My beginnings

I think to begin this blog, I'll cut in some excerpts of my yet unpublished autobiography. See no point in writing this all over again. Seems like good material for a blog, huh?

The Beginning

 I was born in Sioux City, Iowa in January 1947 – during a terrible blizzard, I’m told. My dad was recently returned from the Pacific at the end of WWII, and married my mom in Bowling Green, Ohio in 1946. Mama had been living in Detroit, Michigan at that time – teaching school. I was born a year later.

Born in 1947, fathered by a WWII vet recently returned from the war, I qualify as a genuine early Baby Boomer. My whole life I have been on the cutting edge of the Baby Boom, and I’m now on the cutting edge as Boomers enter their retirement years. As Boomers go, I’m one of the oldest.

  

Both my parents were from Calloway County, Kentucky and knew each other from school there. In those days, since the depression, there was a constant cycling of families from western Kentucky to Detroit and back, as jobs appeared and disappeared in the auto industry. 

Daddy was an NCO (non-commissioned officer), a Master Sergeant, in the newly created US Air Force. In fact, the USAF and I were born the same year. He was stationed at Sioux City in a training unit, training reserve pilots. Daddy had gone to war in 1941 and was commissioned a Lieutenant during the war. After the war, he resigned, then re-enlisted after a few months as a Master Sergeant.

[Daddy’s military rank always confused me – he held two ranks: one on active duty and another in the reserves. While a MSgt on active duty when I was born, he was still a lieutenant in the reserves. When he was called up for the Korean War, a few years later, he was converted back to an officer, and promoted to captain. While remaining a captain on active duty, he ultimately retired with the reserve rank of major.]

That's me at 4 months.

My parents lived in a trailer. It was not a mobile home as you may now perceive the word “trailer.” It was a 1940’s trailer, and was meant to be actually towed behind a car. It was small and uncomfortable. And cold in the winter.

We lived in the trailer in Sioux City only a few months after I was born, but I swear to God, I have a recollection of that trailer. I know that doesn’t seem possible, but I have a memory. I remember laying on my back in a crib and looking up through an open vent in the roof and seeing the tops of pine trees moving in a breeze. In truth, we lived in that trailer on and off in different places over a couple of years and my memory might be from somewhere other than Sioux City.

There are some family stories about my birth and the blizzard that accompanied it, but they are not germane to my purpose now. Daddy said that it was 30-below zero and there was 30 inches of snow on the ground. I think both of those figures may have gradually inflated over the years of telling.