. I’m sure I was a tad bit ADHD, and always bored in class. I started playing youth football, bowling on the weekends, playing baseball in the summer; just normal kids stuff. Dad coached intramural teams for the Squadrons on base. I thought that was pretty cool. His players seemed to like him and the games were fun to watch. We lived away from the base, so I would carry a big bag of pads to school, then take a bus out to the athletic fields by the runways on the other side of the base. Dad would pick me up after work and take me home. Lots of discussions of how to play the line, play defense, be meaner, harder, tougher. lol! I think he was a tad frustrated that while I loved the game, and was athletically coordinated, I wasn’t athletically talented, at least to the star level.

Back to the States. He went to Korea and flying again. We moved to Anacortes again, and I hung out in 7th and part of 8th grade. After a year or so, we moved to Las Vegas, a world away from upstate Pacific Northwest. We lived on base, in part of the housing area reserved for Officers’ families and got back to being a family again. Lots of activities: sports, Junior High into High School. Dad was a Fighter Weapons Instructor at the school house, pretty prestigious in the fighter community. Of course I’m running around with my friends, barely staying out of trouble, because, god forbid, you got in trouble on base and your parents were kicked out of base housing. Yeah, not good. I learned to drive and eventually wrecked a car. He was NOT happy. By then the drinking was pretty bad. We had lots of long nights and arguments.

But we also had surprises. He first bought a camper, and we went camping. Drove it out to Colorado in the summer and stayed in my Uncle Don’s front yard. He bought a boat! We took it out to Lake Meade and learned how to water ski. Nothing went easy, though. There was always drama. Once the propeller fell off the boat as we were pulling it out, and I was selected to dive in the oily mess and retrieve it. That was not fun. But generally, he supported me as I made my way through school.

In January or February of my Junior year, he suddenly announced we were moving to Luke AFB, in Phoenix, Arizona. Man was I pissed! I didn’t care other than the timing of it. I was just hitting my stride in school that year: Editor of the school paper, Student Judiciary, Honor Society, Ski Club, good teachers, fun classes, and a girl I was interested in was going out with me more than once. But off we went. From an inner-city school that had 800-1000 kids in a class to a suburban/rural one that had 200-300. Dad became the head of the F-4 simulator training program there. Pretty good hours. But lots of clashes with me. Senior year was long. I did a lot of things in school and in my social life, but it seemed there was always a battle when I got home. Classic teenage arguments: curfews, grades, mobility. I did appreciate his general philosophy about my after school life: either play sports or get a job. I tried a job as a bus boy for the winter season, and hated it, so quickly signed up for baseball, and when that didn’t pan out, joined the track team. Couldn’t run for crap, but we didn’t have a high hurdler, so I got drafted and ran a bunch of races. I’m sure it was funny to watch, but longer term - good fitness prep for what was to come!

I had applied to the Air Force Academy, but was told I was the 6th Alternate or something. I was pretty certain six guys were not going to turn down a chance at a full-ride scholarship, So I applied elsewhere, and got in at the University of Washington, and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Supposedly they had a good journalism program, which, after Watergate, is what I wanted to do. I had a new girlfriend who was a year behind me, and a best friend who was going to NAU, so that was my choice. I graduated, got the dorm room paid for, and looked for a summer job.

(Easter of my Senior year, my cousin Dawn came to visit. She’s between me and Dad.)

I remember coming back from putting applications inat all the local newspapers around Phoenix one Thursday, when My dad met me at the door and said I could stop job hunting. He had found one for me that would be perfect. The Academy had called him up and said they had a spot for me. He didn’t waste a second, just said yes! Tell us the date I had to be there. Convincing me took a little longer, since I had the girl, the best friend, and, in my mind, a career path forward. But after three days of long hard discussions… it was settled. His thing: You can always come home. My thing: You know I won’t unless they kick me out.

So on the 25th of June I headed off to school. From then on it was lots of phone calls and crappy letters whining about how hard it was, but they were very supportive and let me just complain it out and I made it through the first summer, then the first semester, then Christmas and eventually the first year was done. After that, the only real threat was academics. I was able to go home and see them for three weeks in the summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break. Of course having a girlfriend eventually got in the way of that. But girlfriends changed and life moved on.

Dad retired and the family moved back up to Washington where Dave and the girls finished High School. Just before my senior year, my grandfather died, and I came home on Emergency Leave for the funeral. I can’t remember what the issues were, but things got out of hand and Dad and I got into a huge argument. His drinking was really bad, and we had nothing but confrontation. I remember writing a letter when I got back to school basically telling him that if things didn’t change, I wouldn’t be upset if he missed my graduation.  Whenever it was, it hit at exactly the right moment. My Uncle Ken, Carolyn’s husband, had just come out of a rehab program. He pitched it to Dad, and it took. Dad enrolled in Schick-Shadle for several weeks.

I think that was the last time he ever touched alcohol in his life; just quit Cold Turkey (he did the same with cigarettes a couple years later. Just decided to quit one day. He had amazing will power when he put it to use). In the end, they came out to graduation and he was like a whole different guy; the Dad I always looked for between the rough times. I remember thinking how odd it was that this great guy was him 100% of the time now.

In later years we had a great relationship. Unfortunately, just like his career, mine was busy with military training and obligations, then marriage and family, so getting to spend time with him and Mom got to be challenging. Yet I tried to make it home once or twice a year and was pretty successful at it. We enjoyed golfing and hanging out on the beach, or at their home in Lodi, when they moved down to California after Susan’s twins were born.

A letter I wrote my Dad about a B-52 Mission

 (This was my 1988 SAC Bomb Comp mission. June, 1988)

“…Flew all the way out to Red Flag - 11.5 hours round trip! Talk about tired! It was a good mission - we got jumped by a couple of F-15s right after we entered the route, but we dove into the mountains and all they got were a couple of IR passes. My gunner locked ‘em up twice, so we’ll see how it turns out.

The bomb run was pure chaos! They set up Surface-to-Air Missiles all along the approach to the target, and the EW had us all over the sky “avoiding” the threat. All the while I’m trying to aim on radar and zero out our timing. My Nav was sick as a dog, so I’m flailing away doing three things at once! Evidently things worked because the pilots said we flew right over the target and we released within a second of our assigned time.

The Wing Commander met our plane when we finally landed and wanted to know how we did. Who knows? - We’re flying 370 kts at 500 feet… it’s hard to judge if you put it on target or not. So, I lied and said it was a “Shack.” Made him feel good. Oh well, one more to go.”

I got to watch Apollo 11 land on the moon!

 I was nine years old and living at Wheelus AFB, in Tripoli, Libya on July 19th-20th, 1969. We had been there since the spring, so we were pretty well established in our house and neighborhood by the summer. I was playing baseball at the fields across the street. The pool was open, and so was the base beach, since the base was right on the coast.

We lived in base housing right across from the High School, though I don’t remember even thinking about High School kids, other than the girls who came over to babysit.

We had some form of television in the house. Must have been an Armed Forces Network (AFN) station on base, though I don’t remember watching much TV as a rule. In any event. I DO remember quite vividly Dad waking us (Dave and I, the girls were still less than two years old) in the middle of the night to watch the moon landing. It was planned for Prime Time on the east coast, which would have made it about 2 am in Libya. That, in an of itself, made it exciting. Something LIVE that we were watching at exactly the same time with everyone else in the world.

News had been building it up for weeks. and of course we watched the launch on the news the day after it happened. The aviation community seemed pretty small back then, especially jet fighters. Dad had been in a squadron in England with Chuck Yeager as his Commander, and flew with a bunch of guys at George AFB, in California. I remember him talking about friends at Edwards, so he was well aware of the Test Pilot track, and how it led to guys getting selected for the astronaut program. I am pretty confident he wanted nothing to do with rockets and such, but he did pay attention to all the advances in aviation as they came out.
The moon landing was fascinating. the grainy black and white pictures, Neil Armstrong coming down the ladder, the final hop to the surface… the beeps and tweets every time someone talked on the radio. The news reporters beside themselves in wonder. The yelling and clapping in Mission Control when he was finally on the surface and hopping around. I’m sure pretty much everyone in the housing area was up watching that night.

I know all the rest of the summer it was THE big thing. In Cub Scouts we made paper mache hats of the moon landing… we would play space ships at school during recess, taking over the monkey bars and turning it into a Command Module, four or five boys flying the next mission to the Moon, or better yet, Mars. Anything was possible after you’ve traveled several days, landed on the moon, and come back to earth, safe and sound.

We all just expected things to take off from there: flying cars, Space Stations, Space colonies. It was going to be glorious!