Tag: autobiography

While visiting home at Thanksgiving in 1976 I considered what I wanted to accomplish overseas while in the military.

What are the points of emphasis going to be? I can see two major ones in addition to my duties as a U.S. Army officer: writing and traveling.

What can be said about writing is that I will buy a typewriter and work a story at a time. If something good develops BRAVO!

As far as traveling is concerned, I will make the best possible use of my time and finances to travel, seeing the people, talking with them, eating with them, and viewing their ART and ARCHITECTURE.

This is no modest task in itself but one which must be undertaken for the full experience of the country’s culture. It should prove most pleasant.

Journals, November 25, 1976

I underestimated how engaged I would become as an Army officer. When we were in garrison my day started well before dawn with a simple breakfast in my bachelor officer’s quarters followed by a shower and a drive from Martin Luther King Village near the Mainz main railway station to Robert E. Lee Barracks in Mainz-Gonsenheim. It was well after dark when I returned to King Village. If the officers club across the street from my quarters was open, that’s where I would find camaraderie and dinner.

When we were in the field, we were gone for as much as three weeks at a time. Our field operations were maneuvers in the Fulda Gap and other strategic spots in central Germany. When we were on maneuvers we got very little sleep. We would road march with our tracked and wheeled vehicles from the barracks to the area around Fulda when we were rehearsing for a potential Soviet invasion. When the trip was longer we’d load everything on flatbed rail cars. The rail car loading was a scene from old World War II motion pictures.

We also spent time at designated training sites like Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels and Baumholder. For an extended period of time I split my week between Baumholder (Tuesday-Saturday) and Mainz (Saturday-Monday), which made for never ending weeks. I was young and up to it. I listened to Armed Forces Radio in my pick up truck on the drive home every Saturday, almost like clockwork.

Because I studied French in college I served as an exchange officer with a regiment of French marines in Brittany. Our battalion commander in Mainz told me if the balloon ever went up, that is, if Soviet troops invaded West Germany, I would most likely be transferred to a position where I could use my French language skills as a liaison officer. I also took a platoon through French Army Commando School in Vieux-Brisach where I served as French-English translator. My French-speaking skills improved considerably because of these assignments.

I held three different positions in the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, a mechanized infantry unit part of the 8th Infantry Division and V Corps. I started as a platoon leader, then became a company executive officer, and spent the rest of my tour of duty as the battalion adjutant. These were positions where I learned what it meant to command troops and used almost every skill I learned before entering the Army. It was life, as good as it gets.

I did buy a typewriter, and still have it. My main writing turned out to be in my journal which covers from Dec, 28, 1975 until Oct. 22, 1979. In reading my journals for this project I’m both lucky and glad to have them.

Some friends from home stayed with me for a while in Mainz. I met Dennis and Diana while working a part time retail job in high school. I took leave and we toured Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland in a rented Volkswagen sedan. Dennis is of Belgian descent and asked me to write for his newsletter at the Center for Belgian Culture of Western Illinois in Moline. It took some time and my first article was titled To Belgium and Back: November 1977. He published two more of my Belgian travel diaries the following year.

As far as travel goes, I had experiences that would have been impossible outside an Army unit. During our field training exercises I got to know some parts of the Fulda Gap better than I knew Mother’s neighborhood in Iowa. As a soldier I was both threatened with a gun by a German reveler during Fasching, and welcomed into people’s homes while stranded in parts unknown. There was still resentment lingering from World War II, especially among people who lived through it.

During my trips to France I felt a part of history. The marine unit to which I was attached was on alert to mobilize to the Republic of Djibouti after the African state declared independence from France. I would have deployed with them, although luckily we didn’t.

During an amphibious landing on Belle-Île-en-Mer we were immediately helicoptered to a drop zone further inland. I missed the U.S. ambassador from Paris who was waiting for me on the beach and had come to greet me. I also think he heard my French was a bit questionable, which it was on that assignment. He finally caught up with me under a poncho, next to a barn, at a farmstead where the owners served us dinner of hard cooked eggs, potatoes and sparkling cider all produced on their property.

There were trips to Roman ruins in the Taunus Mountains on weekends, rock climbing near Trechtingshausen, and many visits to the Rheingau wine country. A number of battalion officers made a trip to Luxembourg where a field officer in the Luxembourg Army showed us historic sites related to World War II. Everywhere we went we felt part of history.

While my quarters weren’t fancy, they were an outpost where I took up residence and deployed all over Europe during my time in Mainz. It was a unique experience for which I am thankful.

13 November 1976
Fort Benning, Georgia

Whatever malaise I felt once has now subsided. I am in excellent health, with the swine flu and Hong Kong flu injections rolling around my bloodstream. Aside from a few bits and pieces of personal affairs I am ready to depart for Europe.

But most of all I feel as if my major problems, stemming from my youth, are solved. I have come to understand the human condition and have come to terms with it. I have made some modest inroads in society with only one major faux pas and am involved with what could earmark a successful life.

As always one asks by what standards is success judged? To this I answer first of all good health. Without this one is hard pressed to be successful. Without health, success can be judged only in terms of living within whatever handicap one possesses. While in the eyes of many, myself included, this is an admirable achievement, for me success must include good health. This is not to be in comparative terms but free from bodily ailments which distract the mind/spirit relationship.

Second in the measure of success comes adequate food, clothing and shelter — with imagination in their implementation. The basic needs must be taken care of with style and diversity in order for success to be achieved.

Next in considering success is a spirit/mind awareness. The spirit must be able to sort itself out from the mind. Upon sitting back, the spirit must be able to observe the actions of the mind. If this can be achieved then success is evident.

The last and most important aspect of success is the ability to be in communication with the other members of the human race. To be open minded and willing to believe, knowing that each person is capable of letting the divine essence shine through.

I by these terms am now a success and hopefully I will remain successful for the rest of my life.

May the Lord have mercy on my soul, that success not swell my pride, that I may also live through the next week.

~ Excerpt from my personal journal before departing Fort Benning, Georgia for Thanksgiving in Davenport. From there I would drive to Terre Haute, Indiana, and then to Charleston, South Carolina, where I would ship my vehicle to Bremerhaven, West Germany and take up residence in Mainz.

When our parents bought a home in Northwest Davenport the kitchen quickly became the center of family activity.

The home was an American Foursquare built in 1910. It had an expansive front porch facing Marquette Street with mature maple trees on either side of the walkway. There were two tall pine trees on the south side of the house, and a silver maple next to a detached tar paper garage in back near the alley.

The entryway had leaded glass doors leading to a foyer where a staircase led upstairs to three bedrooms, a bath, and more stairs to the unfinished attic. Abundant mahogany woodwork adorned the foyer. To the right was the living room with leaded glass windows and a wide pocket door separating it from the dining room. The dining room had a bay window with leaded glass. The dining and living rooms were large enough for home entertaining which consisted of parties for us children, family gatherings, and card parties organized by Mother. On Dec. 26, 1982 there was an open house to celebrate our wedding with friends, family and neighbors.

The kitchen was small by today’s standards. Every inch of wall space had something on it. The centerpiece was a large enameled, cast iron sink with a left side drain board. The drain board also served as countertop space. There was a gas range in one corner, a space for a refrigerator, and a small table set against two windows on the north side of the room. It was a kitchen with five doors.

There was a door leading to the foyer between the range and the refrigerator. Sometimes that door was kept shut. Another door, perhaps the most used, led to the dining room. One led to a pantry that included a built in china cabinet and other shelving. There was a door to the basement, and one to a small vestibule with a closet and yet another door to the back porch. In all, the house had livable space of 1,561 square feet on 0.15 acre, a regular city lot. It seemed like more space because the basement and attic were quite usable.

Our kitchen was a place of transition in the period I lived there from Summer 1959 until leaving for university in 1970. By that I mean food came in through the doors and was processed for storage or prepared as meals. We hauled groceries up the back or front steps, depending on where the automobile was parked. We took canned goods to the basement for storage in a handmade wooden cupboard designed for the purpose in an era of home canning. In those days there was less processed and prepared food and more raw ingredients. Our kitchen was about more than food storage and preparation.

Mom’s friends stopped by unannounced and entered the kitchen through the vestibule without knocking. Model Dairy had home delivery to a milk case on the back porch and occasionally Mother spoke to the milkman. The kitchen was a bustling center of social activity we took for granted.

We most often entered and left home through the kitchen. Mother would usually be there or in the dining room. We told her where we were going and asked permission to leave the yard. There were coat hooks in the vestibule for storing everyday outerwear. In winter, when we came indoors we took off our shoes and put them by the furnace register next to the range to dry.

Countless meals were prepared in the kitchen, typically by Mother. We had a family cuisine different from other families in the neighborhood. It became a discussion topic among my friends and neighbors. I ate some meals at the small table by the windows when my brother and sister weren’t around. I didn’t spend much time cooking with Mother yet recall my friend Dan and I gathering at the range to watch her make tacos while we were in high school. I took little of Mother’s cooking technique with me when I left home. My main memories of food are her bringing serving bowls, dishes and platters full from the kitchen to the dining room table where we gathered for meals.

After Father died we began a transition to the dining room as the central gathering place. When I returned from university, or later travels, that room became the focal point. We talked for hours around the dining room table. As we aged, our relationships with each other changed in front of us. Some of those conversations were memorable.

Yet it is the kitchen with its five doors I remember most about that period. What went on there was formative and stands in stark contrast with how our lives would change. It created in me a sense of normalcy.

It seems like a small thing yet we need a place to spread our work during a writing project.

I moved all the books piled on this table to the chest freezer for the time being. Hope we don’t have to get in it for a while.

The books in the photograph are cook books produced in the neighborhood where I spent the years from 1959 until 1970. I don’t understand the extent of cultural artifacts presently scattered around our home and will use this table top on sawhorses to transition them into some kind of order. That’s the plan, anyway.

Conceptually my present writing is coming together. It will be a compilation of thematic sections, some drawn from past writing and some new. I’ll use longer fragments written over the years, some of them quoted verbatim, and others highly edited.

Framing this will be brief historical essays about important places, including about Piety Hill and environs, where Mother was born; Lincoln County, Minnesota, where Grandmother was born; and Glamorgan, Virginia, where Father was born. Other important places are Davenport, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Mainz, Germany; Tallahassee, Florida and Southern Georgia; Lake County, Indiana; and of course Big Grove Township where we settled in 1993.

There will be a second frame about work: Mother, Father and Grandmother during the period before I left for college; and highlights of my work history including high school jobs, summer work while in college, military service, the interim period between finishing graduate school and marriage, my transportation-related career, and the varied work experiences after my July 2009 retirement.

By reducing these topics to brief, separate sections I expect to provide background so I can focus on more interesting subjects.

Even though I have a table on which to lay all this out, not everything will fit. That will force choices — a good thing.

It’s clear from the progress of the coronavirus pandemic the state will be stressed for a while. Cedar Rapids to our north is doing poorly. State Senator Rob Hogg reported yesterday, “Cedar Rapids is now number one in the country for the fastest increase for coronavirus cases in metro areas with more than 50,000 people.” With cooler weather and winter coming, it’s a good time to work on indoors projects. So, I shall.

In his book What Unites Us, former CBS news person Dan Rather refers several times to the “neighborhood where I grew up” in Texas.

This narrative meme should be abandoned by anyone who is serious about autobiography because the plural form of neighborhood is more accurate. In addition, growing up is not a linear process. We don’t “grow up” in a single way or in a single place and magically become a “grown-up.” The communities that surrounded our lives in the 20th Century were not homogeneous. They were diverse and less rooted in place. To root autobiography in place seems arbitrary. The narrative force of this meme casts aside our diversity of experience. We shouldn’t do that if we seek to be true to ourselves.

Our mind doesn’t stop growing as Rather points out. I had formative early experiences and it seems normal to emphasize them. I’ve written about getting injured when a swing set collapsed on me at age three and a half. That experience combined with my arrival at the hospital, taking ether through a funnel, and a lengthy stay had an effect on me that persists. There was a lot else going on at the time. I like to tell this story yet is it most representative of what makes me who I am? Probably not.

Writing autobiography means setting aside favored tales like my injury and hospital stay. It would be hard to write a memoir and leave it out. However, there were more significant influences by 1955. By then our family had moved to Madison Street where we lived only a short time until I finished kindergarten. Next we moved to a rental near Wonder Bakery for most of my first grade year. Then, in 1959, we moved to Marquette Street where I lived through high school. The house on Marquette represents a significant amount of time yet to characterize it as the “neighborhood where I grew up” is not accurate. I was well into personhood by 1959.

Part of autobiography is a timeline. It doesn’t have to be the main attraction. I’ve struggled with the single, time-based narrative and seek a way to articulate something different about how I “grew up.” Rather’s book raised awareness that one should really use the plural form of the word neighborhood. Or use something different like communities, or cohorts, or cultural nests, or something. Growing up meant experiencing many different kinds of social settings.

When Mother attempted a memoir she rendered it to a single narrative. It really didn’t work and she abandoned the project after a few pages. While there is always a timeline to autobiography, I don’t feel that’s the hook on which to hang a life story. Passing time moves a narrative along but complexity is sanded off in the woodshed.

I like Rather’s book well enough. It cost $2.10 on Kindle (cheap). It’s an easy read that touches on many areas of modern life that seemed important in the last century and are diminished in this. To the extent it inspired this post it was worth the purchase price.

A high school classmate died on Sunday. In 2013 he sent a copy of a 54-page draft of his memoir for editing.

I didn’t offer much because his writing was good and it was his story, not mine. Our life experiences were different, tied together by four years we spent in high school together in a cohort of 262 students. If it weren’t for social media we would never have collaborated.

My life has been lived in the second half of the 20th Century and the first quarter of the 21st. I want to tell that story, although I’m not sure how badly.

I wrote many words about my life and part of the task of a memoir is pulling that writing together. It seems important, not urgent. I have a question: what have I done the story of which hasn’t been told by someone else? Not much when we think about it.

Today I see a memoir in two parts. One, a collection of past writing and historical analysis that tells the story chronologically. The second, an analysis of important life events from today’s perspective. Both parts will become big projects.

The first reason for a memoir is to record a history for our daughter. The second is to understand it myself. I doubt my life has much significance beyond family. Although I’ve done a lot, I’ve been a reflection of contemporary times rather than shaping them. I’ve been a regular guy trying to get along and that’s not too special in the broad scope of society.

For the time being I work on a couple of community projects and plan to address the memoir after the Nov. 3 election. A lot depends on the outcome of the election, including whether or not progress is made on a memoir. Here’s hoping for the best.