MLS - Introduction

I decided to add another series to my blog here. It's My Life in Stories (MLS). Why? I don't really know, except some of it is simply to wander around my life and tell the stories I think are interesting, make a point, and whatever cross the synapses from the past worth a column. I've generally lead an ordinary life, like almost all of us, with some exceptions when life offered some wonderful or outstanding moments I would like to share. I'm writing this partly because my brother and father never did say much about their life, sadly because my brother was extremely smart and my Dad lived through the depression in Kansas along with a 23 year career in the military, a lot of knowledge of and experience from the past died with them.

And now I'm down to one sister and Linda (ex-wife). So, I decided to just think out loud and wander around my life. All these are true events or experiences in my life as best I can remember, but as I've read we don't actually remember our whole life, only snippets of information which we use to write a new version every time we want to remember it or it erupts into our consciousness by accident. So, these will also be an evolving story, as each chapter is written and updated as I remember them.

The stories aren't in any particular order or connected, so you don't have to read them sequentially. Hopefully, they'll be interconnected by the threads in the fabric of my life and being. You'll see, starting in chapter one, they'll be written with three different time frames in mind. My life literally hinges on one small event on December 24, 1968 and the following months, described chapter one when I went from being a 19 year old kid, to life enlisting in the military through basic training, and life beyond basic training.

Everything in my life can be seen through my eyes and memory in these three periods, glasses with which I saw the world and myself, and I see myself in hindsight. Every story has these three layers of experiences because they're still me, just at different times. We've all been there, trying to remember who we were as we look back, but I'll try to show who I was then looking forward. We're all naive then, and hopefully, I try to show that too.