"I will drink life to the lees; all times I have I enjoy'd greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those that loved me and alone" (Ulysses)

.....I'm coming to the point where I cannot think of anything to write about--except me.  After all, this blog is my blog and according to the First Amendment, I can say just about anything about me.  I feel that I am a good subject to write about.  From the beginning this blog was created for the grandchildren now and the grandchildren to come who will develop a curiosity about their grandfather, and great grandfather, and so on down the line.  However the "line" looks pretty thin now--except for Max and Katrina who have produced Huston who may want to learn about his great grandfather.  And it so happens that he can read 14 books with posts on many a subject.  (uh oh--just got a message above that an error has occurred on this page and that I should try again later).  Well, I am not going to wait for later, error or no error.  I am carrying on despite that dire message.

.....And there, my friends, (or grandchildren) is a lesson about life.  If an "error" occurs in your life, deal with it with intelligence, fix it, and get on with your life.  I have had to deal with many an "error" in my life, and I can truly say that I "fixed" them--with intelligence which I probably inherited from my mother, bless her.  The first error occurred when I was old enough to see that my father was a triple amputee, and for pain that he suffered my mother gave him shots of morphine every day.  It took me a long time to figure out this error, but I fixed it.  I accepted him as my father no matter how many limbs he lost.

....So, since I'm writing about me, I believe the next error that I survived was WWII.  Is it possible that my entrance into WWII was 70 years ago?  I find that hard to believe. My mother wouldn't sign for me unless I asked the Navy to be a "yeoman"--which is the Navy's way of saying a secretary.  After all, I did take typing and stenography in high school and was very proficient in both skills.  My school offered two programs: Commercial & General.  Kids in commercial classes took typing, steno, bookkeeping, etc. while kids in General took courses leading to college.  Since I had no chance to go to college, I decided I'd be a court stenographer or a sports writer.  I became neither.  What I became was a tail gunner on a B24, (in Navy parlance a PB4Y1), and flew 60 combat missions in Europe and the Pacific.  For the record we were assigned to Fleet Air Wing Seven.  When the war was over I came home and went back to work in a bank as a teller.  I could not adjust to "civilian" life after three years in the Navy, and so I became more and more depressed, and even on the edge of suicide.  Well, since I was looney tunes, my mother insisted that I go to the VA hospital for help.  I told her, I didn't need help, but still agreed to go, and that I would be out in a day or two.  Well, the "error" in my life that was a war found me shortly in a locked hospital ward for six months!  By "locked", I mean there were bars on the windows.  I met with a psychiatrist every day, and when I wasn't with him, I was in the hallway walking back and forth for hours.  There is more to this story but I don't want to bore you with the details right now.  Maybe I'll bore you tomorrow.  I do not remember if I spoke in detail of this to my kids--but they ought to know.