Things my dad taught me.

My father was Howard Benson Emery. He was born on August 15, 1924 and he died on July 4, 1996. His father was Allen Emery Sr. (May 3, 1898-November 20, 1947)  and his mother was Alta Mae Blake Emery (September 14, 1895-January 16, 1964). Dad was born on Parrot Street in Moundsville, West Virginia, right across the street from the Moundsville State Penitentiary. He served in the U.S. Army in the South Pacific during WW II. He was drafted on July 5, 1943 (he was 19 and a senior at Rochester, PA, High School at the time, having been held back in third grade when the family moved to PA) and was honorably discharged on December 9, 1945. He saw bloody action as his unit, the 182nd Infantry Americal Division, fought its way across the islands of the South Pacific toward Japan. He fought across Luzon in the Philippines and was on a troop ship, headed toward an invasion of mainland Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped. He received the Bronze Star for heroic actions in the line of duty on March 10 and 11, 1944, on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. He is buried beside my mother, Dorothy Jean Firestone Emery, in the Garden of the Resurrection section of Sylvania Hills Cemetery on Sunflower Road near New Brighton and Rochester, PA.

Dad and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but I’m sure many sons could say that about the relationship with their fathers. Dad was a good man, a good husband, and a good father. I believe he suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from his wartime service. I only began to think about the possibility of him having life-long problems related to the war after he died. Looking back on the part of his life that I knew about I believe I see indicators that would point to some degree of PTSD. It’s nothing I could ever prove but I think it’s possible.

When I think back on my short time with my father (I left home to join the Air Force when I was about 18 1/2), I realize he taught me many useful things. Here are some of the things my dad taught me. I’ll add to the list as I remember more:

– All aspects of fishing

– How to hang wallpaper

– How to handle tools for cars as well as for building

– How to tie a necktie

– How to respect others

– How to laugh and to make others laugh

– How to cook

– All about camping

– How to build a building (we built a small barn for our pony together)

– How to drive

– How to operate a small outboard motorboat

– How to cut grass with a power mower

– How to find rare old coins in his insurance collection coin bag (he was an insurance agent for many years)

– How to build foundation pillars for a building and get their heights the same using a piece of clear plastic tubing and water

– Why I should never smoke

– How to plant and manage a garden

– How to whistle shrilly through my teeth

– How to plant fence posts and how to string electric wire on them

– How to tell stories about my life

– How to properly paint a room

– How to make hard Christmas candy

– How to be polite

– How to install wall paneling and dropped ceilings

– How to open and use a checking/savings account

– How to play horseshoes

– How to cry (even though we were both men!)

Lubbock, Texas, from my windshield, Part II

In the summer of 1989 we were finally heading back to the good ‘ol US of A after six years overseas. I reasoned that I’d never be promoted to Major as I became an officer after almost nine years of enlisted service. Besides, the Air Force was slowing down it’s promotion boards in order to force people like me, with a lot of enlisted time, into retirement. I had planned for years to one day be an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Course (AFROTC) instructor before I retired. To that end I got a Masters Degree in Education while stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany (1984-1986). I was pretty sure this would be my last military assignment.

I was accepted to be an AFROTC instructor and received an assignment to Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX. Before we left Belgium I was contacted by the Inspector General unit of the United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and asked to become an inspector for the Munitions Maintenance Units. As the Maintenance Supervisor for the MUNSS at Kleine Brogel, I had helped to achieve the best inspection record for any MUNSS in Europe to date. However, I thought it was time to get my family back to the US so the older kids could be settled into one place for their last years of high school. I declined the invitation to go back to Ramstein and off we went to Lubbock, again.

We got to Texas in June and immediately began looking for a house. We decided we wanted to buy a place that was big enough to be comfortable for our family but we didn’t want to live right in the heart of town. We didn’t want to rush into buying a house so an old friend of ours from our first time of living in Lubbock, Steve Huddle, rented us a small house across the street from his house. We used borrowed furniture, a roll-away bed, and air mattresses for a couple of months until we could find a house to buy and have our furniture delivered. We found a house about twelve miles outside Lubbock, just north of Wolfforth,  and began the process to buy it. At the same time I had to go to Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama, for six weeks to attend Academic Instructor Course (AIC) in order to be ready to teach when classes started in August. It was a very hot summer (especially hot for us after living in cool and wet Belgium for the last three years) and the little house we were renting didn’t have central air. The family was pretty uncomfortable there for the six weeks I was away in Alabama.

Kleine Brogel, Belgium

I was assigned to the Munitions Support Squadron located on Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium in June 1986. Kleine Brogel is located near the town of Peer, Belgium, in Limburg Provence in the northeast of the country. This part of Belgium is mostly farm and dairy country with some light industry. And, it is flat!

Kleine Brogel Air Base is a Belgian military base. The American squadron was just one small part of the base. We had all our own support in one little corner of the base. There was no on-base housing at all so married and single military members all had to find their own housing in the towns and communities near the base. It usually took a little bit of time to find adequate housing. It took longer for my family because we had five kids. We stayed in a hotel in Achel, Belgium, for almost two months before we found a house that would be suitable. It was extremely hot that summer and there was no air conditioning in the hotel. We bought a couple of fans to try to keep us cool but it didn’t work very well. We finally found a big farm house in Wauberg. The house actually had six floors, counting the basement/garage and the attic rooms. We installed carpet in the living room and completely finished the two rooms in the attic upon moving in. Jeff had his bedroom in the top of the house and we built a TV/game room for the kids there. The top floor was like a refuge for Jeff when he wanted to have friends over or to just get away from his four sisters. He also climbed into the storage place above the attic rooms and used a little crawlway there as a secret hideaway. The house was very comfortable for us the whole time we lived in it. Our landlord’s daughter was even our housekeeper for a couple of years.