By Don
Okay, it is almost the end of the game. The orders back to New Orleans from Nebraska means we are almost finished with the Navy. It’s the two minute warning. This is undoubtedly getting close to retirement. Once again, we packed up and sent our furniture to New Orleans.
We all drove to New Orleans in the new red and white VW bus without Christian who had passed away. We again holed up in a motel and went house hunting with our old real estate agent from Comet Street. She got us a house on Mediamolle Street in our old neighborhood. The furniture arrived, we moved in, and NOLA life number two began. Jennifer and Kent now went to integrated schools. We had some concerns despite our support for public schools. There was some theft of lunches but our red line was never crossed -- Jennifer was never threatened with bodily harm. That would have meant changing to a private school. It takes generations to change culture and we would see it all. South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana culture would eventually change for the better, but not completely at this writing.
My job involved scheduling all the reserve transport planes in the US. A civilian was the boss and I knew him from the last tour. He was a fine man and we worked well together. I was also one of three pilots who flew a VIP C-131 to wherever the local admiral wanted to go. This included trips to Navy Dallas for Coors beer and Adidas sneakers that were on sale at the Navy Exchange store. Las Vegas was another destination but the main trips were to Andrews Air Force Base in D.C. I had a schedule board with flights listed by certain prefixes. One call from an Admiral’s aide that we called LCDR Horsecollar was relative to a trip to Jacksonville. Horsecollar said that on the way back, the ADM wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on sourdough bread. Naturally this request somehow became known to others, especially the folks at JAX. On my schedule board, the flight was listed as usual but under remarks it said, on return flight “One P B and J on SDB.” Apparently at JAX, at a reception line, there was a PB and J sandwich.
While there were a few weekend flights, most were during the week and the family and I had many chances to see the real New Orleans and take part in attending Mardi Gras parades. What a difference from the last tour! There was one reservist Commander that was a US attorney in real life. One day I was in Operations and saw him looking at approach planes to small airfields in Vietnam. I knew him as a great guy and challenged him as to his real service. He quietly told me he had flown missions in Vietnam for the CIA. To see the airfield charts he had flown into is to know bad things about a war gone bad. He later died in a motorcycle accident on a Texas border road while dressed in grubby old clothes and a long beard. My gut still tells me that it may not have been an accident and he may have been undercover for the government. He had been the CO of one of my reserve C-54 squadrons.
But now I received my retirement orders. We knew we wanted to live in Breckenridge, CO. So how to set this up...I flew to Denver, rented a car, drove to Breckenridge and found a realtor who took me around to see what housing we could afford. He also became a lifelong friend and ten years later, after we sold our business, Doris worked in his office. We settled on purchasing a duplex a half a mile out of town. I went back to New Orleans and finalized my plans which meant I would live again in the Bachelor’s Officers Quarters while finishing the last few months in the Navy. I met a Chief who had been a top player on the all-Navy racquetball team. He taught me racquetball and I took to it rather well, playing with him a few times a week. We also sold our little place in Vacation Village in Breckenridge which helped the bank account. Doris and the kids left for Breckenridge with me meeting them at the Denver airport with the red bus. Later, above Breckenridge at 11,000 feet, there was a court where I played many a game of racquetball in the ensuing years. One could not ski in the summer but hiking, racquetball, and golf were great.
Now here is a neat side story on VWs in the mountains. Squarebacks, campers and buses had dual carburetors, set for sea level. At Breckenridge’s elevation of 9,600 feet, there is almost 30 to 32% fewer molecules of oxygen than at sea level like New Orleans. Engines run on gas and air, read oxygen. So 30% less air means the engine runs very rich at 10,000 feet. I found that about 7,000 feet as I drove west, the VW’s tended to make black smoke and almost charcoal briquets out the tailpipe. The centrifugal distributors were also a pain. Cars these days do not have these problems as their fuel mixtures are controlled by computers.
So we found that any VW, camper or bus, needed different carburetor jets than what we had or the engine ran very rough and had trouble in the mountains. So we always stopped at a Howard Johnson in Denver where Doris and the kids would go in for food while I took about 20 minutes to change the carburetors to smaller jets. I would then join them for lunch, after which it was up the mountain to Breck. I returned to NOLA for the final act.
With Doris living a bit primitively in the duplex, I met the furniture truck at the NOLA address, supervised that our household goods were properly packed, and sent the truck off to Denver and Breckenridge. As this was our last Navy move, we were entitled to one last free move to a place of our choice. When the truck arrived at Breck, Doris supervised the offload and set up housekeeping while I remained at NOLA, awaiting my true separation date. The next four moves as civilians would not be free.
For once, Jennifer and Kent went to school on the first day of school. The red bus at Breck was for Doris and the family. When the great retirement day came, I refused a retirement ceremony as being another mickey mouse formation for the troops. I drove the Squareback to be reunited with the family at Breck. So ended the Navy days, however, we still have friends from Breck and three Navy couples that we see and others with whom we communicate. Most of the others have passed on.
So now begins civilian life in 1976. I wonder what I will now do for a living and how everyone will really like Breckenridge. Stay tuned...Grampaw