after reading royal's dive story it got my memory stirred up,here goes.
in around 1962 we moved to ramey air force base,puerto rico,since i was a kid i had never heard of it,my oldest brother is ten years older than me and my oldest sister nine years and my other sister 7 years,and my other brother 4 years older,so i probably heard them yakking about it.
my first memory was that i only went to school half a day because there wasn't enough room for all the kids to attend at one time,i think i went from 1 to 5 and the next year they completed a new school so that everybody went at one time.
living on a base is like a small american town with people from all over the country living there although as a kid you only noticed it if somebody spoke really different from you.
i remember the johnson-goldwater election and the run up to it,kids at recess would organize into groups along who their parents were voting for,the old man was voting for goldwater so that's where i went.we would run around the playground landing karate chops on each others backs and whooping and hollering until the teachers would break it up.
anyway,around the street you would see iguanas,at least i think they were from anywhere to 18 inches to three feet,you would be startled by them when they would take off through the hedges and underbrush.they had a golf course and i only went out on it to a mango tree that produced a lot of fruit and we would eat them to our hearts content.
in the yard next to the house was a banana tree that produced a variety of small banana's and we would eat those sometimes.the house across the street had lime tree's and we would get those but mostly we would use them to throw at one another,a black family with a couple of girls lived there.
once we were chunking limes at one another,and these two girls came out and got involved,each house had a one car carport and their parents car was parked in it.the youngest one had hit me with a lime so i chased her and she ducked down behind the front of the car.so i lobbed a lime at her and about the time the lime reached the front of the car she stood up and it hit her butterfly wing looking glasses and broke the lense and she started squalling big time.
huh oh i think,her mother is real excited and i know my butt is in deep trouble.luckily her eye wasn't hurt.my mother worked part time at the base exchange and called her to see how deep of trouble i was in,and she said she didn't think i would get whupped,wrong,my dad had a different feeling when he got home in a bad mood.
if any of you remember those GI belts with the metal buckle and the slide deal that locks the belt that's what we got whipped with,my dad whipped my brother to just for being there and my brother was peeved at me for a long time just for mentioning it.
there was atree in the front yard that i climbed almost everyday and i would hang by one of it's branches,this particular day i got my hands in a funny postion and they slipped off and i fell about 10 feet on to my side and on my arm.when i got up i didn't feel to bad but i noticed that my left hand kept trying to move away from me,then i noticed my hand wasn't in the right postion and that's when i knew my arm was broke.
well i started squalling and went to the black lady across the street and showed her,my mom was at work,and she took me to the hospital where they found out i had a compound fracture.she probably wished these neighbor boy's would move somewhere else.they were nice people.about a week after i got my last cast off i was laying on the ground next to the street sign where a kid was swinging around and around with his hand when he flung off and landed on my stinkin' arm and broke the dang thing again but not as bad so i only had to wear a half cast for awhile.
well to the banana bee's,stanley and robert smith were two brothers that lived on the street,stanley was about a year older than me and we ran around together some.for boys our age there was always something to do and explore in nature around the base,tree's to climb,lizards,free fruit to eat etc.
their parents were from michigan,but they had mostly grown up in savanah,georgia so the sounded different than their parents.
well one day stanley and i and another kid were out roaming around when we decided to investigate this grove or thicket of trees and undergrowth.stanley started in first but no sooner had he started in, he came out hollering and flailing his arms.i thought he was joking around but he started running towards home,i did notice these kind of yellow and black bee's and took of running behind him.
when we got back to his house someone said they were probably banana bee's.a guy across the street tore open a couple of his cigarette's and wet the tobacco and daubed it on the stings.that's the first i had heard of that,of course i was learning a lot of stuff at this stage of life.
well i hate to admit it but when old stanley came running out of those brambles flailing and hollering i was laughing at first because it was comical,and i was just glad i wasn't the first one in.
i often wonder if somewhere today if stanley has vivid memories of that day,i bet he does, and i bet he laughs about it,i know i do.
in around 1962 we moved to ramey air force base,puerto rico,since i was a kid i had never heard of it,my oldest brother is ten years older than me and my oldest sister nine years and my other sister 7 years,and my other brother 4 years older,so i probably heard them yakking about it.
my first memory was that i only went to school half a day because there wasn't enough room for all the kids to attend at one time,i think i went from 1 to 5 and the next year they completed a new school so that everybody went at one time.
living on a base is like a small american town with people from all over the country living there although as a kid you only noticed it if somebody spoke really different from you.
i remember the johnson-goldwater election and the run up to it,kids at recess would organize into groups along who their parents were voting for,the old man was voting for goldwater so that's where i went.we would run around the playground landing karate chops on each others backs and whooping and hollering until the teachers would break it up.
anyway,around the street you would see iguanas,at least i think they were from anywhere to 18 inches to three feet,you would be startled by them when they would take off through the hedges and underbrush.they had a golf course and i only went out on it to a mango tree that produced a lot of fruit and we would eat them to our hearts content.
in the yard next to the house was a banana tree that produced a variety of small banana's and we would eat those sometimes.the house across the street had lime tree's and we would get those but mostly we would use them to throw at one another,a black family with a couple of girls lived there.
once we were chunking limes at one another,and these two girls came out and got involved,each house had a one car carport and their parents car was parked in it.the youngest one had hit me with a lime so i chased her and she ducked down behind the front of the car.so i lobbed a lime at her and about the time the lime reached the front of the car she stood up and it hit her butterfly wing looking glasses and broke the lense and she started squalling big time.
huh oh i think,her mother is real excited and i know my butt is in deep trouble.luckily her eye wasn't hurt.my mother worked part time at the base exchange and called her to see how deep of trouble i was in,and she said she didn't think i would get whupped,wrong,my dad had a different feeling when he got home in a bad mood.
if any of you remember those GI belts with the metal buckle and the slide deal that locks the belt that's what we got whipped with,my dad whipped my brother to just for being there and my brother was peeved at me for a long time just for mentioning it.
there was atree in the front yard that i climbed almost everyday and i would hang by one of it's branches,this particular day i got my hands in a funny postion and they slipped off and i fell about 10 feet on to my side and on my arm.when i got up i didn't feel to bad but i noticed that my left hand kept trying to move away from me,then i noticed my hand wasn't in the right postion and that's when i knew my arm was broke.
well i started squalling and went to the black lady across the street and showed her,my mom was at work,and she took me to the hospital where they found out i had a compound fracture.she probably wished these neighbor boy's would move somewhere else.they were nice people.about a week after i got my last cast off i was laying on the ground next to the street sign where a kid was swinging around and around with his hand when he flung off and landed on my stinkin' arm and broke the dang thing again but not as bad so i only had to wear a half cast for awhile.
well to the banana bee's,stanley and robert smith were two brothers that lived on the street,stanley was about a year older than me and we ran around together some.for boys our age there was always something to do and explore in nature around the base,tree's to climb,lizards,free fruit to eat etc.
their parents were from michigan,but they had mostly grown up in savanah,georgia so the sounded different than their parents.
well one day stanley and i and another kid were out roaming around when we decided to investigate this grove or thicket of trees and undergrowth.stanley started in first but no sooner had he started in, he came out hollering and flailing his arms.i thought he was joking around but he started running towards home,i did notice these kind of yellow and black bee's and took of running behind him.
when we got back to his house someone said they were probably banana bee's.a guy across the street tore open a couple of his cigarette's and wet the tobacco and daubed it on the stings.that's the first i had heard of that,of course i was learning a lot of stuff at this stage of life.
well i hate to admit it but when old stanley came running out of those brambles flailing and hollering i was laughing at first because it was comical,and i was just glad i wasn't the first one in.
i often wonder if somewhere today if stanley has vivid memories of that day,i bet he does, and i bet he laughs about it,i know i do.
