It's been a while

Sorry, I've been out of sorts for a bit. I ran out of Prozac, and decided that I'm just too damn mean when depressed to write anything useful. When I was no longer out, it got busy, and then my lovely wife and I took a road trip last week down to South Carolina (Charleston to be exact) to attend a reunion of members of my old military unit. Since the unit existed for around 30 years, there was no certainty that anyone would be there with whom I had served, but we went anyhow, just to see, and to meet folks with whom I had been in touch on various duty-specific forums for the past several years.

Much to my surprise, my wife asked if we would be driving or flying and indicated a desire to travel by car. Since she normally doesn't travel well, I was more than ready to drive even though I already had plane tickets (discovering afterwards just how damn hard it is to get rid of them and get back money.) She got to thinking about travel hassles, and the fact that I hate to fly any more, and decided to try a road trip - and it was a really good trip for both of us.

We broke the trip around Emporia, Virginia, staying in a Hampton Inn at a ridiculously cheap price for first-class lodging. When we woke up and had breakfast, it was a relatively easy day to get us into Charleston - it took time, but traffic was light, the scenery good and the weather pleasant. We let Gertie Garmin guide us, and let the cruise control keep the cops away, and just relaxed, stopping when it pleased one or the other of us.

Gertie Garmin is what we called the GPS that I purchased for her some time back. This was the first trip with that sort of device, and I have to say it was a great addition to the stuff we already were taking with us. The 760 model allowed all our cell phones to be bluetoothed to its hands-free facility, the alternate routes worked and were decent - all in all I cannot imaging going farther than ten minutes without at least having it turned on with traffic alerts enabled.

I did meet one guy I knew at the reunion, and met others with whom I had chatted, but whom I had never met - and lots of war stories got told. It was great! I was particularly pleased to see the one guy I already knew, as I had heard that he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer several years back, and since I know the cure rate on that to be abysmal fully expected to hear that he was not with us any more - and was both surprised and pleased to hear from him that he'd be there. I was doubly surprised to see him when I got there using an artificial larynx - after beating the esophageal cancer he ended up with it in his throat, and lost his thyroid and larynx to it - but a more ready-to-go guy I have not known. He's 71, has had all this, and is more lively than ever! I had never met his wife before, but knew she had to be something else, and was not disappointed - although I was surprised to note that her German accent had been replaced with a Buffalo, New York accent!

My wife was surprised at how well she seemed to fit - there were some folks younger than us, but not many, and lots older, although they were uniformly old in years but not in spirit.

I was in what the Air Force called Security Service - it was an intelligence operation that had had its personnel described as a tightly knit group of loosely wrapped people - which, on reflection, I found to be fitting and proper.

We played tourist, took a mule-drawn carriage trip around old Charleston, which I expected to be a deadly bore and my wife expected would get her motion-sensitive gut - and we loved it - the guide was great, the city beautiful, the info plentiful, the pace slow and relaxed - just a great way to spend part of an afternoon. I have to admit that without Gertie Garmin I'd've never found the mule stables. We also did an excursion boat harbor tour, and while she went, she wasn't as relaxed because of the motion of a boat upon the water, and afterwards reaffirmed her wish never to go on a cruise - even to the point or telling me I could try to get an old flame to join me and leave her at home. I of course declined....

We took two days to come back, the second day stopping by my brother's place in Lorton, Virginia, and then stopping off to visit our baby and her baby and husband, finally getting home pretty late and really tired - but it was probably the best week for us in years.

Those who have served ought to do a reunion once in a while - particularly in these times when the military is held in such low esteem - it can reaffirm that the time was not wasted, that the duty did matter, and that the folks with whom one served were indeed crazy, but dedicated, caring, and good friends all around.

We'll be going to others as they are scheduled.

That's all I have for today - y'all be well....