Laon Air Force Base, France Memories Part 4

The fighter planes at the kids park.

Cheese burgers at the NCO mess, with "Man-yan-aise?", would ask Pia.

Demolition of the control tower and micro-wave station in 1967, what a blast! What a crater.....

The tons of paper littering the base, most of classified, in 1967 as everything was thrown away and there was no time for burning.

The steam lines arching through the air to supply heat to the buildings.

The hurking big WWII bomb they found under the road during pipe repairs! What a mess.

The orange water out of the taps.

"Lamb Tenders" at the school cafeteria (found out years later what they really were!).

(Teaching the locals to say, "Kiss me quick!") Hey who did that one!

The annual air powered vaccinations - guaranteed to blow your arm off! Besides, you were likely to get every disease known to mankind anyway!

The snow during the winter of 1966, eepah!

The coal barges, the coking plant, the brown smudge of the sky.

Sugar beet harvesting and the bombs lining the roads every spring and fall. The less than brilliant guys whom decided to take some of them home in their trunk. (BOOM!)

The chicken farmer whom would throw his chickens in front of your car, on a blind curve, and then charge you for 10 generations of chickens.............. Yah, last I hear he went to jail for that one!

Laon Air Force Base, France Memories Part 3

Every afternoon at 5:00 on Radio Verdun - "Wipeout", by the Ventures, every single day!

Radio Caroline, the only good station 24x7, on the air. It was an old Liberty ship anchored off of the Dutch coast and broadcast in English - which really po'ed the English government, eventually leading to the assassination of the owner of Radio Caroline. But, they stayed on the air never the less. The only time they ever went off the air was when a seagull went through the radio room window in a a storm and caused quite a mess.

Radio Free Europe and their constant playing of the songs, "Boardwalk" and "Broadway". Of course I though they were referring to the Monopoly property Boardwalk - rather than Atlantic City; I didn't have a clue as to what a Broadway was (wide street in the dictionary). So, if I thought the songs were senseless before - it meant even less for me to know there were places called this. Years later I met one of the RFE broadcasters and asked why they constantly played those tunes. His reply was that the US Government required this as it was supposed to make those behind the Iron Curtain long for freedom and the riches the West had to offer. Huh? Gambling and bad plays are the West's legacy others long for? Huh?

Listening to Radio Havana, Radio Moscow, the RBC out of Australia, HCJB in Ecuador, Voice of America - all on my shortwave radio. I used to roar with laughter at how the same story could be presented at least four different ways every single day. I finally figured out that the truth lay somewhere between the opinions offered.......

And though Laon had been closed for a year - the 1968 Prague Radio broadcast as the Prague radio station fell to the Eastern Bloc invaders - and no one would lift a finger in the west to help them. I heard the explosions and gunfire as the final battle took place for control of the sound room. And then silence.

How many died due to NATO cowardice? For the first time in my life I was ashamed of NATO - it murdered those young people as sure as if they had bombed the station themselves.............

Laon Air Force Base, France Memories Part 2

All of the thousands of stairs from the town of Laon to the top of the mountain where Notre Dame de Laon sits. Doesn't matter how cold the day is, by the time you reach the top you would kill for an iced drink. Of course you can't have the ice as it is parasite ridden, same for the ice cream. Argh!

The incredibly friendly people. We are in your debt for your many kindnesses through the years of our station there!

The horrible bus ride from Laon to Quessy Centre, made only worse by the neo-fascist bus monitors. May you truly get yours in life!

Couvron the town where Marie Fischer lived.

Crepe (with lots of accents!) where Van Gogh saw a starry sky and I found the exact place he had painted from – and that got me another A in art class.

The hills of Fontenac and the ME 262 underground hanger we found, complete with aircraft!

Quessy Centre, where Isabelle Bourdon taught me a tiny percent of what she knew of about being a chef and gifted me for life. Allain my friend. The canal and our 17th century house.

Quessy, where I first tried anise - stoned for three days.....

Tergnier (sp?) where our neighbor was a train engineer. Fascinating place the rail yards.

La Faire, with the open air market and some of the funniest and friendliest police I have ever met anywhere!

The May Day riot of 1966 when the NATO kids were slaughtered in Tergnier, leaving us in fear for our lives for the next year until we could leave.

The asp I found in our backyard one spring morning which scared the locals so bad they burned down the meadow - and fried a whole bunch of snakes!

The church bells. How they rang for my friend when he died. 102 times, once for each year of his life. I look forward to seeing you again one of these days.

Those crazy British tourists whom never could drive over a bridge! How many did they haul out of the canal? Dozens.

Our Flemish Giant rabbit we took for walks on a cat leash around town. Yah, it turned a few heads, plus she weighed in at 30 pounds! Just loved peanut butter and oatmeal.

Laon Air Force Base, France Memories Part I

I hear there are about 5,000 of us whom are the survivors of the NATO educational gulag system at the Laon Air Force Base. Laon was a base in northern France, near the Belgian border. In this forsaken place, important tasks were performed to protect Western Europe and Northern Africa from the threat of non recognized forms of government. However, for the youth, it was prison time, 12x5 every week, within the gulag.

My family was there 1965 to 1967, when the base was closed. Seems the American Ambassador to France had a son whom at the ripe age of 14: stole a car and managed to run over some old lady. Naturally, the French were angered over this as the kid had immunity and could not be charged, much less expelled. De Gaulle, less than happy, ordered all NATO troops off of French soil by July 1967. Not to be out done, the Ambassador commented he could get NATO out by April. De Gaulle, recognized the affront and changed the date to April.

 
My first year in the gulag system was pretty miserable, especially with the school being next to my father's office which was definitely not cool. On the other hand, he could come over and check me out from detention easier. The worse part of the year was my English teacher. "Oh, CHRISTopher, CHRISTopher, it must be wonderful having the name of Christ in your name....." Ok, I only got called by my full name when I was in major trouble and as far as I knew my family could have been Thor worshippers. And as for spelling, I still don't use most the words she made us memorize!

Or, the horrible French class, where to this day I wonder what the heck Robert the red-head had been up to! As we proved, you can't talk to someone in a foreign language without interpretation - and still expect anyone to learn the language, duh!

Or, Elizabeth Mahoney - best looking teacher any young male could have. We honestly used to police ourselves just so that she would not get angry with us (what a temper!), but what a beauty....

The highlight of that first year was organizing a huge snowball fight with the teachers while they were on parade. We slaughtered them and Kris was in detention yet again. Free thinkers were not welcome within the gulag.

The second year was easier because there wasn't much of a base left. Most of the families had been transferred to "Upper X" in England. The only people whom seemed did not know this was Upper Hayford was apparently the military types. No one was allowed to even whisper "Hayford" in public without the MP's jumping you. Loose lips sink ships you know.....yawn.....

We took a tremendous amount of field trips the second year and I did get to meet Picasso for an afternoon.  Yah, art class had its rewards – if only the teacher had been an artist herself (might have made the class a little easier…..)

So, everyone except for my family went to England, we were moved to Germany. There were no yearbooks back then so I have only vague memories of Daphne (Summers?) (the only female to talk to me rather than hit me over the head with her purse!), Michael Wormsby (the school bully I am not likely to ever forget (grrrrr!)), Joey Foster (the most tragic child I have ever known), the Fischer family (of Couvron) and Dusty Shannon (best soccer player we ever had!). Everyone else has faded.

Holler if you were there, especially if you have any pictures!

First Annual Gummi Bear Awards!

And, the award goes to Kara for correctly answering a question I no longer remember!

Hungarian Mystery

Consider this photo for a moment:
    

   
The year is 1956 and Hungary is up to their second unsuccessful revolt.  This photo is of one of the torchlight protests held in Zurich by students for Hungarians.  Eventually about 50.000 would be adopted by Switzerland, many more by other European countries.  Super cool, I never knew this piece of history before.

However, this is a MYSTERY photograph.  Why?  Well, can you see the man in the lower center section of this photo in a light colored overcoat?  He is looking directly into the camera.

This is my father!  In reality, he was stationed in Iceland in 1956, damaged his eyes in an explosion in February and had to wear glasses for the rest of his life.  I have done a very careful blow up of this photo, only to find that it is indeed my father in American Military glasses!  The photo's time frame only adds to the authentication.  So no mistaking the American military type in the crowd!

So, what was father doing in Zurich, in 1956?

As an interesting side note to history, this is also when several Soviet nuclear types defected through Hungary to the west.

1 + 1 = ?????

Perhaps now I am beginning to understand how father got his three Bronze Stars.  And maybe those rants of being a spy really where not so far from the truth, instead of dementia.....

The Great Gummi Bear Hunt

Friday evening was a perfect time for shooting. No wind, no sun, light overcast, no rain. Also almost no one else at the range! I set a target at 100m with 5 gummi bears attached to a piece of 10mm plywood and settled down.

First shot was for sighting, it was good.

Second shot tagged a gummi's right ear.

Third shot tagged another gummi's right ear.

Fourth shot blew the head off of the gummi. But, that was not all.

It took me about 10 minutes to find the headless gummi bear. It had been blown sideways to the target. In person you can see where the head has been cleanly severed by the bullet for about 2/3 the thickness of the gummi. However, the remaining 1/3 is raggedly torn backwards.

I am still waiting for a call from my physics friend, but it appears that the gelatin in the gummi bears, under great pressure - such as a 50gr bullet moving at over 4,000 feet per second, creates an explosive force! Yes, just the head of the gummi blew a 6cm hole through the plywood!

Go figure.........