Meridian Navy Stories

By Don

The first 9 months flying the T-2 was sort of a reversal of learning to fly the P-5. When I got to the big seaplanes, I had about 300 hours in jets and the P-5 was a piece of cake to fly. What was different was the seaplane had a 10 man crew and the plane commander managed the crew and the plane. I used to say one took the number of crew and multiplied that number times the number of engines (in this case the number was 20) and that was the screw up factor, 21 if you counted maintenance issues. Transitioning to the T-2 jet from the P-5 meant it was me and a student and a screw up factor of two, three if you counted maintenance issues. After all, in the long run it was the chiefs and sailors that maintained the planes that kept you alive. 

T-2 at Meridian

Then I ran into a maintenance problem. On March 14, 1962, my student and I were shooting landings at an outlying field. I told him to pick up the landing gear and flaps and head for home.  Whoops, we had a red light on the right main landing gear. We cycled the gear and tried again. No luck. It was hard to see from the back seat so I released my shoulder harness, leaned way forward, and looked out the canopy at the right wheel. It was twisted in such a way that it would not fit into the wheel well. I took the controls and headed home, climbing to about 8,000 feet to then pull back the power to conserve fuel. The wheel created right side drag and I had to fly a bit crooked, left wing down with a bit of right rudder to go straight. 

We informed the tower and we were ordered to make a low pass so they could see the problem. I requested that the crash crew foam a runway so I could land with the wheels up. I was told to put the gear down and land on the left wheel and nose wheel and just “tick” the right well to make it align fore and aft. I declined, saying I had a 50-50 chance of that working and I did not like the odds. In the meantime a general recall called back about 60 other T-2’s out on training flights. If I pranged on the runway before they got back, where would they land?

We orbited while all the other planes landed on the two N-S runways. The tanker truck then laid foam on the east-west runway. This took time and I was watching my fuel gauge. The air conditioning control was in the front seat. I asked ENS Shannon to set it on full cold. He replied…”Mr Lidke, it has been on full cold for 20 minutes." Hmm…then what was that running down my back? Must be sweat. Oh well…I briefed Shannon on my ad libbed gear up cross wind landing plan for runway 28 and turned toward the runway, letting down. 

The right side drag was greatly accentuated as I got slower and slower in airspeed. I keep countering this by constantly lowering my left wing into the cross wind and standing on the right rudder. I touched down gear up, in the foam, on centerline while fully cross controlled, full left stick, full right rudder. We stopped in the foam after sliding a little sideways. Shannon opened the canopy and we stepped onto the wing and as I stepped down into the foam, slipped and fell. As I got up, I noticed hundreds of spectators watching from the hangar roof. Gee, and I wanted to look so cool?

When I got back to the ready room, I called Doris to tell her I had a landing problem but I was okay. The local radio station paid a few bucks for newsworthy tips and she might be listening. The CO of the squadron insisted I had let the student land in a skid and I denied it. He knew I had been a seaplane pilot and did not like some of the pilots that D.C. sent to him. 

A week later I was transferred to the base as a ground school instructor.  A week after that I was at base operations for some reason when a pilot got off a helicopter that picked him up at the outlying field. He saw me and shouted, “Don’t worry Don, I found my scissors bolt.” The same thing happened to him on a landing roll out and he skidded to a stop. He went back up the runway and found a bolt from his plane that when fastened, kept the wheel lined up fore and aft. The squadron found about 20 or so planes with over torqued scissors bolts and grounded every plane to get checked. I was absolved. But I was now a ground school instructor teaching classes about the T-2 aircraft. They did minimum repairs and the plane flew again in about two weeks.

I found the Commander and boss of the Training Department to be a first class jerk. He always had to look good and he always had to be made to look good. He was Trumpian ahead of his time. I was ordered to send a sailor to pluck a dandelion outside his window. He was a nut about that lawn. A missing rubber tip on a classroom pointer was a crisis. 

He ordered me to make sure the department Christmas tree was set up and trimmed ahead of all other departments. I sent a sailor into the woods to cut a tree down and set it up for trimming. He complied. Then the Base CO sent an edict that no trees would be cut down for Christmas. I directed a very sharp sailor to check that the CDR was not looking, grab the untrimmed tree and race it out the back door and into a drainage ditch far away. Another sailor was ordered to immediately sweep up any needles in the building entryway and dispose of them.

By now, I had orders to Adak, Alaska. Doris was pregnant and would soon be flying to New Jersey with Jennifer. I would be driving with Christian doggie to Seattle FFT to Adak. But first, I had an idea.  

El Supremo now wanted flowers to be planted around the Training Department sign at the front of the building facing the Admin building and the base CO’s office. Anything to look good. I had the troops prepare the soil as would a good cow college graduate. Then I planted various plants in rows around the GD sign. I told the troops they were to water those plants as if their lives depended on it. About two weeks later there were many young sprouts showing from the seeds and mounds. I had told my troops what was up and that they were to keep watering. Later, after flying to NJ and then back to MS and my VW, I took about four days to drive to Seattle. All the way I had a big smile on my face, thinking how the wax beans, corn and other veggies would be saluting the sun next to his sign.……Grandpaw

The Meridian Years

By Doris

Meridian was a lovely old Southern town with stately homes and large beautiful trees.  It was a culture shock, but an interesting one, for someone from New Jersey. The segregated bus station served a delicious “chick steak” sandwich, but only if you were white. The only real restaurant was Dahlkes, a very attractive family restaurant, with good food and a jar of peanut butter on each table. There were no fast food restaurants — McDonald’s and Burger King were founded in 1955 and hadn’t yet arrived in Mississisippi.  We were part of a dinner group of young naval officers and their wives, in their mid twenties. The group (without us that night) went to the Chunky River Fish Camp, decked out in their finest outfits with high heels and the occasional fur stole. It was reverse culture shock for the folks at the fish camp. They dined on delicious fried catfish served on paper plates.

The people of Meridian, second largest city in Mississippi, met the outside world when the Navy arrived. It was a provincial place, and since we bought a house in town, we were their window into that world. I learned as much from them as they learned from us. The best way to experience a place is to live locally, not on base.

We bought a small house under construction in a new development, and our very nice realtor set us up in a rental apartment in town. It was immaculate, with one major drawback. Everything was painted maroon, including the floors, the paneling and the kitchen table! We arrived in August, put our window air conditioner in the bedroom, and pretty much lived there. Temperatures there are in the 90s in August. At that point I was eight months pregnant.

Jennifer Louise Lidke was born on September 9, 1961, a day before her due date, a precursor of her lifelong characteristic of always being on time and never keeping anyone waiting!

She was named for my Grandmother who unfortunately passed away the year before.  Her first two weeks were spent looking at maroon walls, hence her excellent eye for colors (but not maroon)!

Jennifer was born at Anderson Infirmary in town. There was no military hospital, and the two obstetricians in town did a lot of business when the Navy came to town. Upon entering the hospital at 9PM we were asked “may I help you?” to which Don replied “Yes, she has come to have her tonsils out.”  When we left the next day we were sent on our way with a nice Southern sendoff with “Y’all come back now, hear?” I wasn’t in a hurry to return, even though Jennifer was very considerate, arriving in 5 hours at 1:39 AM on Saturday morning. And she has always been considerate, another early trait. When she was two weeks old we moved to our new house and her life as a Navy brat began. The term brat is a fond term to acknowledge the children of military families and the difficulties they face in always being “the new kid” in frequent moves.

Inez, our next door neighbor and Mississippi native, had four boys, and doted on Jennifer.  Her husband worked for the railroad and left very early each morning, as did Don, who had 6 AM launches in training flight students.  By 9 AM, Inez and I would be sitting in our front yards watching the rest of the world going to work. Inez had never known a northerner, and in those hours we became good friends comparing the differences between us, and also celebrating the ways we were alike.

And then there was Lucy, also someone from whom I learned a lot.  She was a 37 year old black woman, (same age as Inez) who worked for us once a week, cleaning, babysitting and ironing sunsuits that Grandma Mae had made for Jennifer. We ironed before permanent press existed.

She did all of this for $3 a day. Local people were not happy with us, the going rate was $2 a day! She came by bus in a white ironed uniform, was a mother of four and lived in a very small unpainted home. The differences between us were extreme. She ironed her uniform on an upturned dresser drawer until I gave her an ironing board. She loved Jennifer. When we left Meridian on our way to Adak, Alaska, I gave her many things, including Jennifer’s small plastic wading pool. I learned years later that Jennifer was not happy about that, when she said indignantly “You gave Lucy my wading pool!” Jennifer was 3 years old, and that may be her first memory.

Lucy was the aunt of James Chaney, a young man who was registering black people to vote, along with two young white northern men. They were killed by local klansmen. Don tells their story. When we left Meridian they were missing. Black people were very weary of saying anything to any white people, so civil rights never came up with Lucy. A navy friend who was stationed in Louisiana at the time was a real idealist and was helping and encouraging a young black girl who worked for her. Someone set their house on fire and they lost a lot. There were many good sides to the people there. Things were not always black and white, many shades in between existed, which I was glad to learn while I lived there among them.

Among friends we made in the military in Meridian, one in particular is historic. JB McKamey was shot down on a mission in Vietnam, flying from a carrier. Others who saw it said there was no way he survived. As it turned out, he did and was a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton for eight years, but officially he was considered missing in action. The Navy told his wife, but she was not able to tell anyone because they did not want to compromise their intelligence sources in Vietnam. We saw him in the news when they showed the prisoners on the plane following their release.

We left Meridian enroute to Adak, Alaska in the summer of 1964. It turned out I was pregnant in the middle of another move! Lucy predicted it would be a boy, just by looking at me! Jennifer, Chris and I lived in Seattle for two months, waiting for housing to become available at Adak, and so another chapter begins.

On to Mississippi

By Don

Up until this story, there was always humor. There was humor in Meridian, Mississippi. There was life. There was our daughter Jennifer. Navy families go where the Navy sends them. All places have good aspects and in some places, the good conflicts with the bad. Such a place was Meridian.

I thought the culture I experienced in South Carolina would have made me immune to anything in Mississippi. Like going to a Baptist church at Clemson and hearing a minister greeting students with racist jokes so as to encourage them to go to his church. It did not. After arriving in Mississippi, Doris and I went to the MS Highway Patrol office to get our drivers licenses. We spoke to a sergeant. Doris produced her Bermuda license and was asked if it was an English speaking country. Meridian had a serviceman’s club. No blacks allowed. One of my sailors was pistol whipped trying to get into it. I bailed him out of the segregated tank. 

Meridian was a dry town but booze was all over the place. I bought booze at Sadka’s sandwich shop and soda counter as a one-year-old Jennifer looked on. Cops would sit in patrol cars outside a hotel having an "approved” event (meaning white) to assist drunks leaving the party.  But illegal booze was legal if the tax had been paid on the bottle. 

Never mind segregation, it would take hours to fail to explain it. Suffice it to say I was one of three officers to supervise busloads of flight students and sailors to form up with FBI agents and search for three civil rights workers (Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner) murdered by the KKK whose members were police officers. We especially looked where vultures were circling. The atmosphere was so uptight in the search area that the second day, I carried a weapon. At one point a farmer held me and my search group with a shotgun. Local gas stations in Philadelphia, MS refused to sell gas to our convoy.  

We radioed back for a tanker truck from the base. We were Feds. Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner’s bodies were eventually found. It was the day we went to war with Vietnam. James Chaney was the nephew of our maid Lucy, who we hired to clean the house and babysit Jennifer. When Doris would give Lucy a ride home she insisted she had to ride in the back.

Initially every person we met was very nice. They were similar to today’s one issue voter. We were good people as long as we believed what they believed. Their main issue was that they were against blacks. Everything was segregated. That atmosphere even infected the Naval Air Station. My leading Chief once referred to MLK Jr. as Martin Luther Coon. After I talked to him, he never said it again. The Navy was supposed to get along with their neighbors downtown. Some of us did not like the politics of it all.

We found a furnished second floor walk up in Meridian and the renters were most kind, giving us a basket full of kitchen items and their best wishes. Doris was almost eight months pregnant and we only had our express shipment and a few suitcases full of clothes. I was at the base learning the ejection, hydraulic, electrical and avionic systems of the T-2 training jet.

Nights at the apartment were boring. When an encyclopedia salesman knocked at our door, I welcomed him and we enjoyed his presentation but did not buy. We found a realtor and bought our first house that came with FHA sod and two trees. I was now a full LT (two bars). My pay was a whopping $347 a month plus $100/mo flight pay. When our furniture arrived, we moved in, buying a washer and a lawn mower.

The birth of Jennifer came next and Don, Doris, Jennifer and Christian doggie started another chapter with me starting to teach young men how to fly a jet. I usually took a 20 minute ride in our VW to the base in time for a 5 AM briefing and a 6 AM launch, flying two to three flights a day and maybe one or two a month at night.  

Doris enjoyed getting up early, feeding Jennifer and talking to our next door neighbor.  On weekends, I built a fence around the large yard and made a brick patio under some trees at the back of the lot. 

Characters in My First Squadron

By Don

We had a prematurely grey 21 year old pilot, Harry. We would go with Harry to our favorite pub, the Waterlot Inn, and sit outside for lunch where other tables were within easy earshot of our conversation. We would ask Harry questions as to what it was like in the old days to fly the great British clipper seaplanes from the UK to Bermuda. The surrounding tables would listen to this apparent grand old old aviator's tales as he would point to nearby Ireland's Island and say that yes, he flew many a trip to right there. We were obviously navy pilots from the base that idolized this old geezer who would be embellishing his sea stories of yore. It was great sport as we had our lunch and drinks. Harry was also prone to borrowing $20 and “forgetting” to pay us back, probably due to his being quite drunk at the time. We got our money back by waiting until Harry was again inebriated and asking him for $20. Of course he could not remember his borrowing or our method other getting our money back. 

One strange character decorated his room with a solitary can of spinach hanging from the ceiling. He never explained that oddity. Another pilot could not find his “other” white glove for an Admiral’s inspection in Tropical Whites. So he stood at attention wearing one white glove and one white sock. Another guy was the athletic officer and he vowed that as long as he had that billet, there would be no athletics. He did order ping pong balls but claimed that he just made a mistake when a pallet load showed up. We had a designated “uncouth officer.” This of course meant we also had a designated “couth” officer.

One officer did not have his picture posted along with the other officers on the squadron picture board. Big Boo Boo. He was told numerous times to go to the photo lab and get his picture taken but he said he was too busy. The CO finally sent for him and chewed him out as there was another Admiral’s inspection coming up. Seeing the picture board unlocked by the leading Chief who was removing the photo of a pilot who had left the squadron, he talked the Chief into putting the photo of the now gone pilot into the slot for the missing photo. It went in right above the correct name plate. The Chief smiled knowingly because he knew the charade would not last. In about a week the CO saw the wrong photo above the right name and again sent for that pilot. In pleading his case, the pilot said...”Captain, do you really think the Admiral would stop in front of the picture board and say that the wrong photo was above the name of LTJG Lidke?” Of course the Admiral did not know who was who anyway. And that is how, after a year, I saw to it that my photo was properly hung on the squadron picture board.

Another time there was going to be a surprise "recall” to see if those in the Bachelor Officer Quarters could report in a timely manner to the squadron in an emergency. Of course we all knew when this surprise drill would happen. And the hated LT Schmuck that lived to make our happy go lucky group miserable also lived in the BOQ. When the word came around 2 AM, we all snuck out of the building and reported to the squadron. The only one missing was Lt Schmuck. He made trouble for us and reciprocity took various forms. During one loud party, he yelled at us for being too noisy and took many names. As he wrote the names he looked at me, sitting quietly there with my bongo and asked do you want want to join this list? I replied by beating my bongo. Later the Executive Officer said to me. Mr Lidke do you play the bongos? I said no, not really but it seemed like the right thing to do because he (Lt Schmuck) was about to froth at the mouth and we all wanted to see that. Afterwards, a steward came to the party room to warn us that “That man, he crazy, he called the Marine Officer of the Day saying there is an open revolt in the BOQ.” We fell down laughing. The CO and XO tore up the list and BOQ life resumed as usual.

One day, Doris and I were in the Commissary when an officer said I was to report to the XO immediately. It seems that three days prior, while two planes and crews were on temporary duty at Key West, a plane dropped box lunch “garbage” on the Havana-Key West Ferry. It was years before Castro but still could have risen to an international incident. Mostly because the Ferry Captain appeared at the Admiral’s office with old box lunch mayonnaise on his uniform. He said in broken Spanish, it was a large seaplane that did it. Naturally it must have been Lidke because it was so accurate a drop. I drew a rough sketch of our two hour track from memory that was as accurate as the actual track produced by my navigator. The two tracks were so similar that it looked like we were in cahoots and lying.  Somewhere I still have that sketch. My co-pilot on that flight was a LTJG that later made Admiral. I knew the other plane did it but that pilot was a wuss and I got even with him later.

One day at happy hour at the O’ Club bar, Leroy the bartender rang the bell. That meant that someone came in wearing his cover, or hat. It was a full Commander from Norfolk. All Navy O Clubs have a rule that “All who enter covered here, buys the bar a round of cheer.” It could amount to a big bar bill as I found out one day in Kingsville, TX. The CDR said he was not buying any drinks and returned to the foyer and put his hat with all its expensive gold leaf on a table.  Three of us left the bar, took his hat, went down to the edge of the water at Port Royal and threw the hat into the water. We watched it float and sink and went back to the bar. Some rules are inviolate, some are sacrosanct and he screwed up and paid for it by buying a new hat.

The Bermuda Police were rather British and oh so proper. The judges wore wigs. One night I was speeding in my VW bug along South Shore Rd. and noticed a blue flashing light in my mirror. Since the Waterlot was my destination and its driveway was right there, I pulled in. I was in Dress Blues. I got out and came to attention as the officer got out of his car. He whipped his right hand into that flat well known British salute to his ear, smiled and said, “You looked very good on the turns sir.” I returned his salute and stood by as he wrote me a ticket that cost 35 pounds at $2.32 per pound. You did not mess with Bermudian law and order.

 A squadron pilot that got caught driving while intoxicated the second time went straight to the “pea farm” or jail where they grew veggies while waiting for trial. That officer got a Navy undesirable discharge and a ticket home. But British law and civil servants were also to be honored. On a car inspection, my VW had a tail light out and I was being told what to do about it which was very involved. The uniformed man suddenly stopped when he looked at my ID. He said, “Oh I see you are an officer, of course we will take your word.” Certainly a far cry from signs around Norfolk that said “Dogs and Sailors keep off the grass.” Rank has its privilege but it come with the expectation of honor and discipline.

Next dog story....In 1958 there were a series of murders on Bermuda and one woman was found cut up about a mile from our cottage, near Marley Beach. Scotland Yard was flown in from London. Some of the guys now living ashore armed themselves. This resulted in a few incidents of hearing a noise at night and reaching for a weapon only to find that it was his roommate coming in on the side roof and through a window. At the time, a couple was due to leave the squadron and had a German Shepherd pup. They were going to put him down but said they would sell him for $60. At the time there was a serial killer in the States due for execution named Carol Chessman. So we referred to the dog as Chesman and said we would not save him. But we did and he was loyal and the greatest guard dog ever. We still miss him.

After Doris and I got back from our honeymoon at Caneel Bay, we paid our respects many nights with the bachelors of Patrol Squadron 45. They were characters that not even Hollywood could invent.  Of those that I knew well, most are still alive, some still married to their one and only, some not so lucky at marriage and none of them as lucky as me since I met Doris at Bermuda’s Elbow Beach Hotel…..Grandpaw.

Newlyweds in Bermuda

By Don

Doris was easily assimilated into the officer’s wives social circle and she soon learned the ranks of those ladies’ husbands and what everyone did socially. Most of this involved visiting other couples living ashore, visiting the Bachelor Officers Quarters (or BOQ) and especially happy hour every Friday at about 1700, 5 PM to you civilians. The O' Club bartender was a Bermudian and Leroy put your drink down as you sat and was quick to refill any almost empty glass. I was a rum and coke guy as was Doris. One evening, a LT arrived at the club in his Morris Minor and opened the front double doors. He drove the little car (they were all little in BDA) through the front entrance, turned right, turned left at the open double doors to the bar, drove up to the bar and said “Scotch and water Leroy, if you please.” He reported to the XO in the morning. A LCDR’s wife drank whiskey sours. Everyone knew how many drinks she had sipped as she kept the cherries in her glass. It was a place I have long remembered. There has never been a place even close to those memories. Hollywood would think it was fiction.

I was now a LT which meant I had been in the Navy for almost four years and that alone warranted a promotion. I was still the squadron Supply Officer and had three enlisted storekeepers to keep me from making mistakes. I challenged the one accounting line in an important report in which a few thousand dollars was kept there as a hedge for any errors. My guys were so good, I vowed to spend that money in that account on needed squadron equipment. One monthly report went to Norfolk taking the account down to a dime, scotch taped to the report. I was so proud of my troops. The CO knew what I had sent to Norfolk. 

Trouble was, some equipment that we returned and listed as a credit was rejected by the Norfolk people and the result was that we, I...the squadron, had busted that report by around $100. I flew to Norfolk to explain my actions to a Supply Commander. To my CO, the amount was not the issue, I had sent an improper report. When the CDR called me into his office, I expected the worst. Instead he got me a cup of coffee and had me look down at about 20 cubes full of workers auditing reports. He told me most squadrons busted their OPTAR reports by thousands of dollars and if not for a lack of credit on some batteries, I would have been perfect.  I flew back to tell the CO who said “OK Mr Lidke but no more dimes for effect.”

I was initiated into my first crew by being served a great looking plate of scrambled eggs, Joe Higareda did the cooking on 7-8 hour shifts. Most of the crew gathered around to watch as I dug into those eggs. Trouble was, Joe had put in a lot of Jalapeno peppers. I swallowed a lot of water as everyone laughed. Like all new pilots I started out as a Navigator. I did not know how to use a sextant but I was a crackerjack using LORAN and dead reckoning. 

On one exercise, a Norfolk observer declared the first navigator dead and I took over. Problem was, when he died the dividers were under his body. No one can navigate without dividers and at a debriefing I was singled out as basically incompetent. The XO stood up and chastised the observer, telling him I was a new pilot, a jet pilot, and was a good officer. He also said that I was as good a navigator as some that had been trained as a navigator, which I hadn’t.

I eventually became a Patrol Plane Commander and had my own crew, usually a Co-pilot, a Navigator, a Plane Captain, an Ordnanceman, an Electrician, two Avionics technicians, and at least two others in training for those jobs. Always in training, always leadership. 

P5M-2 flown by Don in Bermuda

The squadron's mission was to find Russian submarines which were located at the time by a top secret set of trackers around the Atlantic Ocean, one of which was on BDA. Any taxi driver knew where and what it was. In three years at BDA, I saw one Russian sub which was on the surface, holding “swim call.” By the way, at the time, the ever dangerous Albania also had a submarine.  We had trouble finding our own subs even on a canned exercise. We went out at night using all sorts of electronic equipment including radar. When we found a sub or periscope on radar, we zoomed in at 200 feet and lit him up with a multi-million candlepower searchlight. One plane lit up the Bermuda Queen enroute to NY. 

We flew missions when chimps like the famous Ham was sent into near orbit and recovered. We looked for downed planes and vessels in trouble and a few times worked with other planes and ASW Helos. We put Sunday papers and comics in sonobuoy tubes and when the sub we didn’t find surfaced when the exercise was over, we went down to 50 feet and dropped the floating tube just forward of the sub.  It was immediately fished out. Those guys were at sea for a long time. I went aboard a sub when it was at a pier at our base. We deployed to Jacksonville, Port of Spain, Trinidad, the Bahia de San Juan, Key West, Corpus Christi, many days at Gitmo, and of course, my favorite, Pillsbury Sound in the Virgin Islands. While deployed, Doris lived alone in our cottage with Christian. She even could listen to our shortwave radio and hear us reporting to air controllers as we came home. 

I got a prized new primary job as Division Officer of 120 or so crew members for all the squadron A/C. I loved that job and learned a bit of leadership in the process. Most of those men were great guys. Only two or three were problems and that was a great ratio. It was getting to be time for a set of orders to somewhere. I had requested a fighter squadron, on any coast, any type aircraft for “any nationality.” Naturally, the Navy sent Doris and I to Mississippi.

Bermuda, via Caneel Bay and San Juan

By Doris

Caneel Bay was a beautiful picturesque resort on St. John in the Virgin Islands, a perfect place for a honeymoon. Beautiful beaches, secluded coves, lovely rooms and delicious meals served in a gorgeous outdoor setting. We arrived by boat from St. Thomas and were greeted warmly at the dock by several hospitable employees, some of whom were native to the Virgin Islands. These “locals” would prove to be part of the great charm of the resort.  

Each morning we would have breakfast, choosing from a buffet of all kinds of fruits, juices, pastries, muffins, meats and omelets, prepared at an omelet station. Don became great friends with the very friendly omelet chef, a black native lady, as he made his omelet choice every day!  Several dining rooms were available for evening meals, allowing us to go casual, informal or very formal. Each choice was better than the next and we sampled all of them!  

We spent a lot of time at the various beaches swimming in crystal clear waters, then warming on the beach, being careful to use a lot of sunscreen. Easy to get a painful sunburn in the Caribbean. The first “disagreement” in our marriage came when we went out together in a sunfish, a small sailboat-like craft available to guests. I soon learned that one had to tack and duck while sailing along or get hit in the head with the boom, and also it was necessary to listen to the captain’s directions. If not working together it was possible to become becalmed, which we did. At one point I threatened to jump overboard, not too dangerous in the shallow water.  Don sailed ashore somehow and we parked the sunfish. Shortly after a young girl came along, asked if she could use it and sailed off into the sunset! I don’t know if my nautical terms are correct, but you get the picture!

Another day we took a Jeep tour with a guide, learning the history of St. John. Caneel Bay Resort had  been the site of a thriving sugar plantation run by slaves. St. John was owned by Denmark, and following a slave revolt in St. Croix, a neighboring island, on July 3, 1848 slavery was abolished. The plantations became unprofitable and were gradually abandoned. Some of the properties became homes for former slaves. In 1917 the US bought St. John from Denmark.

Laurence Rockefeller acquired property on St. John and in 1956 donated land to become part of the national park system. At the time of our trip in 1960, Caneel Bay was a “Rock” resort that employed many descendants of the slaves. They were wonderful people who gave us an insight into a culture established over many years. When we returned 50 years later we were introduced to two old men who had been employed there in 1960 during our honeymoon! Many employees had similar longevity with Caneel Bay. It was a pleasure to see many of them arrive by boat in the morning.

We reluctantly left Caneel Bay and continued our trip enroute to Bermuda, via San Juan, Puerto Rico, which turned into another adventure! When we appeared at the airport in San Juan we learned that our flight to Bermuda had been cancelled and there wouldn’t be another for several days! Communication in 1960 was limited to telephone calls or mail and since neither of us received any messages, there we were stranded with nothing to do but enjoy Puerto Rico! 

Don remembers that I almost climbed over the counter because I was so upset, possibly because I had a suitcase full of dirty clothes! We became inventive in our finances which Don has written about and enjoyed an extended honeymoon in San Juan. An opportunity to use our high school Spanish. Don has colorfully described our stay there.

We eventually made it to Bermuda and our new home. Don had rented the upper level of a wonderful cottage overlooking the water. Our landlord was a young Bermudian man who had built it and he lived on the lower level. It was furnished very comfortably with Navy furniture, had a lovely fireplace and a wringer washing machine. Since there was no natural water supply on the island, our water would come via a water ketch on our roof. This eliminated the possibility of automatic washing machines that used a lot of water. The water in the wringer washer was used three times: the first time for whites, the second time for colors and lastly dark colors! Don was taken aback to come home one day to see me using the machine in my bare feet with water puddled on the floor! I had definitely gone native.

When we arrived in Bermuda and Don checked in at the squadron, he learned that our wedding gifts had arrived. He was astonished to see that one whole wall was lined with boxes! We had received many gifts and I realized that the best way to ship them would be to send them via his mailing address, c/o FPO, NY. New York was close to NJ and I had to pay postage only from NJ to NY. Every few days as gifts arrived I packaged them up and trekked to the local post office with them. I got to know the local postmistress so well she came to our wedding!

I was warmly received by everyone in the squadron and our friendships have continued for 60 years. It was great to be young in Bermuda with a group of fun loving people who knew how to appreciate the life we had there. Some of the wives were barely 21 and had met their husbands there during a spring break and married in the next year, followed sometimes by babies nine months later!

One of the wives was a Bermudian nurse who came to stay with me while our husbands were on a squadron assignment. She was pregnant and late one night her baby decided it was time to make his debut! This was outside my area of expertise so of course it became necessary to call someone. One small problem, we didn’t have a telephone! I was a newly minted driver and was now on the ride of my young driving life transporting her to the hospital! It all ended well and my first delivery was a success. It wasn’t unusual to be incommunicado in Bermuda at that time, because services could be a little primitive. If you were needed or someone needed to bring you a message, they would come by car at 20 mph to deliver it. Life in the fast lane hadn’t arrived in Bermuda!

Other friends were evicted from their house and made arrangements to move into base housing. Unfortunately they had no place to go while waiting. Since we had a spare bedroom (no bed) we invited them to stay with us while waiting. Good plan, very gracious of us. One small problem, they had four cats and we had one German Shepherd! But what the heck, we could manage this menagerie! They arrived with their bed strapped on top of their car and the cats. The Beverly Hillbillies had nothing on us. We settled in — Ceci, Kennedy, Maureen the mother cat, the three offspring, Don, Chris the dog and I. So far so good. Suddenly there was a commotion in the living room and a couple of loud crashes accompanied by some meows, and we arose to find Chris had chased the cats into the fireplace and up the chimney! We rescued Maureen and her brood, settled them all down and went back to bed. Unfortunately over the course of their stay with us, all of the cats save Maureen went missing. We had to go around the area one night calling Maureen, who was one traumatized cat. Also we had to be gentle with Ceci.

Part of military life is inspections, for which Don needed his full white uniform, including shoes.  We assembled everything the night before, except shoes. Where were the shoes? Since we were newly moved into our house, things were organized haphazardly. (I guess that is a contradiction in terms.) Anyhow we couldn’t find the shoes. This was the first major crisis of our married life! Searching high and low, suddenly a lightbulb went off in my head! I knew where they were, they were in the banjo case! Of course! Where else would they be but in the spare bedroom in the banjo case? Funny part is, Don had no banjo, but the case was the perfect size for storing shoes. The banjo is a story for another time!

We had many wonderful times with our friends, enjoying dinner at each other’s houses, even though I learned to cook under the watchful eyes of some bachelors. Many great meals were had at some of the unique Bermuda restaurants. For a little historical context, I remember eating outdoors at night and watching Sputnik travel across the sky. An experience to remember.

One of the major past times while the guys were deployed was bridge. Because I had no children and a car, I became a reliable bridge player. Reliable only in that I could travel unencumbered to play; I didn’t know the game. No problem, they would teach me, and after a fashion they did. I loved being part of their games and the dinners they would make and the camaraderie of military wives coming together. We knew we were enjoying military life at a special time in a special place.

Another part of my Bermuda experience was learning to drive, on the wrong side of the road in a Volkswagen with a steering wheel on the left side. And Don was teaching me. He is a natural born teacher, but unfortunately didn’t teach me how to back up! As part of the driving exam it was required that you back up through a course of orange stanchions, without knocking any of them over. Well, of course I failed the test. My reward was now I had to drive with a BIG red letter L for Learner on the front and back of the car. I was a Scarlet Woman! Back to the water ketch for another lesson! As a side note, every time we changed duty stations I had to get a new license and pass more tests, but none were more colorful than Bermuda!

Don’s tour was coming to an end after 15 fantastic months and orders would be coming. It was a wonderful place to start a new life. It was truly life changing for me and now a new life was going to begin in Mississippi, as I was now pregnant!

The Wedding and Honeymoon

By Don

Being a bit excited for the wedding, I lost track of the time at the base and drove my VW rather fast to Kindley Field, leaving the car in a long term lot and flew to NJ. Enroute to Newark in a NY Airways Helo, I dropped the ring down a hole in the floor but snapped open an access hole, reached in between some control cables and rescued it. 

I had set up to rent a Chevrolet Corvair to use after the wedding simply because I had never driven one. Ralph Nader later said it was “unsafe at any speed." I do not remember much about the ceremony other than that I was there, said "I do,” kissed Doris and wanted to leave immediately.  I remember I did the cake thing, fumbled at dancing with Doris, and finally we left in the dark and in the Corvair for Idlewild airport on Long Island. It became JFK later. The plane was a 707 night coach to San Juan and a stewardess gave us two coach seats away from the other passengers, apparently knowing that we were just married. Must have been my glow.

We landed at SJU or Isla Verde International and checked in to the local puddle jumper airline for the next leg to the Saint Thomas Airport, then known as Harry Truman Field. His stamp was all over. I remember the Margaret Truman launderette was in Key West at the corner of Margaret St. and Truman Avenue. The plane was a DC-3 or Gooney Bird which has a tail wheel, 2 prop engines and you walk downhill to your seat. It took off and flew to HST Field where one now walked uphill to debark. Being a modern navy pilot I thought the plane was rather ancient in that it was designed in the 1930s. My log book says I have 76 flight hours in one while at Meridian, MS. 

The next leg was to go by a 35 minute taxi to the other end of Saint Thomas Island and get on a 30 minute small shuttle boat which took people to St. John and the dock at Caneel Bay, a Rock Resort, as in Rockefeller, where we had reservations. So how did I know about Caneel Bay?

Long before I met Doris I had flown into Pillsbury Sound between St. Thomas and St. John along with ten other P-5M seaplanes to fly training flights and live aboard a large Seaplane Tender anchored in the Sound. One day on the USS Albemarle, I heard the ship's announcement to call away the Captain’s Gig which would depart for shore in 15 minutes. Curious, and with no other duties, I quietly boarded the gig with the Captain and five or six officers and was surprised to find we went to a dock at an apparent resort. The trip was for those officers to have a drink and talk to the resort manager, possibly about the activity and seaplane noise on his heretofore serene Pillsbury Sound. I managed two Rum Punches in 30 minutes and we all returned to the ship. No one asked me who I was and I volunteered nothing.  But what a fabulous resort. I thought to myself...“What a place for a honeymoon.” About a year later, I had reason to remember that resort.  

But back to our adventures. It was now getting dark and we were both exhausted and slept very well. So I was pleased that we got this far on my planning. Months earlier, I had made reservations for the resort at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, somewhere on the 40th floor. They accepted my information and my credit card and I went back to the ground floor and around the corner to a Pan American Airlines office:

I was in a dress blue uniform and a nice man said “How can I help you?” I said I needed a plane reservation from BDA to Idlewild for myself on 21 April, 1960. He said OK and wrote it down. Then I tell him I need reservations on a night coach from Idlewild to San Juan for two on 23 April and he said OK and wrote it down. Then I said I need two reservations from SJU to Harry Truman Field in St. Thomas, VI and he said OK and wrote it down. Then I said I need reservations for two from HST airport on St Thomas to SJU and he said OK and wrote it down.  Then I said I need two reservations on British West Indies Airlines for two from SJU to BDA and he said OK, wrote it down, and gives me a long look. Then he said…”and then where to?” and I said “that’s it, that’s all.” He gave me another look. Yes, that one.

Then he said that, as a serviceman stationed at BDA, I could get off the plane at Bermuda but my wife could not get off or stay at Bermuda and must continue on. Thinking fast, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Navy letter to confirm that my dependent wife could join me without further papers and stay at Bermuda. He smiled and left to take about 15 tortuous minutes to check that out, returned, and read the entire itinerary back to me. I gave him my credit card, took the tickets, and walked out with a big smile on my face. So ends my part of the marriage plans.

Again, back to our adventures at Caneel Bay. We ate like kings and queens. Comedian Shelley Berman was there at a nearby table. We swam at a number of beaches, tried our hand at sailing, and had our first argument (see Doris’ story). What a great place for a honeymoon. I wanted to come back someday. But it was time to go home to Bermuda where I had rented a cottage. But upon arrival at SJU, we found that the BWIA flight had been cancelled and we were stuck in SJU for two days and were a bit low on cash. 

But Doris had some cash in envelopes given to us at the wedding. I argued with BWIA and got a free room at the motel that the airline used for their flight crews and we became San Juan tourists. I had been to San Juan before with a ten day deployment of a bunch of seaplanes, hanging on buoys in the Bahia de San Juan while we lived in a BOQ. With our plane to be the first out to BDA, we knew that no check would get to BDA before we did, as any check for the Bank of Bermuda would be on the plane with us, and I had a paycheck waiting at the squadron.

We rented a VW and drove west. We continued on, taking a small open flatbed ferry pulled by a cable on each side of a river. We continued on to the big rainforest mountain of El Junque to a town called Fajardo, past the Naval Station at Roosevelt Roads and back to San Juan. We walked the Old town San Juan, visited El Morro, the old Spanish Fortress, went to the Carribe Hilton and did touristy things before flying back to BDA, our cottage and the squadron.

Getting Acquainted and the Wedding

By Doris

After Don took me home and returned to the Navy and Bermuda, our letter writing began. Don wrote letters then as well as he has written stories and recounted memories for this project! Unlike email, letters from Bermuda took some time. He vividly described his daily life with the Navy, living in the Bachelor’s Officers quarters and the many other colorful characters who lived there. My letters depicting life at the bank were not nearly as exciting. Letter writing is a lost art and it enabled us to slowly get to know each other.  

Following my recovery from a dislocated hip and fractured pelvis, I went back to work. With some vacation remaining it seemed like a good idea to make a second trip to Bermuda and learn about life at the Naval base. And to meet some of the characters Don was writing about. I stayed at a picture perfect cottage colony and we had a wonderful few days exploring the island and eating delicious food at unique restaurants. In August, Don returned to NJ and I showed him our summer cottage in Bay Head. Later on I spent another week with Ceci and Kennedy and their many cats at their cottage. 

One evening they hosted an outdoor party, complete with a beautiful view. Guests were in dresses and the men wore Bermuda shorts with knee socks, coats, and ties, very Bermudian. Rum was one of the drinks served, rum in Bermuda was cheaper than coke and so was very popular with our young early twenties group. In retrospect it seems like we were playing at being grown ups, but it sure was a lot of fun! It was a special group and the friendships made there have endured. To be young in the Navy in Bermuda in the 1950s was a truly unique experience. When Don asked me to marry him it was the start of many adventures in other places, but nothing could ever compare to Bermuda. 

Wedding planning went smoothly. I had been a bridesmaid four times, living out the saying then of “always a bridesmaid, never a bride!” My stepmother Joyce and I shopped for a wedding gown and years later Jennifer wore it at her wedding. Bridesmaids wore dresses in my favorite color, cornflower blue. Wedding pictures are black and white, as color photography was in its infancy.

Our wedding rehearsal dinner was at Grandpa Rudy and Grandma Mae’s House, and was a great success, until the kitchen sink backed up, no garbage disposals then. Don saved the evening using humor to deflect from “the soup” in the sink!

Festivities leading up to our wedding included wedding showers given by my friends. The most popular gift was an egg poacher, three of them to be exact, as Don had let everyone know how much he loved poached eggs. I didn’t know how to cook and I hated poached eggs!

Our wedding and reception at a restaurant was perfect, with a mixture of relatives, friends and even Andy, who had painted houses with Don. Andy and his wife were Italian, and in the Italian tradition gave us money in an envelope as a wedding gift. This, and other cash gifts, came in handy when we were delayed in Puerto Rico enroute to Bermuda!

There was one special person missing from our wedding and we went back to my house to say goodbye to my Grandma. Weakened by a bout with the flu, she couldn’t attend and stayed with her sister, my great aunt Kate. It was a bittersweet moment; she was always the quiet presence in our home who had promised my mother she would look after us and I knew I would miss her.

Don had rented a Corvair and when we went outside the car was missing!  Our house was on a hill and some of my playful friends had released the brake and rolled it down the hill. We climbed into the car and away we went, me in my “going away” outfit complete with corsage, and Don in a coat and tie, on our way to Caneel Bay!

More 1950s Stories and Meeting Don

By Doris

All of my friends were now in college, some four year colleges and some two year junior colleges. Some of my classmates went to Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School in New York City to become executive secretaries in search of the glass ceiling. Mal, one of my best friends, went to a local college and was always ready to go to New York to see a Broadway show. Our mode of transportation was a bus to the New York Port Authority Terminal and then on to the theatre district, which in the 1950s showcased musicals that have become classics and are now popular revivals.

My Fair Lady, with Julie Andrews at 19, was the hottest ticket in town, along with West Side Story and Chita Rivera. One was set in London and portrayed a young cockney girl and the other was in New York City showing young Puerto Rican girls and a different culture. Fifty years later when the revival of West Side Story played in Naples Jennifer, Kelly, Laurie and I went to see it at the Philharmonic. Great to share it with them. Sitting next to me was an older lady who had also seen the original in New York in the fifties. 

Some other great shows we saw were Damn Yankees, the Pajama Game, Auntie Mame, The Boy Friend, Guys and Dolls and Once Upon A Mattress with Carol Burnett. Competing with the musicals were some great dramas by Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill, Tea and Sympathy, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Doll House. Some were over my head at the time, but I felt like a sophisticated New Yorker in the moment!  

Years later it was wonderful to see Jennifer and Kent participating in shows in Summit High School led by Phyllis Armstrong, a music teacher whose great talent in working with young people produced many wonderful shows.

Some of the big names of the era were Frank Sinatra and Louie Armstrong. Although we were not part of the 1940s swooning girls at Sinatra’s concerts seen in old newsreels, we were big fans and saw him twice. He was a skinny kid from Hoboken, NJ who was now a huge success.  Louis Armstrong at the Ballroom was a great showman and opened our eyes to a new culture. Sammy Davis Jr. had an enormous booming voice and had several hit records before he was in Mr. Wonderful, with the Will Mastin trio, his father and uncle. Television was in its infancy and I had never seen a picture of him. When the curtain opened and this big booming voice came out of this tiny black man I almost fell out of my seat!

When our New York evenings ended it was time to return to reality so we ended with a cheeseburger at  the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which had the best cheeseburgers I have ever tasted!

One time, my friend Jeannine’s dad won a go-go mobile (a tiny car) as a door prize at a shoe convention in New York City. It had to be picked up there so I went with Jeannine to claim it. Jeannine’s dad was 6’4” tall and her brothers were even taller. Jeannine was 5’ 9”. These were very big people for the 1950s, winning a very tiny car! Jeannine, being the smallest, became the prime user of the car. But first, we had to negotiate the streets of New York and the Lincoln Tunnel to return to New Jersey, hoping the other drivers would see us in our toy car. It was so light weight it was sliding a little on the floor of the tunnel. We survived and Jeannine used the car to drive to the train station to commute to New York and to drive to the Jersey shore. One time she returned to find it picked up and moved a block away, another time it turned up on the porch of a house we had rented at the shore!  

Ft. Lauderdale was the most popular spring break place in the fifties and Mal and I and a college friend of hers decided to take part. On my bank stationery, masquerading as a responsible adult, I made reservations for us at a nice motel, we had tickets for our first plane trip and off we went. Somehow we were able to rent a convertible and were now ready for a fantastic week of sun and fun. I loved Ft. Lauderdale and marveled at the beautiful boats, homes, and scenery. 

Spring break was everything we hoped for, one big party on a beautiful beach with many people we knew from our hometown, we hated to leave. Turned out leaving wasn’t easy. In those days it was necessary to reconfirm your return plane reservations, which we should have known but didn’t. So our tickets were invalid and we had to find a new way home, and it definitely wasn’t going to be in our rented convertible! Being enterprising young ladies we were able to get reservations on a train from Miami to Newark, the only drawback was it was an 18 hour trip. We spent many of those hours in the club car talking and laughing about a truly unforgettable trip!

My second plane trip was with Mal and Jeannine when we went to Quebec in Canada and stayed at the truly grand Chateau Frontenac. This trip was Jeannine’s idea and it was in April, off season in Quebec. It was so off season it was like having our own private chateau. We loved the old historic city and enjoyed the wonderful small restaurants and shops. I was able to use a little of my high school French and experience a foreign culture for the first time. And we remembered to confirm our return plane reservations!

As my friends graduated from college and started working, some in New York in advertising agencies and publishing companies, we started to spend weekends at the Jersey shore, mainly Bay Head. For two years we rented a large house for the summer, which we used on weekends and for our vacations. During the week we would rent it to married acquaintances, which worked out well financially. Many groups of young working people were also renting houses and on weekends I got a taste of what college party weekends were like. There was always something fun going on somewhere in Bay Head on the weekends in the summer and great memories were made. The fifties were a carefree decade and it was a great time to be young!

The best trip of the fifties was my trip to Bermuda with my friend and neighbor, June. Bermuda was also a premier place for spring break, but June was now employed in New York so this was part of our annual two week vacation. The Elbow Beach Hotel was on the beach and offered the American plan, which meant that breakfast, lunch and dinner came as part of the vacation package. I doubt that this exists anymore, but we took full advantage of it. This meant that on the night that changed my life I was not going to miss dinner! 

We had gone to the hotel mixer, had drinks and met two very nice young naval officers, Don Lidke and Fred Easter. As events unfolded later we joined them in Don’s Volkswagen bug, with June in the front with Don and me in the back with Fred, and away we went. Where we were going I don’t recall, but coral walls got in the way! June hit the windshield and Fred and I connected at the hip and when we stopped June had a bloody nose and I couldn’t walk properly.  Something was out of sync, including my hip and pelvis. 

This was when Don sprang into action and we went to the hospital. My choices were to go into traction at the hospital or go home.  Home was the choice, especially now that I knew Don was from my hometown and would go with us! I knew he was special when we were able to joke and laugh about things on the plane going home. We have been laughing together ever since!

Meeting Doris

By Don

I did pick up one girl and one dog in BDA. First the girl. One night Fred Easter said let's hit the Elbow Beach Hotel and see what the crop is. We arrive and go to the Patio Bar to talk to the social director Bill who once a night tells everyone to turn to their right and say “hi” as an ice breaker. We finally got to talk to Bill.

Don, 1957

But Bill Allan told us they were all dogs. I told you this was a dog story. Then he introduced us to two girls. After some conversation, they said they were going to eat upstairs. Fred and I went upstairs after a while and drank a few until they came out of the dining room. We invited them to go with us to a restaurant. They seemed good with that and we departed in my VW. Half a block away, I slid on some sand and my right rear fender hit a wall, pushing the fender in and it acted like a tire iron. The tire came loose from the rim and went flat. My date was to have been June who was in the front seat with me. No seat belts, so June’s head nearly went through the windshield. She had recently had a nose job and was disturbed.

Fred was in the back seat and had his own collision. It was his hip bone against the lady’s hip bone and pelvis. No seat belts. Fred hailed a cab and we abandoned the VW and went to Our Lady of Whatever Hospital. Yes, his date was Doris who after getting in the taxi, then said she could not walk into the hospital. To which Fred said something like “Oh come on now.” Doris was hospitalized while June, Fred and I made like a vaudeville show and laughed everything off. We dropped June off at the hotel and went back to the base.

The following morning, I marched into the CO’s office and said that I had an accident last night, a girl is in the hospital and I’m going to take her home to New Jersey and I need some leave papers. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and said ”Do you need any money?” I went to my BDA insurance agent who arranged for a friend at the Bank of Bermuda to meet us at the bank (not a working day) and change pounds into dollars and gave me $600, no questions asked. 

So that’s how Doris Karg flew home on a scheduled Pan Am (C-97) Clipper as a stretcher patient with a dislocated hip and a cracked pelvis. As the safety lecture showed how to don a life vest. I asked Doris “How long can you tread water?”  She laughed and has been laughing ever since.  

The plane was met by an ambulance and I rode with her to her home, got out and said something like “Mr Karg, here is your daughter.” I still do not remember how I got home from her house that day. But I learned how to get back there many times before going back to BDA. At the squadron, the talk was that Lidke is so cheap, he will probably marry her to avoid a lawsuit.

Her friend’s father was a lawyer.  She did sue. We used the money for our honeymoon at Caneel Bay in the...wait for it...Virgin islands.

Thanks again Butch Voris, the Norfolk Commander that sent me to BDA, Fred Easter for his Friday night suggestion and the sand on the road. Without them I honestly don’t know to this day what would have happened to me. I regret not even knowing her in high school. What a wasted puberty. What a wasted six years. Were the stars aligned that night? I do not know but they sure have been aligned for the last 59 years.

……..Grandpaw    P.S. The dog story will be next

Adventures in Bermuda

By Don

Arriving at the Bermuda Naval Operating Base bachelors officer quarters in September 1958, the first thing I had to fix was the air conditioning in my room. Not easy. There was none...the building had no A/C. My personal effects shipment arrived in one week and my first VW Bug arrived in six weeks, courtesy of my father who shipped it when he and Mom returned from a trip to Germany. I had sent him a cable saying oh so sadly, “Forget Porsche 911, I’m being sent to Bermuda, send VW.” The Porsche had too many CCs, too big an engine for BDA law. So very terribly sad. I also told him my new Pontiac at home in NJ was now his and he should sell it and keep the money. 

Within a month, I installed a small window A/C. I had a phone but did not know the number. The first time the phone rang was about two weeks later. I answered it by saying, “Please, what number are you calling?” So now I had a base phone but only I knew the number. No need to tell the squadron. I had a single bed, a metal table and a metal chair. I shared a shower with an adjoining room. Numerous pieces of soap were stuck to the shower walls. It was filthy. My request to paint the room got a good laugh. 

Within three months I painted it, lowered the ceiling by using a fishnet effect two feet lower than the ceiling, replaced the overhead light with a lantern, cleaned and stocked the fridge, made a sofa bed out of two mattresses and a red bed cover from Sears at Norfolk, put in a nice chair, got a grass rug, painted the inside of the door red and made a bar out of a rum barrel that cost me two pounds and six pence at a Hamilton booze warehouse. The rum dregs were still in the barrel and the Bermudian and I had to empty the barrel. We did with smiles. I made and hung full length bleached muslin drapes at the window wall. I also had photos and jet models displayed. 

I was ready for inspection and ready for female guests. It happens that all BDA hotels use brackish water in their showers and the base was popular for its fresh water showers, with the water coming from a giant man-made hill that was a water catch. Little did I know that a year or so later, my wife would learn to drive around that water catch. I forgot to teach her how to back up and she failed her driver’s test.

One or more nurses visited frequently and thought my room was “cool” and not because of the air conditioning. Liebfraumilch wine and cheese were always available along with St Pauli Girl German beer. Later on, when my parents visited, salami was also available. It took a few more weeks but the room finally got a two piece six speaker Fisher Hi Fi phonograph stereo which when put on full volume, would make the curtains vibrate. By the way, a 40 ounce bottle of rum cost $1.10, scotch and whiskey was cheap and the Cuban Rum of choice was Matusalum at a horrible cost of $2.35 a quart. It was not sold in the States as it was considered a drug of sorts.

Initially, many of the officers were NAVCADS or Navy ROTC peeps made officers after failing to complete college. Two or three years at an Ivy league school apparently ranked way above a Clemson grad. Still, I made friends with the good guys and tolerated the others. Strange, I never met a Navy jet jockey I didn’t like. But then again, I wasn’t around long enough to really know them. The senior officers like LDCRs were much older, many from WWII and some were very easy going, especially at the officer’s club bar.

Time off was spent at the island’s hotel bars and in downtown Hamilton where one outside upstairs patio place allowed one to watch the waterfront cruise ships, ferries and girls when in season. Season was College Spring Week and Vacationers. Restaurants were superb, steel bands played, and lobster tails tasted wonderful even after too many drinks. We also had many beach parties at Horseshoe Beach, a very large length of wide sand with craggy hidden coves. Two officers had boats and we spent many an hour cruising around.

My room was considered by most girls that entered as a den of iniquity but few could resist. Not that the straight arrow owner was a threat. There were many parties, some of them simultaneous in other rooms down the hall. Occasionally, we would tee up multiple and duplicate recordings of a 21 gun salute of the battleship Missouri on three or four Hi Fi rigs, including mine. The turntable would spin and we would hold the needle at the beginning as someone yelled the count down, 5,4,3,2,1 and we all placed the needle at the start. Of course the volume was full up on all the Hi Fi’s. The second floor would vibrate with the sound and we drank to it. We also frequently played the 1812 overture and when the bells of Moscow sounded, drunks would pretend to ring those bells a la Quasimodo.

I met three or four girls in BDA. On one date, a girl pulled out a cigarette and held it towards me for a light. I had no matches or a lighter, nonsmoker that I was. My friend reached over and ostentatiously produced a lighter and that date was effectively over. On another date, I now had matches and when the cigarette stunt was pulled, I grabbed my matches but the wind kept blowing them out. My friend then smoothly pulled out his matches, rolled the cover to make a circle and lit the girl’s cigarette through the circle. I began to feel snake bit about co-eds that smoked. Sometimes at a bar, a girl would start a conversation with “do you have a light?” So I began to just say I do not smoke. They just went away down the bar to the next guy. Understand the ratio was near 5 to 1 during Spring Week and we had cars and local knowledge. 

All in all, the junior officers were all unique characters with wild personalities. In 20 years in the Navy, I never again saw a bunch like those guys. Maybe it was the plodding big seaplanes, maybe it was the rum, maybe just BDA. Our favorite pub and bar was the Waterlot Inn. It was partway to Hamilton and the Langosta (Lobsters) were fantastic. After one bachelor got married he honeymooned at BDA at an unknown hotel. If we knew, we would have ruined his honeymoon. His last two nights were spent at one of the few rooms at the Waterlot. Ten years later I got a "training flight” to BDA from New Orleans in a C-54, DC-4 to civilians.  I went through the Waterlot’s guest book for ten years ago. This family became lifelong friends. In the guest book for that date it had their names and it said, under remarks, ”Conceived Here.”

Working Years

By Doris

Doris and father at the bank

Following graduation in 1953, I began working at the bank where my father had worked for 25 years. Fidelity Union Trust Company was New Jersey’s largest bank then. Banks could only operate within one county at that time and could not cross state lines. The main office was in Newark in Essex County and my job was in the Personnel Department, now known as Human Resources. There were six of us, including the Personnel Director, Mr. Weisleder, who knew me from the day I was born. So I benefited from a little nepotism plus a family friendship, no interview needed! 

My job as receptionist was to greet people, give three tests, and type and file letters using carbon paper to make copies. Correcting a mistake meant making erasures on multiple copies, a messy proposition. Whiteout did not exist until it was invented by Michael Nesmith’s mother. A bit of trivia, Michael was a member of the popular rock group, the Monkees. Progress was coming, and one day some elaborate equipment was set up to replace carbon paper and whiteout. The operation of this machine was very involved, feeding paper through lights, chemicals, and some kind of liquid bath in a back room. The finished product was dark and not very readable and I thought to myself, “this will never fly.” How wrong I was, this was the genesis of the Xerox machine and the demise of carbon paper!

Our hours were the standard “9 to 5,” made popular by Dolly Parton in the movie 9 to 5 years later. We had one hour for lunch and I would go out to one of the many lunch counters nearby, sometimes with others or else alone. I loved going out to lunch! The first time I went “out to lunch” I was ten years old and a friend and I went to a restaurant at the top of a hill near my home in South Orange. I had 75 cents to spend and in 1946, that covered a roast beef sandwich (35 cents), a coke (10 cents), a hot fudge sundae (25 cents), with 5 cents left for a tip! I was very proud of myself. Today I am a much better tipper.

Every morning my father and I walked a mile to the bus stop for a 30 minute trip to Newark. After a time a small group of fellow travelers sat together in the back of the bus. It was an unusual mix and a very interesting cast of characters, brought together by our neighbor, Mrs. Dutton. Her husband had retired early so she decided to go to work as a receptionist. A woman ahead of her time. She was so outgoing that this diverse group of people bonded and enjoyed our commute together for several years.

Our group in the Personnel Department consisted of a Vice President, Personnel Director, Assistant Personnel Director, Jobs Analyst, receptionist and a Personnel Assistant/executive secretary. The job of executive secretary was the highest rung of the ladder for women in business in the 1950s. The “glass ceiling” did not exist. In our department the executive secretary was easily qualified for a true executive position and was married with a five year old son.  

Women accepted these limitations. It was company policy that pregnant women would leave when they started “to show.” These were accepted conditions throughout the business world at that time. 

The bank was actually a very caring place and at times carried employees at full salary during year long illnesses. My father, along with many others, was a member of the Quarter Century Club, people who had worked there for more than 25 years, some as many as 45 years, by the time they retired at 65, the mandatory retirement age. Many of these people were lifelong friends, and knew me, my father, and had known my mother. It was truly an extended family.

As a footnote to progress, a girl who was hired in 1954 in a clerical position became a Vice President in 1979, after 25 years with the company.

My immediate boss, the assistant personnel director, was quite progressive. When he needed additional workers for a temporary clerical project he recruited older women (in their forties!) from his church and through current bank employees. Most of them had been stay-at-home wives and mothers. They took to the job like ducks to water and did a terrific job. Some of them became permanent employees and voila! A new untapped workforce was born.

The bank put out a monthly magazine called The Fidelions, for which Personnel was responsible for producing articles about employees. The company paid for employees who wished to take American Institute of Banking courses.

We had a company picnic, a Miss Fidelity Union was selected, and we had a bowling team. Each week we crossed town after work by bus, ate dinner and bowled, returning home by bus, after dark, in Newark! Impossible to do now in 2019. The city has changed.

Each summer our boss would host a picnic at his family cabin at a lake in a beautiful area of New Jersey. We were after all the “Garden State!” At Christmas there would be a party at his house, including husbands and wives. Mr. Britain would ask us what we would like to have for dinner. His wife was of Swedish descent so we chose a smorgasbord — Swedish meatballs, pickled herring, etc. — without realizing just how much work was involved. A simple roast would have been a simpler choice, but that never occurred to me until Don and I were married.  

Doris, Herb, and Carol

Have I mentioned that I didn’t learn to cook until I was married? My grandma and Joyce (my stepmother) cooked all of the dinners and although I loved to eat I wasn’t motivated to cook! I excelled at drying dishes — we all have talents! Doing dishes in the 1950s was a nightly ritual in most homes. There were washers and dryers and conversations covering a lot of topics.  Dishwashers were coming in the future, along with with electric washing machines. My grandma used a washboard in the basement, along with a wringer washer and we dried clothes on a clothesline in the backyard using clothespins. At one point we had an actual ice box where the iceman would deliver a block of ice for refrigeration. And there were no freezers, even in our first electric refrigerator, so ice cream was a rare treat which we had after a Sunday drive to the Alderney milk barn. Sunday drives and a midday Sunday dinner were a highlight of the week. Hard to believe now but NO businesses were open on Sundays, and malls were nonexistent!

Mama Leone’s was a famous New York restaurant and our little troop from the bank decided to go there for dinner. At 17 I had not been to many restaurants so this was a very big deal, I had never seen a menu with so many choices. It was surprising to learn that spaghetti (my favorite) was only one of several courses! And then was an entire meal with dessert yet to come! My culinary education was off and running, and still continues. A funny story involving tipping at a restaurant happened on one rare occasion when the Karg family (seven of us, including Grandma) went out to dinner. Finishing dinner, we were all on the way out, when Herbie who was about five and lagging behind, came running up to my father with a dollar bill in his hand, exclaiming loudly that Daddy forgot his money! The dollar of course was the tip on a meal for seven people in 1949!

Another bank outing took us to the Empire Burlesque in Newark. I don’t recall whose idea this was but at 18 I could legally attend and Burlesque was still big in the fifties, live entertainment with funny skits and comedians and scantily clad girls. This was not to be missed! Many comedians like Bob Hope, George Burns and Gracie Allen got their start in Burlesque and went on to great success in television and movies. It was a great show live, musical and very funny, with risqué jokes that went over my head but a part of history I got to see. Here at our retirement community, American House, we have a friend whose father was on the vaudeville circuit, with his five piece band and their own troupe. Ruth’s Dad was the smallest in stature so he always had to play the girl’s part. Ruth, her mother, and sister often traveled with them and like a sponge, she can sing routines that she learned as a child around these guys who were like family. The pictures she has are priceless.

Don Does Puberty

By Don

My childhood through age 12 was so full of adventures that I didn’t really notice girls. Joining the Boy Scouts at age 12 further expanded my outdoor life and by age 14, I was a Life Scout and thought about working towards being an Eagle Scout. But there was not enough time to do it all. By age 14 I was very aware of girls but did not know what to do with them. 

A psychologist would have said that my testosterone had yet to kick in, while some of the older guys began acting like theirs were out of control. What to do? It was sometimes very confusing. I did not realize that the guys I knew were “changing.” Mind you, I knew of no parents of that era that ever “had the talk” with their sons. Certainly not my parents. Sex education was boys conversations, talking among themselves in what I thought were crude terms that made me interested and uncomfortable. The times were different then, the culture different. TV was not around nor was Marilyn Monroe or centerfolds.

Those conversations made me feel like they knew everything about girls while I felt like a dunce, which was a shattering blow to my otherwise high level of self confidence...for my age anyway.  Later on, in retrospect, I realized that late puberty was damaging to the ego if not cruel and that it was typical for teenage males to be braggarts if not liars when it came to girls.

At the time I reasoned that girls did not play any of the boy sports, did not fish, go on bike trips or hike and camp. Some of them even smoked which became another level of teenage macho posturing. I became so aware of how phony some of the boys looked while smoking, I became disdainful of anyone that smoked, especially girls.  Maybe if I had taken up smoking I would have been like the “Marlboro Man.”

While I had many enjoyable days “socializing” with groups of boys and girls, especially at the Jersey Shore, I plodded along, content with who I was, whatever that was. I did not date in high school. I certainly was not a nerd, played all sports but not really well enough to be on a team.

I did date a little at Clemson and found that southern girls were also nice and were especially curious about “Yankees.” Sometimes too curious. Even after rising above their accent, I could see that it was not a good fit and let it go. Then a friend was designated as a cadet date for someone that later became Miss America. I envied him. Doug became known as Mr. America. I later went out with a friend of Miss America to be but alas, I struck out. Back to saving lunch money for flying lessons in the Piper J-5 at Anderson, South Carolina.

Another friend fixed me up with a girl from North Carolina. Another zilch. Still another date in Atlanta with a girl from Agnes Scott which was a disaster, or so I thought. Then she wrote me a letter at Clemson but I never made it back to Atlanta. I then became a Clemson graduate but unlike Dustin Hoffman in the movie “The Graduate.” Where was Ann Bancroft when you needed her?

Now it was on to the next big thing…Naval Officer School at Newport, RI.  Other than almost flunking out and being saved by a visit by my friends the Demmers who drove there through a snowstorm after I had told them I was about to flunk out. Newport ladies back then are best described as life imitating art. Art being the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Yes, Richard Gere got a girl and I went to Navy Pensacola for flight training.

Pre-flight training was initially tough for me physically. The obstacle courses and all that. In class I was competing with real college grads from around the US. I struggled academically but was accomplished in all things military due to the Clemson Cadet Corps experience. I did surprisingly well in something called speed reading. For some reason I was the third fastest reader in the program records. Must have been all my years reading every book I could find. In 1942, my mother bought me a book. That was a big deal for our family in a lot of ways. It was about a pilot and two crew members that went down in the Pacific and spent 32 days in a small raft and survived.  Strangely enough, the title was “The Raft.” I was hooked.

I still remember the first line in my first very own book. “Captain Bligh would indeed have fancied Dixon.”...In 1942 there were no books in our house except an old Bible.  My mother saw me reading excerpts from The Raft in the Sunday paper. She went to Newark and bought the book which was a bigger deal than I realized at the time.  That started me into books, school libraries and public libraries. But I digress...on to the next big thing -- Whiting Field and actual flight training.

SNJ-5 WB from Whiting Field

I soloed the yellow trainer called the SNJ and what an ego trip that was. The experience with the little plane at Clemson helped but I could do anything they asked me to do in that SNJ.  Maybe it was my enormous confidence in general, maybe it was the end of the longest puberty on the planet, but my ego knew no bounds. How could anyone resist me? I was becoming a Naval Aviator. I dated a little at various Florida bases and some at advanced training at Kingsville, TX where I trained in jet fighters which stretched new boundaries in all areas, flying and women.

Any woman that saw me in a flight helmet, boots, sun glasses and G-suit was bound to melt at my will. Sure they would. Home, on leave, I dated a school teacher from West Orange and a nurse from New York and a few others. I found the New Jersey girls much better than the Floridians or the Texans, especially the Texans. Was I becoming an egotistical snob or just trying too hard to make up for lost time? But this was not a time for any analytical thinking…the next big thing was here. Flight training was over. I had my wings.  

F3D Skynight (DRUT), flew at RAG Key West

My Navy orders took me to Key West to learn ground control radar interception flying the ugly F-3D or DRUT. Do not spell it backwards. It did not have an ejection seat. You unhooked your gear and straps, moved a hatch and slid down a chute into a mattress on the hangar deck. In practice, none of us got out in less than a minute. 

Later, I was diverted from the Key West Naval Air Station due to thunderstorms. The LCDR leading our flight of two lost his radio so ENS Lidke led him north to MacDill AFB at Tampa as directed, which created a problem. MacDill was a SAC base and it was restricted to flights with prior landing permission. The LCDR was low on fuel so I had to ignore the tower repeatedly telling me (us) that we could not land. Instead I declared an emergency and flew a precautionary flame out approach with the LCDR on my wing and landed anyway. 

The vehicle that met us had machine guns pointed at us and we were “taken” to the aerodrome Commanding Officer under guard as unauthorized arrivals. We went into his office and there on his desk was his name plate: Col. Paul W. Tibbets. My God, he was THE Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He was most gracious, sent his secretary to get us coffee, arranged for a new radio for the LCDR’s A/C and for a fuel truck, and apologized for the necessary security. We spent the night and flew to Key West NAS the next morning with our story.

Now for my first fighter squadron and RAG, or replacement Air Group VF-21. The Mach Busters flew the F-ll which had been the A/C of the Blue Angels. Thank you Butch Voris. Weeks later, after more training in a F-9F swept wing jet, the time came for my f hop in the F-ll.  It had only one seat. That day came but three of us newbies or “jet nuggets” were called into the CO’s office. 

We were told that Navy budget cuts required some pilots to be cut from the jet pipeline and we were to report to a Norfolk office for further orders. I was living with four other pilots at 112 and a half 58th street, on Virginia Beach. The house was between a house full of Seal team types and a house full of airline stewards. We went to Norfolk  to check the available billets. I took a chance on the big four engined P-6M jet seaplane being tested at Martin Aviation. 

P5M

I was sent to Bermuda for seaplane experience to prime me for the P-6M. There I was to fly a twin-engined big gull wing P-5M propeller A/C. The P-5M was known as two prop fighters glued to a dempster dumpster. I felt this choice was the pick of the litter but I was crushed and angry.  One of the other guys broke down in tears of disappointment. I said screw it, or words to that effect..at least I’m not being sent to Maug Maug. That’s Guam spelled backwards. A few months later when I was learning about seaplanes at BDA, a P-6M blew up on a test flight and the program was canceled. So I got to fly at 200 knots instead of 500 knots for three years at BDA...Epitome of a bummer.  But stay tuned. There were girls at BDA and after a year or so...Doris and friend came to the island on vacation…Grandpaw

Growing Up in South Orange

By Doris

Our move to South Orange in 1944 was exciting. Our family now had a new addition, my brother Herbie. When my dad married my stepmother, Joyce Miller, whom he met at the bank, we celebrated at a dinner at a restaurant. My choice from a large menu was grapefruit and spaghetti, still favorites. Their honeymoon was a trip by train to Detroit to visit a cousin! When Joyce married my dad she was 24 years old and now had a ready made family: children who were two, seven and thirteen, plus a live-in mother-law.  Not exactly the Brady Bunch, but unusual in our own way. Joyce was from a family of 11 children and went to foster care when she was five when her parents divorced. At 18, she aged out of foster care, moved to NJ, and got a job at the bank while living in a boarding house.

Our “new” family now lived in a nice four bedroom house on a hill in South Orange. One bathroom had a shower of all things! But no bathrooms were on the first floor, so we had one of the first stair masters, climbing the stairs many times a day as nature dictated!

When school started I was placed in third grade, even though I had already had a half year of third grade in Newark, where you could begin school in January. This became a problem because apparently I was bored. Joyce pled my case and after picture IQ tests, I was moved to fourth grade. That change was the foundation of four friendships that have endured for 75 years, through high school, college, weddings, children and grandchildren. One of those friends recounted once that when she met me, she told her mother, “I met the nicest girl today-her name is Doris Ethel Karg.” Evidently she felt it important to use my full name!

I loved school and reading. My dad said I could read before I started school. The first library book I checked out was “Deborah” — no recollection of the story, just the title. The public library was a revelation and I was most anxious to move “upstairs” to the adult library. Reading became as essential to me as breathing. Each week at school we received the “weekly reader,” which was the highlight of the week. 

We went home for lunch, ate fast, and raced back to play softball on the huge playground. One of the players who was our pitcher became a cloistered nun. After school we changed clothes and went outside to play. There was nothing to do inside, no TV, no video games, no computers, so it was boring. We played hopscotch, A my name is Alice with a bouncing ball, hide and seek and, of course, softball. 

Our backyard bordered a large field, perfect for softball, and a very large house, that originally was bought by Thomas Edison for his daughter when she married. Thomas Edison’s lab was in West Orange. In the summer we cooled off by running through the hose and sitting in a large wading pool. There was no air conditioning, except in movie theatres. Every Friday night my grandmother and I went to the movies, and today I am an expert at old movies in Trivial Pursuit.

And then there was winter. We would take our sleds and go up and down the hill in front of our house, avoiding any cars that might appear. Our town had a pond for ice skating and a warming hut with a fire where you could warm your feet. Night time skating was special under the lights.  Ours was a tight knit group of boys and girls who at our 55th high school reunion could recall those days clearly.

Our high school was excellent and most students went on to college, but a common school of thought was that it was necessary for boys but not for girls. Girls would be getting married and wouldn’t need a job, but boys would need to support a family. Economics played a big roll also. In high school I did college prep classes (French, history, math, etc.) although college wasn’t the plan. I loved French and Mr. Fleming, the French teacher. l took French for three years and the highlight was reading Les Miserables. The United Nations was founded then and I thought it would be great to be an interpreter.  

High school centered on football games, movies, and slumber parties, where the latest boyfriends would be discussed. We also did a lot of driving back and forth between South Orange and Maplewood; the towns shared Columbia High School. It was true cruising to see who was doing what. The car radio was always playing and those songs are still playing in my head today as I think about high school.  

A friend and I got jobs working in a department store at Christmas in Newark. My job was in ladies lingerie, selling nightgowns, robes, slips, and half slips. Few people wear slips today but Vanity Fair was a big brand then. We worked until school ended. I earned money to pay for senior week. I loved working there and could have stayed but didn’t want to work Saturdays!  

To top off our senior year was senior week. Most people went to the Jersey shore. Ten of us stayed at a small hotel where we had three meals a day, went to the beach and celebrated graduation to come. Two mothers went as chaperones to see that we behaved; we spent a lot of time avoiding them, they were really good sports. On graduation night, a group of us went to the twilight roof at the Astor Hotel in New York where the Harry James band was playing and Mel Torme was singing. I have the menu still with their autographs and drinks were 25 cents. You could drink in New York at 18. We thought we were really something. We took a bus back to NJ and had breakfast at a classmate’s house to top off the evening. As they say “those were the days,” really great times and memories. And each memory triggers 10 more! More to come.

Childhood Freedom

Don, 1935

By Don

Only in retrospect have I realized that my childhood involved a level of freedom not recognized by today’s five-year-olds. At age four I could ride my tricycle a full block away provided I did not cross the street.  Straining at the bit, I disobeyed and was stopped by “Johnny the Cop” who made me walk my tricycle across the street. I wanted to ride across so the next time, I stopped three houses down from his beat and rode across the street. He told my mother. 

We played outdoors all day.  No TV, no radio, just outside.  My mother went to the grammar school to argue that I should be allowed to enter kindergarten with my friends. The school said I missed the age group by a few months. My mother won the argument. So I got to hobnob with older kids and walk to school six blocks away.

It seemed natural that each year I expanded my world and roamed farther and farther from home. I came home for lunch and returned to school. On non-school days, I came home for lunch and then again disappeared into my very own world, being sure to depart for home “when the street lights came on.” At age seven with the advent of a full size bike, the world further expanded. Initially the big bike was a challenge in that once I stopped, I had to find a big rock or high curb or sewer grate that could give me a boost up to start

No one knew where I was, what ropes I swung on from what tree, that I snuck into the local amusement park, which local park drew me, which friends I found block after block after block. No one knew which streams I waded in, which ponds I built rafts in, where I chased rabbits and turkeys, or caught tadpoles.  When I later read Tom Sawyer, I thought my life was much more exciting, except for Injun Joe.

After Pearl Harbor, my friends and I scoured the area for scrap metal. We filled our wagons and took our loot to collection bins, doing what we thought was good for the war effort. I mounted two flashlights like headlamps on the bike and began staying out later. I fixed my own flats and when it snowed, I put homemade chains on the rear tire and looked forward to driving on snow pack. 

Around that time, I was given a white rabbit for Easter. Of course I named it Peter and built a hutch in the backyard.  I used to follow some railroad tracks, sneak into the railroad yard, and climb into a freight car that was full of loose rabbit food to take some home in bags that I brought. My father knew Peter was not a male and one day he went to a pet store and left Peter for a day or two. Wow, I now had three little white bunnies! I found a way to make a small cage for my wagon, put Peter and family in the cage, and towed my wagon via my bike to a few parks. Yes, I was a big hit. 

There was a small stream leading to a very large pond in a reservation. I discovered it about five miles from home and that started my fishing days.  We sometimes fished a lake near Newark. It was there that I remember lying on a bank, waiting for a fish to bite and looking up at the constant overflights of planes from Newark Airport. That led to bike trips to Newark Airport where for three cents in a machine, one could listen to real pilots talk and watch planes land and take off. 

At age 12, I joined the Boy Scouts and my parents sent me to Camp Ken Etiwa Pec in the Kittatinny Mountains. That started me hiking. By age 14, I hiked the Appalachian Trail for many miles, camping as I went with other scouts. We spent one November day and frozen night in a storm that the weather folks said had 150 MPH winds and heavy rain. We knew it was bad as we passed by a lake atop a high ridge and noticed three foot high waves from the wind. We took the train home to Maplewood. Our story was printed in the Maplewood News.

All this was without a cell phone, Facebook, Snapchat or Twitter. We had our own communication device. It was conversation with our peers. There were arguments and fights but we always resolved thing by talking it out. I don’t remember any bullying whatsoever.  We chose teams and played baseball in the street or at a diamond in a park. We all had helmets and shoulder pads and played tackle football. I was usually chosen next to last. My mother recognized my poor hand-eye coordination and quietly played catch with me in the backyard to help me. By junior high (7th grade) I was playing basketball. Not a good shot but I hustled. I actually went to Yankee Stadium before I saw a game on TV.

By the time I got my driver’s license, I knew by memory every road in northern NJ, having been everywhere on day-long bike trips, week-long camping and fishing trips, or family car trips to summer lakes or winter skating and skiing. I also made a handheld sail to use on skates at Budd Lake. I had to dump the sail before I got to the far end of the lake where there was open water.

There is a short book called Change of Idols by John Taintor Foote (1935) about a teenage fisherman who discovers girls. So my next story will be titled...wait for it...Don does puberty...Grampaw

To Those who are not here

Rudy, 1918

By Don

World War I ended with an armistice when the German generals signed the surrender in a railroad car. When Hitler defeated the French during WWII in June 1940, the instruments of surrender of the French and British were signed in the same railroad car in the forest of Compiegne. The 1918 surrender terms were quite harsh and Germany soon floundered into such an inflationary economy that a bushel basket full of German paper money was required to purchase a pair of shoes. I still have a bank note for 1 million Marks from the bank of Berlin dated 1922.  

With little hope for the future, Rudy turned his back on his share of the family farm, left home to the chagrin of his parents, worked a double shift in the Ruhr coal mines and made enough money to be an Einwanderer (immigrant) departing from Bremerhaven for New York on the liner Resolute.

He had a bit of a love affair on the ship and was processed through at Ellis Island. Not speaking any English and not finding many German speaking people, he still managed to get from New York to New Jersey in a taxi, with the driver circling the block a few times to pad the fare before getting to brother Ludwig’s house. Welcome to America, the land of the free and those that would take advantage of an immigrant that did not speak English. Reminiscent of any current immigration issues?

He initially worked with brother Ludwig who was a house painter, going to work taking ladders, paint cans and drop cloths on trolley cars. He soon made enough money to start his own business, buy an American car, and learn English at a night school full of diverse dialects. He met my mother at a German-American social club in Newark. 

He learned how to fix used cars and later told me what I called Lidke’s Law: “If there is something wrong with an American car, the first place you should look is the last place an American worked.” I passed that wisdom along to anyone who might listen. About ten years later, he bought a two story home in Maplewood, NJ during the Great Depression of 1929 to 1939, managed to father a son in 1933 and drove a painter’s truck that proclaimed "R. Lidke Painting and Decorating since 1927.”

After the start of WWII, many fathers went into the armed forces to fight “Nazis and Japs.” Rudy did not want to fight another war and kept working. I went into his steamer trunk and found his Iron Cross, a medal from WWI that at the time was the German equivalent of a Purple Heart.  I wore it to grammar school to show that my father was also a hero. He was very upset that I did that. 

My father told me many times that Germans were good people. They were very smart, worked hard, and were very industrious. He told me how friendly they were and how neat and trim the villages, farms, and cities were. Above all, they were polite and orderly. 

I still have no idea how he managed his emotions during and after WWII, or what he thought of his son who mentally crucified all Germans. Responding to American war propaganda, I constantly drew pictures of American planes shooting down Nazi planes. As it says in a Broadway musical, ”you’ve got to be carefully taught to hate.” Soon it would be the Koreans and the Vietnamese and the Iraqis and certain Arab tribes and of course, the Russians. 

I finally made it to Germany with Doris in 2013, going to a DOD resort in the oh-so quaint village of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the home of the 1939 Winter Olympics. Germany was everything he said it was and so much more. Doris and I went to the top of the big ski mountain and sat and looked around at the magnificent views. I wanted to look up to my long dead father and say “You were right Dad, I’m sorry.” Doris and I have a photo of us eating Weisswurst and a big pretzel mit bier at a small mountain inn. I thought of him when, afterwards at home, I titled it “To those who are not here."

A young Russian girl cleans our apartment now and she struggles with English. I smile at her, trying to imagine her circumstances. I remember the three German student aviators who got their wings and stood in formation with me and the others when we got our wings...The band played our national anthem and the German national song. They were three orphans -- no mother, no father, all long dead from the war. I am not ashamed to say, I teared up...Grandpaw

Childhood Memories

By Doris

One of my earliest memories is being behind a couch when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. I think we were playing hide and seek. I was five years old, having been born on March 5, 1936. There was a great air of excitement but I was never frightened, probably because I didn’t really understand what was happening. Everyday life continued for us. I played with my friend Dale Rowley, who was the little boy who lived in the magical house on the corner. There was a fish pond and a grape arbor and it was a fun place to play.  

Every Christmas Eve my father dressed up as Santa Claus and delivered presents to us. Because we were so excited we never realized my father was missing, or suspected he was Santa. Our Christmas tree was beautiful and I loved the tinsel strands that were hung one by one. Underneath the tree was a village, complete with little mirror ponds and tiny animals.

I had an older sister Marian, born in 1930, and a younger sister Carol born in 1941. My mother was Ethel Galm Karg and my father was Herbert William Karg, starting the all-German tradition carried on when I married Grandpa, Don Lidke!

Foods in particular stand out when I look back at those early years: making tiny apple turnovers (a very popular dessert at the time) from apple pie remnants with my mother, pineapple upside down cake (who would bake a cake upside down?), Sunday night waffles that were my father’s specialty, and the ever popular tomato soup and crackers for lunch. Getting new shoes was an adventure because you got to put your feet in a fluoroscope machine and could look down and see all of your toes and learn if the shoes were big enough. Turns out too many x-rays were not good for you, so they were discontinued. Fortunately I still have all of my toes, so far!  My love of the beach began when I was little as every summer we went to Belmar, at the Jersey shore where it was fun to run in and out of the waves. There was a great merry go round at Asbury Park. There are many good memories of those years for which I am grateful.

In 1942 we lost my mother. She went into the hospital to have a hysterectomy due to some problems. It was a fairly commonplace operation at the time, but you were hospitalized for a couple of weeks. She was about to come home when bleeding started and despite transfusions, the doctors couldn’t save her. It was very hard to understand at six. My grandma, Louise Karg who had been a widow for many years, came immediately to live with us. She was a wonderful lady, who at age 70 came to take care of three girls, ages one, six and twelve. My father was remarkable, carrying on with his job at the bank in Newark NJ. where he worked for 45 years. I worked at the same bank for seven years in personnel, now known as Human Resources, before Grandpa and I were married in 1960.

Life changed again in 1943 when my dad married my stepmother, Joyce Miller, and my brother Herbie was born in 1944. In 1945 we moved to South Orange, where Grandma had $10,000 that she gave my dad to buy our house. That was a huge amount of money in those days and we got a three story house with four bedrooms. So now begins my life in South Orange.

In the Beginning

By Don

My high school was filled with the sons and daughters of the professional class -- lawyers, doctors, and other white collar folk who commuted from Maplewood and South Orange (my hometown and Doris’s, respectively) to Newark and New York City for work. 

The difference between me and the other students at my high school was not intelligence, it was that they had somehow been taught to achieve. I was educated but I didn’t achieve at their level. In particular, the part of my brain that used numbers struggled. Geometry was difficult and I managed to avoid trigonometry. However, I did well in geography and history and what later became known as geopolitics.

But that period was the time of war. Born in 1933, I received a different education with the invasion of Poland in 1939, Pearl Harbor in 1941, VJ Day in 1945 and the Korean War in 1951.  My education was accentuated given my father’s memories of fighting in another war when he was 18 in the Kaiser’s artillery. My father Rudy lost one brother in the horrific battle of Verdun in 1916 and his second brother was last seen being marched out of Stalingrad in 1943 as a prisoner of the Russians. I was both naive and infatuated with history and current events.

Airplanes were a great part of WWII. I made model planes and wound up their rubber bands and flew them until their crashes made them irreparable. The Flying Tigers of 1942 captured my imagination. I took a P-40 model that was not very flyable, put it in my bicycle basket and took it to the top of Goethall’s Bridge at Staten Island. I wound it up, poured lighter fluid on it, torched it with a match and sent it 300 feet down in flames to the water, giving it a proper death, or so I thought at the age of 10.

Rudy never talked about the horrors of his war and did not try to dissuade my imagined heroics of WWII and its pilots. I was never given a toy gun. In my grammar school days I played cowboys and indians with a stick. In those days, Hollywood did not show blood and gore when people died.  Bodies yes, but no gore.

Rudy left me to my aseptic vision of war, grateful that we were in America. His idea of achievement was to work harder for his family.  He wanted to change the sign on his painter’s truck to read...“And Son.” I would have none of that and thought that I might want to fly. Pilots never died, they just crashed.

In 1951, visits to the high school guide’s office made me aware of the cost of a college education. By happenstance and still rudderless, I drove to the Philadelphia airport with two equally rudderless friends to see a newly reactivated Navy flight demonstration team called the Blue Angels. The announced leader was a pilot named Butch Voris. It was most impressive. The planes were F-9 Panther jets. Little did I know that I would later fly them.  

Meanwhile, Rudy painted a house in South Orange. Someone showed him a yearbook from Clemson with many photos of uniformed cadets, as was the custom at an A&M college. I was not asked which college I wanted to attend but it was Clemson or “And Son” on the truck.

Flown at Kingsville, TX

Clemson had an aero club and I learned to fly a Piper J-5 Cub mostly with lunch money and a redneck instructor in bib overalls. Clemson had Air Force ROTC but in my sophomore year I failed my flight physical due to a scarred left ear drum. Remembering the Navy planes at PHL, I drove to Raleigh and signed up for the Navy flight program. About three years later I flew F-9 Panther jets at Kingsville, TX in gunnery, rockets, bombs and formation flying with Korean veteran pilots who occasionally taught us dog fighting. At this point I thought I was God’s gift to aviation. What an education I was to have in the NAVY.

To this day, I remember the trip to PHL and think...Thank you Butch Voris.

So began 20 years of Navy flying.

The Karg Family

Great grandfather William Karg

The Karg family tree starts when Martin Luther Karg and Maria Kulmas came to the United States at the time of the Franco-Prussian war, which was in 1871-1872. They had three children, Magdalene (Lena), Joseph, and William, my grandfather. William married Louise Ringwald. My father Herbert William, was born in 1905. There was a daughter, Frances, who died in infancy.

When we lived in Newark I would sometimes take a walk on Sunday to visit Aunt Lena and Uncle Joe. To my eight year old eyes they seemed very old! My grandfather William died around 1925, so I never knew him. My grandmother, Louise Karg, came to live with us when my mother died in 1942. Uncle Joe never married and Aunt Lena married Fred Haussmann. She later took back her maiden name of Karg. I never knew why. A family skeleton, I guess. They had one son, Fred, who married Lucille and they also had one son, Freddie. For a small family tree this is beginning to sound like a Russian novel!

Doris’s grandmother

My grandmother was a very special person who said my grandfather had what she called the “Karg” disposition, as did my father. They were very easy going people, who took everything in stride. Nothing ever bothered them and they never lost their tempers. People would ask my grandmother why she never remarried and her answer was “I knew what I had, but I didn’t know what I would get.” I think she became a “Karg” by osmosis because I never saw her lose her temper.

I don’ t know what my grandfather did but we were always told that the “Kargs” going back to the old country were musicians. My father went to Brown University but dropped out when my grandfather died. My grandmother had some property in Newark and I guess had some money to live on because when we bought our house in South Orange, she contributed $10,000, which was a lot of money in 1945. My father promised her she would always have a place to live.

My grandmother always woke us up and had a small alarm clock that she set every day. When she died at home in the early morning hours one day in 1960 my father was with her. When he looked at her clock later he saw that it had stopped when she died!

In looking at the family trees of the Kargs and the Lidkes, through Jennifer and Kent we are all of German descent, which is remarkable. So how do we explain that our favorite food is pizza?

To end on a funny note — when Jennifer had the family tree in traditional form on her desk at school, one of the kids looked at it and said “Your grandfather was Martin Luther King?”