Chapter 17: What are Your Special Talents?

Hmmm. What are my special talents? My first answer would be “none.” But, after thinking about it, I must have some kind of special talent. I guess that I can eliminate all of the talents that I don’t have, maybe I can find one that I do have.

Artist? Nope! I can’t draw a straight line even when using a ruler. I wanted my kids to be able to draw well. I remember when Christina was about five years old, we sat across the street from our house in Las Vegas and I asked her to draw a picture of the house from that view. Next, we sat in the corner of her bedroom, and I asked her to look at the opposite corner and then draw the room as if it was a photo from that angle. I did the same with Nick when he was about the same age. Christina is a good artist and Nick is a great artist. I think that great artists visualize things differently.

Sports? Nope! When I was young, I was very “chubby” to put it nicely. During school recess, two team captains were chosen and they would pick who would play on their team. If we were playing baseball, I would be picked to play “backstop.” If it was soccer, I was the goalie. They said something like, “Don’t worry, your body will cover half the goal, so you don’t have to move much.” When I was in my first year of high school, I got very sick. I had a very high fever. It was about 104 degrees Fahrenheit or 40 degrees Celsius. Fevers at 105 or higher can cause brain damage. I guess that I can use that as my excuse. Our family doctor, Dr. Norris, came to our house daily to check on me. If this happened today, I would have been admitted into a hospital. I was sick for about a week. I couldn’t eat anything and sweat buckets. I ended up missing two weeks of school because I was too weak. I had lost about 20 pounds. In my first class after returning to school, the teacher asked me to stand up and introduce myself. She thought that I was a new student. Again, I digress…

Even after losing all that weight, I was still big and tall. My “gym teacher” said that I should try out for the school football team. The other team members had been playing football since elementary school. I tried out for the team, but there was no way I could compete against the other guys.

Carpenter? Nope. My father and brother Jim were good with their hands. I was clumsy. A simple task such as cutting wood, I would make it difficult. I’d draw a line on the wood where it needed to be cut. Now, do I cut on the line or to the right or left of the line? Of course, it is better to cut it too long, rather than too short. But then there is the trouble of trimming off the excess.

I guess one of my talents is finding ways to get things done. One example was when I was stationed at Phu Cat, Vietnam. Some of the senior NCOs wanted to construct a small building for meetings and a place to drink. They came to me to find a way to get it built. I had to convince the lower ranking guys to volunteer to build it even though they wouldn’t be able to use it. I can’t remember what I said to convince them, but I ended up with many volunteers. I knew who was good at doing what. One guy was good at building designs. A couple of guys made a list of everything we needed. It was up to me to get all the materials.

Civil Engineering (CE) had a huge area full of construction material. A secured area badge was needed to enter the area. The Munitions Area, where I worked, also needed a pass. The passes looked the same except the area numbers were different. I drove a tractor with a 40-foot trailer and a friend followed me on an RT forklift. I looked like I was busy and drove through the gate without stopping and only flashed my badge at the Vietnamese gate guard. We got a trailer full of plywood, 2x4s, cement and anything else we thought might be needed. Of course, I convinced the senior NCOs to supply the workers with all the beer and sodas needed to get the job done.

After less than two weeks, they had their breakroom/bar.

The Munitions Storage Area, a.k.a. bomb dump, at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, had an area for the Military Working Dogs training. They moved to another area on base so that area was no longer needed. There was a large fenced in area where the dogs trained. There was also an office building with a manmade pond in front of it. The pond was in the shape of the island of Okinawa. I thought it would be a great place for a picnic area for our squadron members and their families. First, I got permission to use it. The pond was coated with thick algae. I knew it would take forever to clean it by hand. I asked my friend, who was the assistant Fire Chief, if he could help me. He said no problem, some of his troops needed training on connecting hoses to the fire trucks. The fire hoses cleared off the algae within minutes. I got one my coworkers who was a great artist to paint it ocean blue and draw all of the Okinawa islands on the bottom of the pond.

There was an old elementary school on base that was going to be torn down. It was an old wooden building that was probably as old as the base itself. There was a large playground with swings, slides, jungle gym, etc. I made a few calls and got the ok to remove the playground equipment for our new picnic area. At first, a few friends and I tried to dig up the legs of the equipment. Of course. The legs were embedded in concrete to hold it is place, but after digging by hand for a while, we found the concrete was about the size of a beer keg. After another call, I got some friends from CE to come help us with a backhoe. Eventually we got all of the equipment, removed all of the rust, painted it and it looked like new.

Soooo… back to the original question. What are my special talents? I guess it would be finding ways to get things done. I sometimes say, “There is nothing that I can’t do.” I guess that I should rephrase that to, “There is nothing that I can’t get done.” While in the military, it was pretty easy. I new people from every squadron on the bases where I was stationed. If my coworkers didn’t have the ability or materials that I needed, someone from a different squadron did. I also volunteered a lot and helped other people find things that they needed.

Below are photos of the elementary school at Kadena, teeter totters, jungle gym, the size of a keg of beer and a backhoe.