221231 Last Post of 2022

Saturday December 31, 2022 This is the last day of 2022, not the best year, not the worst year, just another year in a long line of years I’ve had in my 77 year run.

This is a good time of the year to look back at what I have done. I went through grade school, high school, navy boot camp, aviation electronics school, navy repair schools for radio, navigation, identification friend or foe, Loran, tactical navigation, power supplies, fire fighting, plane directing, survival/escape and evasion and shore patrol tactics. I taught aviation electronics school, took courses in trigonometry and television repair and American Amature Radio League to earn a second class Federal Communications License. I taught naval aviation electronics school for 3.5 years.

While in the navy, I was an aircrewman flying off Guam to all over the Pacific area, did 2 cruises on aircraft carriers working on the flight deck and 1 cruise running the higher level electronics repair shop onboard an aircraft carrier. I traveled to Midway island, Wake island, Guam, Japan, Hong Kong, Kowloon, Singapore and the Philippines. The cruises were all spent off the coast of Vietnam.

In my working life, I worked making chili and tamales, worked in a food factory, a gas station, 11 years in the navy, self-employed TV repair shop, 10 years at Burroughs Computer company, and lastly 19.5 years at Litton ACD. While I was at Litton and Joyce worked in Springfield, we also bought and ran the farm during the Litton years and after retirement.

We’ve been here in town 5 years for me and four for Joyce because she passed away last year. So now I live alone. What the future holds, I do not know. To paraphrase an old song, “slipping away sitti’n on a pillow, waiting for night to fall.”