211211 Sentinel, Songs that bring back memories

I’m listening to some older popular songs this morning.
The first one brought back an old memory. The song was by Ray Charles titled, “Hit the Road Jack.” My story goes like this: I had been dating a young lady named Mary Ann. She wanted me to get rid of my prized possession, my 1955 Studebaker and get a Chevy because they were nice to be seen in. I got rid of Mary Ann instead. I was told she then started dating a guy named Jack. I was at one of the better pizza places in my vicinity with a group of my friends. I went over to the jukebox and selected the song “Hit the Road Jack” only because I liked the tune and still do. I went back to the table and out of nowhere Mary Ann came over to the table shrieking at me because she thought I played the song to irritate her and get her back. I looked at her and said that I didn't know she was there to annoy her. Dating crazies is never a good idea.

Another song came on, “These Boots are Made for Walking” , a Nancy Sinatra song popular in 1965. Christmas of 65 I was on Guam and there was a Bob Hope Cristmas USO tour show at Andersen Air force base on Guam. A group of us sailors went up there to see it. It was a great show and that song was done. It wasn’t Nancy Sinatra who danced to the song, but a very attractive woman named Joey Heatherton and she was much nicer than to look at than Nancy.

One more song I listened to was "September in the Rain." That song reminded me of Joyce's passing away in September. This picture below is actually Joyce's mother, grandma Mickey in the forties, but when looking at her, I see where Joyce got her beauty from. They look identical at that time in their respective lives. I sent this picture to our daughter Annie one time and asked her if she knew who it was. She answered it was Joyce. That's how much they looked alike. Much late in her life Joyce began to look like her mother even more.

I have been lucky in my life. I managed to avoid getting married to one of the crazy ladies I dated before Joyce. I avoided getting killed on a few occasions. One time, my first time out on the Kitty Hawk we were doing pilot takeoff and landing qualifications off San Diego. I was sitting in one of our planes parked by the island superstructure, listening to Wolfman Jack's rock and roll selections on the plane's radio and watching the planes landing. One of our squadron planes was landing onboard the ship.

The copilot was making his first and his last landing on a ship. He landed too far to port, caught the arresting cable too far off center and the plane went over and was hanging over the side of the ship. It was quite a sight to see a big plane hanging over the edge of the flight deck and then cracking like an egg and dropping into the Pacific ocean. If he had landed too far off center to starbord he would have crashed into the plane I was sitting in. Of the five man crew only two survived, the pilot and the enlisted radar tech/operator.