User:F5-ED

I was born in Ft. Eustis, VA. My father was a CWO2 in the US Army and retired in 1962. We moved from Virginia to California where he got a job at Mare Is. Naval Ship Yard working on Nuc Subs.

My father did not stay at that job too long as he was always looking for something better. We would move every 6 months to a year between the San Fran area up to Seattle, WA. When I watch TV shows today and the parents have to ask the kids what they think about the family moving, I laugh at them. Usually I would come home from school and the moving van would be half loaded. Dad would tell us kids where we were headed and that was it. My sister's would cry a little. But if you didn't like it, you knew where the door was.

The longest place we stayed was in Vancouver, WA. I went from 5th Grade to 11th. Then we moved to a small ranch above White Salmon, WA. for my Senior year. The main reason we had stayed in one place so long was my Father had had a lot of problems with his legs. His right Femur had been shattered in 1969 in Alaska while working for the USAF. After the operation to fix it the leg was 3 inches shorter.

It then started causing problems with his left knee which had been shot in WWII by the Japanese. They ended up fitting my Father with a special shoe for his right leg. But over time the strain to his left knee was too much and they had to remove his knee joint and fuse it. That was in 1975 right after we had bought a new Ford truck with a 4 speed. The few times he did drive it he did pretty good shifting. But it was a pain. So we traded it in 76 another Ford with an Auto Trans.

My Father had done a lot of special work for the Military on Power Plants. And had taught school for Ford using my younger brother and me as his assistants when I was 7. By the time I was 10 I was working with my Father in the Worlds Largest Hop fields on tractors and trucks for the summer. To this day the smell of hops makes me sick. My Father didn't work anymore after that. Even so that didn't stop the Military from calling at all hours of the day and night. Most calls would come from the Pentagon. But my Father would never tell us what they were about.

The next summer my oldest Brother had me work for him as a Plumber. By the time I went back to school I could do a house by myself and drive the van around the new subdivision too (I could already drive. It was just that the van had a 3 on the tree (Google it) which when you're 11 is kind of tough to pick up on). Even when school started I was still working after I got home. As the city had just laid sewer lines out to the rural area we lived in. So my Brother had a lot of business.

Oh. Did someone mention Child Labor Laws? HaHAHAHAHAHAH