Growing up with Mom

 My Mom was absolutely the best Mom a kid in the 60’s could possibly have. She was loving, caring, nurturing, smart, curious, adventurous… the list goes on and on.

Winnefred Lorean “Loree” Elder was born in Weatherford, Texas, on 27 February, 1939. She was the third of six sisters born to Cora Jo Robeson and Frank H. Elder. Her sisters were Carolyn, Bonnie, Cora Jo (Jocie), Virginia (Gina), and Lilli Sue (Susie).

Growing up she moved a couple times between Parker County, Texas, and Washington State. Grampa Frank served in the Navy during World War II as first a gunner on PBYs in the Aleutian Islands, and then as maintenance (From what I hear from my cousin Dennis, Frank did not like flying). I’m not sure of the sequence of events, but I believe when he got out of the service, his family stayed north of Burlington so he could use his GI bill and go to college. They then moved to Texas. At some point, after more education, he became a teacher, a girls basketball coach, and the Principal at Brock High School, where my Mom went to school.

The story goes that her cousin, Olin Howard, was a good friend of my Dad’s in Pilot Training at Laredo, Texas. He got them together to go to a dance at the base, so Dad drove to Brock, picked her up, drove back to Laredo (6-1/2 hours away), then drove her home. He spent the night in his car out front of her house. Grampa’s first glimpse of Dad was his feet sticking out the window. He went back to Laredo and began a letter exchange (from what I can learn from people who Mom talked to, only 4-5 back and forths), until he invited her to come to Las Vegas, which was his new training base for the F-100, to get married.  And she did!

My recollections those first couple years are pretty sparse, but I remember thinking she was always very active with us. Of course how could you not be, with two boys for 5 years, and then twin girls suddenly adding to the mix? It was either be overwhelmed or take charge. It felt like dad was gone a lot, so it was the five of us a lot of the time, especially once he left for Vietnam.

Somehow she moved me and Dave up to Washington, set up a household and got me into school. I think I was in 1st grade, and went to Fidalgo Elementary School, just up the road from our beach. I loved it. Our cousins Mike and Lane were  just a couple blocks away, and our older cousins, Kenny, Becky, Rick and Kathy were probably two houses down, on the hill abouve their Grandparents, Mr. & Mrs. Holland. So there were 3-4 houses we just rotated through. Mom was pretty strict, but no overly so. We had the length of the beach to roam around without issue, and lots of woods to play in. We probably went to Grandma and Grampa Elder’s house in Anacortes, and then Burlington ( when they moved) at least once a week, or they came to see us.

Once Dad came home we moved back to California for him to train up as an Instructor Pilot. The girls showed up about nine months later. That was wild, having twin sisters show up. Lots of help from the neighbors, and we immediately moved off base into a bigger house. I remember starting 3rd grade in Victorville at a new school that I walked to. Then we received orders to Libya, so Mom packed us up and moved us up to Washington for a couple months. 

Getting up to Washington, we had Dad with us. When it came time to leave for Wheelus, it was just her and four kids, all under 10. Somehow she pulled it off, including a stop in Minneapolis and McGuire AFB, to tend to two sick daughters.

Wheelus and Aviano were the places that I really bonded with my Mom. She carted us around to school and sports activities, was my Den Mother in scouts, took us swimming, made do with Commissary fare that had been shipped from Europe or the States and was usually stale, out of date, or otherwise suspect. I think the canned spinach, brussel sprouts, beans and peas during this time really turned me off to vegetables. Somehow we managed: probably with the help of a tex-mex background that could make ground beef taste good no matter what the meal was.

Back in the States meant back to Washington while dad went “Remote” to Korea for a year. We were there my 7th and most of my 8th grade year. More time with family, which I’m sure took a lot of pressure off her. Then it was to Las Vegas, Nevada, where I spent the last half of 8th through part of 11th grade. We lived on base at Nellis AFB, and had a lot of adventures, including boating on Lake Meade, and camping in Colorado in our Shasta pull-behind. She was very supportive of me doing things like skiing with the HS Ski club, playing sports both on base and at school. She pretty much taught me to drive. Dad would get so upset trying to teach me to drive a stick shift, that I’m sure Mom stepped in to keep the peace and things on track.

She was also my #1 confidant as I went through those chaotic HS years. We spent lots of time talking about things like grades, girls, where I wanted to go to college, dealing with Dad, etc. I don’t remember too many things I wanted to do that she didn’t support, and always thought she and Shirley Partridge (The Partrige Family TV show) were like sisters. Very even keeled.

Naturally I did my share of getting in trouble. She spent a lot of time being the only parent to four diverse children, and I think she handled it pretty damn well. Everyone went to college, Got jobs, got married, and all have had good lives. As a parent, what more can you ask for?

As a child, because of her, we got the love, nurturing and support we needed to grow and thrive in a very turbulent and adventure-filled world.

Leap of Faith

 Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is pretty damn risky. I am not terrified of heights, but I’m not comfortable around them either, despite 37 years and 9000+ hours of flying. Getting my five freefall parachute jumps was probably the riskiest physical thing I’ve ever done.

It seemed pretty natural that if you went to the Air Force Academy, you should do some aviation related things. I soared (all the way to my solo), and when the opportunity came to participate in the AM-490 free-fall parachute jump program, I signed up.

I think I would have liked to do it earlier, but you had to have REALLY good grades as a freshman to get into the program and then do well enough to be selected to continue on as a member of the Jump team. I did not. I struggled that first year, as college level classes and the Academy schedule was a lot harder than I had experienced in High School. I held my own, but I definitely didn’t do anything outstanding.

However, by the time my Junior year came around, I was in my Major (International Affairs), and was pretty comfortable both with academics as a whole, and the Academy in general. By then I was regularly making the Deans list.

Training for the program was down at the Academy airfield, since named Davis Field. We’d bus down there on afternoons and weekends, meet up with the parachute instructor cadre, who were all enlisted members who had hundreds, if not thousands, of jumps under their belts.

These guys showed us how to pack chutes (not that we ever would do that, but it was enlightening, and took a lot of fear away to see how things were packed and would open on the pull of a ripcord); how to put them on, cinch all the right cinchers. (If your voice didn’t change an octave, you didn’t do it right)… how to walk around with an awkward load on your back, but always careful not to snag it on something and accidentally open it before you were ready, etc.

Then we would practice standing and jumping out of a aircraft mock-up. We probably spent the most time of all doing that. Standing the door, getting hit on the butt, jumping out into a gravel pit, and starting to count. over and over and over and over again, and repeat. Until your hands and knees and shins were bruised and sore.

Then there was the practices counting: out the door, screaming “ONE, one thousand! TWO one thousand! THREE one thousand.!..” all the way to SEVEN one thousand, then it was “LOOK one thousand! (put your hand on your rip cord, look it to make sure you had the right one);  PULL one thousand! (Pull your ripcord and pray!) ARCH one thousand! (arch your body hard so you were falling stable and the wind picked up the pilot chute you’ve just released, grabs it and pulls the rest of the chute out of the sack on your back.)

After that thtere was nothing to do but wait for that glorious opening shock that just stopped you in mid-air, knocking the wind out of you, and surrounding you with silence.

Of course you didn’t get that experience jumping into the gravel pit. That came on the first actual jump.

Before that was practice landings. Learning to jump from a 3-4 foot high platform, landing on the balls of your feet and then crumpling to the ground: calf-thigh-hip-shoulders. That was the approved landing method. The other method, and the one that everyone did at least once in our real jumps, but we tried to avoid at all costs, was the heels-butt-head landing. Thank god we had helmets.

Finally,  it was time for the first jump. Up in the airplane. Circling higher and higher, probably up to about 4,000 feet above the field. Then the jump master would toss out a streamer to see how the wind was blowing, and after checking, advise the pilot where to head so that when we jumped we had a better than even chance to land somewhere close to the landing zone.

Then it was, “Stand up!” “Move to the door!” “Stand by!” All of a sudden someone (the Jumpmaster) slaps you on the ass, and yells “Go!”

That’s when all those hundreds of practice jumps in to the gravel came back into play….

Because when I was standing in the open door on my first jump, looking down and the ground far below, there was no way I was going to jump. No way in hell. But when he slapped me in the ass, the first reaction I had was to… jump.

And suddenly it was noisy and I was falling spread eagle and I could hear myself screaming my count. “…FIVE one thousand! SIX one thousand! SEVEN one thousand, then “LOOK one thousand!  PULL one thousand!

Then suddenly it was completely dead silence. I was just hanging there in space, floating with the wind….

Until a voice from a Megaphone came at me from the surface, “BRANBY!”

Oh, right. Look up, check the canopy. Find the 4-line static lines, steer the parachute around until I’m facing into the wind, look at the horizon, put my feet together, look at the horizon (DO NOT look at the ground rushing up to meet you). Get ready for touchdown and DO your parachute landing fall.

I did five jumps. The last one, I had a pilot chute hesitation; I had arched so hard that I created a bubble on my back and the pilot chute just sat there banging against my helmet. After about 3-4 knocks and no opening, I figured out what was going on, and I did my emergency body procedure: snapped my body into a ball, and the wind took that parachute right off my back almost. It was glorious feeling when it opened.

When I landed, the Instructor came over and pounded me on the back, congratulating of doing everything right.

I ended up as a Distinguished Graduate of the class, and was offered an extra jump. I thought about it a few minutes but in the end I figured if it was only one extra, that was just tempting fate. Might as well quit while I was ahead. I had the jump badge and the DG. I was good.

The best honeymoon I ever had

 Our honeymoon was so brief, it’s pretty much a blur.

The background story is thus: We wanted to get married in Zelienople. I had worked my training so that as I moved from Ellsworth AFB to Griffiss AFB, in Rome NY, I could go to upgrade training enroute, showing up at my new base in May as a fully qualified B-52 Radar Bombardier. When it all sorted out and I knew my schedule, I called ahead to my unit, in December or early January, and talked to my new Commander, asking for a couple weeks of leave in July to have the wedding and go on a honeymoon. His response was, “We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

So I showed up in May, went to my Commander and reminded him I was getting married over the 4th of July weekend. He said, a day or so ahead for the wedding was fine, but a week for a honeymoon? No can do. I had to be back on the Wednesday after the wedding.

That really threw me under the bus. Not the way to impress your Bride-to-be because the plans had been in the works, probably since Christmas, and more likely since the previous summer, when Laura had moved to the Pentagon.
Besides being pissed, the task then became: “Where can we go for a honeymoon in just three days?” We settled on Myrtle Beach.

Pretty sure we left Sunday afternoon, flew out of Pittsburgh, rented a car once we landed, and stayed at a hotel right on the beach.

Myrtle Beach in July. It was HOT! Very hot. Laura was very smart and limited our beach time to a couple hours in the morning, and then doing some sightseeing in the afternoon, followed by dinner somewhere in Myrtle Beach in the evenings.

Very quick, but we had fun.

When I got back, Laura helped me move into my townhouse and set up living conditions, then headed back to Washington DC to live for the next year until we could get her assigned to Griffiss (Thankfully, we did!)

Come late August sometime, my Commander came over to me one day and said, “I guess we kind of screwed you over on your honeymoon back in July (there was absolutely NO reason I had to be back so quick), would you like some time off in September to go on a real honeymoon? All well and good, but Laura had used up all her leave for the shower, the wedding and helping me set up house, she didn’t have any time off left. I think I took leave and drove down and spent time at her place in Alexandria, while she worked.

Because Kara came along right as Laura showed up in NY, our real “honeymoon,” happened 25 years later when we took a week long bus trip through Ireland before meeting up with Jill at the University of Limerick.

The best wedding ever

 We had probably the best wedding I could ever imagine, and I’ve watched a lot of Hallmark movies.

Truthfully, it was the best. It was my immediate family; a bunch of Laura’s family; probably some work friends of her parents; and some of our Air Force friends. whom we hijacked into being in the wedding. It was great!

The absolute best time to visit Zelienople is 4th of July weekend. They hold a big parade down Main Street, which ends up at the Community Park, which kicked off Community Day. That lasted most of the afternoon and was followed up at 9 or 10 with a pretty good fireworks display shot from the park right behind Pat & Stew’s house. Since the 5th of July fell on a Saturday in 1986, we decided to get married on the 5th, and use Zelie’s celebrations to our advantage, and make it a fun and patriotic event for all.

I drove down from Rome, New York on Wednesday or Thursday, arriving right in the middle of Laura’s wedding shower. That was fun. I think I got to watch her open some presents and get wrapped in a toilet paper dress. It was a lot of fun.

Friday was the 4th, so we did all the things. Most of the wedding party and my Family were in town. We all went down to Main street and watched the parade of bands and fire trucks, tractors, and cement trucks from all around the county. The Resurrection Band played patriotic marches and Miss Big Knob drove by doing her best pageant wave. Pretty sure we followed everyone up to the Park and watched the festivities for awhile and then walked over to Pat’s house to get out of the sun.

That evening was the Rehersal at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church, just on the other side of Main St., followed by a dinner for everyone at Hartman’s Golf Course, complete with cute gag gifts for the bride and groom, then back to Pat & Stew’s for fireworks. My bachelor party consisted of us going to the Hampton Inn where we were all staying, cracking a beer or three, and sitting around Dave Schapiro’s room talking. It was a long day!

Saturday dawned sunny and hot. I remember getting up and thinking this was the important day, and I had nothing to do until 2 pm or so. It felt very weird. Conveniently, the Hampton has a pool and whirlpool, so all the guys spent the morning just chillin’ at the breakfast bar and at the pool.

Dave was my Best Man, and did a great job. He was able to get sabers sent out from the Academy so we had a saber arch for our exit procession. Made for some great pictures! Our saber bearers were: Dave Bucknall (my EW from Ellsworth), Pete Wanger (buddy from Nav School), Jim Veazey (my Radar at Ellsworth), Barry Coble (ROTC friend of Laura’s), Chris Kenny (our friend from Ellsworth) and Gordon Platt (Laura’s Uncle). My Groomsmen were Dave Schapiro (a roommate at the Academy), my brother Dave, and Bob Devaney (another roommate). Laura’s party consisted of Patti (her sister) as the Maid of Honor, and Chris Graeber and Barb Kenny as Bridesmaids. I don’t remember why the numbers didn’t match.

Right before the wedding the guys gathered in the parking lot of the church, and had shots of something. Probably tequila. It was a tradition we had started with Bob and Cathy Devaney’s wedding a day or so after Graduation. (I remember doing it at Dave Schapiro’s wedding and thinking we needed to do a lot more than one: he got married to a girl [first wife] with a lot of money in Chicago and while the wedding was awesome, she scared me! lol!)

Then it was on! The church was beautiful (still is), we had a nice sized crowd, and everyone looked happy to be there. Stew, in a nice white tux, walked Laura down the aisle and she looked beautiful. From that point everything was on autopilot. I have vague memories of lots of kneeling and standing, and remember being surprised that the cushions on the kneelers were gone. (Darn Fr. Bergman!!! Making sure we weren’t too comfortable for this sacred occasion!)

Passages were read, songs were probably sung, candles lit and vows exchanged. And suddenly, just like that, I was married and kissing my wife!

The reception was at a social hall just outside Zelienople, on the way to Evan City (in later life, it became a dog day care facility!). But it was the perfect size for our needs, and didn’t have that Legion or Mason’s Hall feel to it. The wedding party all stopped to take pictures in Laura’s parent’s back yard, and then we arrived to another sabre arch. Lots of good fun, good food, fairly good music (the DJ did not have our wedding song that we had requested weeks previously) and good dancing. Of course there was dancing!

The culmination of the reception was a serenade by Pat’s Aunt June (accompanied by my brother Dave) of a very opratic “God Bless America!” and a chariot ride away in Stew’s shiny new Caddy.

We spent that night at the Sheraton in Cranberry so we could say good bye  to everyone the next morning. A bunch of the wedding party came over and we danced and partied a whole lot more in the hotel lounge. It was an amazing day! The first of many!

The worst proposal in history

 First, I want to point out that I am recording these memories due to the thoughtfulness and love of my wife of 35 YEARS, Laura Jane Griest. This was her gift to me for my 61st birthday. That caveat is important to keep in mind as I describe probably the worst proposal ever.

After dating about 3 months, I pretty much decided that Laura was the girl I had been searching for. If you think of a soul-mate as the person who totally gets you and fills in all the gaps in your life so that it is suddenly whole, Laura was/is it. The future for anyone is uncertain, but there are people who, you just know when you meet them, make everything doable no matter what the challenge or obstacle. That’s what I decided by around mid-May 1984.

It was solidified when we went out to Washington to meet my family in June or July. I took her to every favorite spot I could think of: Seattle, West Beach on Whidbey Island. Sunset Beach in Anacortes, Friday Harbor, Deception Pass, even a Bluegrass Festival up in the hills to the east. Everything just clicked. Later on I found out my family thought we were already engaged, which was NOT the case. But that trip solidified it for me.

The problem was it was a busy summer and the PCS (Permanent Change of Station) transfer clock was starting for Laura. She could sense it, and therefore so could I.

For my part, I had NO experience with proposing to someone. No older siblings. A few buddies at the Academy, but none who planned anything elaborate. I probably knew about having the ring picked out and in hand at the crucial moment, but there was just enough uncertainty in the Air Force’s ability to match us up for future assignments that I truly believed there was a strong possibility she wouldn’t say “Yes.”  

By this time we were living together. The Ops tempo of the Base really ratcheted up that summer. It seemed like there was one exercise or major deployment after another. Laura was involved in all of them. I was blissfully young and dumb, and just finding my way on my first crew, sitting alert every third week, and meeting up with her every chance I could.

One Friday in July, I must have just come off Alert because I had the day off, so I made a big fancy dinner, totally oblivious that an exercise was kicking off. Laura came home nervous as a cat, because she had to do forecasts and brief leadership, etc. It quickly became evident that that was the wrong time to propose marriage.

A few weeks later we deployed to Biggs Army Airfield, just outside El Paso, Texas. The big plan was to practice operating out of austere airfield in case we ever would put B-52s in the desert as part of a conventional war. For decades that had been thought of as ridiculous because our #1 enemy was Russia, and #2 was China. No one thought much about #3. Little did we know, but the thought was creeping back in…

So we all deployed to El Paso. The aircrew went into these old barracks, two to a room, which is where I stayed, bunking with either Jim Veazy or Dave Bucknall. All the support folks stayed in something called Harvest Bare, makeshift boxes that expand to dorms that you hook up air conditioners too, and slept probably 10. That’s where Laura stayed.

Laura had a vehicle to drive to the airport weather shop (I’m guessing on this stuff) to download all her weather maps in order to do her forecasting. The benefit was that she could stop by our barracks and we could see each other for a few precious minutes whenever we weren’t flying. The problem was my crew knew we were dating, and they absolutely made it a mission to not leave us any privacy during those visits. None. They thought it was funny. Laura did not.

And that’s what led to my proposal. We were standing next to her truck out side my barracks after she stopped for a visit. She was reading me the riot act abut my crew not giving us any privacy, and I said something really stupid, like, “Look, I’ve been trying to ask you to marry me for months, and you are always upset about something. Do you want to marry me, or what?”

That was it. The worst proposal ever.

Her response? “You can’t ask me a question like that!”

Pretty sure the conversation came to a complete stop right then. She had to get back to work, and my crew were lurking around somewhere.  

So the exercise finished, we all loaded back on planes and headed back to Ellsworth and our lives. 

Thus followed a really awkward 30 days. because the question was out there. Hanging….

We continued to hang out together, see each other at work, on alert, etc, Finally, the enormity of “the ask” became too big to ignore. We were talking somewhere, I think at her work, and I suddenly blurted out, “Well? Did you decide?”

And she looked at me very calmly and replied, “Didn’t I tell you? Yes.”

Engaged!!