6 September 2008
The EARLY years:
I was speaking with a friend of mine from the internet earlier tonight and I mentioned I would post a blog to try to help him get a better picture of myself then may have been depicted on a site we used to belong to, however, this could prove helpful for anyone who wishes to read, and even share their experiences as well.
I was born at Langely AFB Virginia, July 4, 1970. I remember very little of this. My father was an enlisted man in the Air Force from upstate NY as was my mother from the same town. We only lived in Virgina for the first couple years of my life, so I recall nothing at all about living in this place. I do hear it's a nice place to live though.
After i was born, dad was transferred to Rhine Mein AFB Germany. I do have some small memories of this place, but nothing strong. We were there for three years so my memories of Germany are among the first memories of things I can recall. We had an apartment rented off base, I can't recall why. I remember an incident, I couldn't have been more then four since my little brother was born already and still a baby, where mom was down in the laundry room, and freaked out due to a giant rat in the basement. I remember her running off to get my dad who eventually killed it with a golf club.
I remember times when we would take family walks down the street with my little brother and go get ice cream sometimes, and I do very much remember the cobblestones of the road and sidewalks. I can remember when my mom's mom and my dad's mom and dad came overseas to visit us there. The apartment there had a balcony, and my mom's mom had gotten me and my brother an inflatable pool for kids and we filled it up with sand to play with. This was a first floor balcony thus rather lower level. I remember one day, something happend with out there and some local children, German citizen children to be exact were trying to take our toys off the balcony from ground level, my mom's mom saw it, and threw her Tab soda on them yelling at them to get away. She must have used some bad words because my mom ran over and was covering my ears.
I remember a time, can't seem to recall the exact year, mom and dad took us on a trip to France and I just remember the long long car ride, but very little of Paris. I think the following year, mom and dad decided that my brother and I were too much trouble on a vacation for our age, and got us a baby sitter while they went off to Brussels, Belgium for a weekend. I do recall being quite upset and disturbed when they walked out the door and it was just us with the babysitter. I guess to a child that's a rather tramautic experience as I really remember getting upset and crying, but actually after a day with the new lady and her reading to me and playing games, I ened up forgetting they were gone for the most part, but was SO happy when they walked back in the door, but I also remember giving my mom a hard time for leaving us LOL.
I know we went to a zoo in Ramstein, but it must have been really early on when we first got there. I can only recall seeing a giraffe and lion in a cage, but that's really about all, and that the day was very sunny. This one you all should get a laugh out of. According to mom, though I just briefly remember this, she had gone to the credit union one day, and I was with her. She was taking money out of the bank I guess, I don't remember why we went, but apparently my grandmother had sent me some stripped underwear with animals on it, and I decided to take my pants off and show everyone in the bank. I'm 38 now, but I still hear about this from mom.
The last thing I can really recall from living in Germany is the plane flight home. You know when you're like four somethings do stick to you. I can't seem to really recall just how long it was, but I am told I was quite the noisy terror back in the day, so much so that one of the pilots came back to calm me down, and gave me one of his wing insignias. I hope THAT isn't what I'm to be judged by today LOL.
So after 3 years in Germany, a flight back to Plattsburgh NY so my brother could be born in the USA (mom just wanted that for whatever reason) back to Germany, and then back to the States, dad got reassigned to Pease AFB New Hampshire. Most of my early memories seem to stem from this place. Figure I'm about 5 now? Something like that? Let me put it this way. I can actually remember our address there. 29 Woodbine Terrace, Portsmouth NH, but I can't remember the zip code lol. Seriously, no joke.
Some of the things I can more vividly recall from living in New Hampshire. I remember a day we went to the store off base. Woolworths. Yup they were much bigger back then then now. Guess what I wanted to go run off and look at, at the age of 5? FISH LOL. Well maybe you can call this a poor decision or bad judgement in part by my parents, but they let me stand around and look while they went another isle over looking for clothes.
You know, at 5 I can start to see just how short my attention span was, because the next thing I remember was looking around for mom and dad, and not finding them. I started to get very scared and tried to retrace everywhere we were walking through the store, but I couldn't find mom and dad who were just an isle over. I became more panicked and thought maybe they went out to the car so I walked out the store and to the car, but I couldn't find the car. 5 year old logic here, maybe they went home and fogot me? This made me remember when they went to Belgium a couple years before and I got all really scared and crying so I tried to figure my way back home. I was sure I knew how to get there. Just walk back down this road....
So here I am, at 5 years old, not knowing what mile is or anything figuring the base about 10 miles away was just around the corner. So I'm walking and walking, on a sidewalk like mom and dad always said to do, in the completely opposite direction no less. Ok obviously since I'm here posting, I wasn't abducted and killed, but yeah, I walked 2 miles, crying the WHOLE way, thinking my mom and dad ran out on my, the opposite way I should have gone anyways.
After what must have been hours of walking, I was getting tired and I said well, maybe mom and dad stopped here. I spotted a nice looking house, or what I felt was a nice looking house, walked up to the door, rang it, hoping these people might know mom and dad. I remember it was a much older family, some really nice lady, I guess from the little I can remember of her face, probably 50ish? Answered the door to see this 5 year old boy full of tears trying to find his mom and dad. She let me in the house trying to calm me down, and figure out who I was and what to do. You know, they don't give a 5 year old an id card so the thing that actually got me HOME was that I knew my address at 5 years old. 29 Woodbine Terrace was all I could tell the lady. So looking that up in the phone book, that street address was located on the Air Force Base, so it didn't take long for them to figure out how to at least get me where I should be. I know I got quite a lecture from a worried mom and dad when these very kind people brought me home. Funny the things you can remember from that age.
Our quarters, as it's called in the military, was on top of a rather large hill. The buildings were all two story, and about four to five apartment or condo style units all connected togeather. They had garages, detached as a unit to themselves too. In between where the garage units are, perpendicular to the housing units, with a side walk between that gap. The side walk formed a T also at one point so you have like this.
] Housing unit {s G R
] sidewalk {i A
]------------------{d R O
]<<<< Big Hill {e A
] {w G A
] {k E D
Just illustrating how home looked.
Now if you walked down the big hill, you came to a row of houses running parallel to the hill and a street parallel to that. That was the bus stop. I remember this pretty good for a few reasons. One is of course, your first day of school. You know, some kids have an easier time being away from home like that, and one might even think with that Belgium vacation, and the walk home incident, I wouldn't be so worried about stuff like that LOL. Nope. When mom made me get on the bus to go to school, all the moms there so happy their kids were going to school and all that, I was so mad at mom for that instead of waving to her, I stuck my toungue out at her. I got a lecture about that when I got home, and if I could go back in time, I'd change doing that for making her feel so bad, but you know when you're five, you have to blame someone, and you can't blame a stranger you don't know....
I can actually recall almost all of my teachers from grade 1-12 including the subject teachers, what hour I had them from Jr. High on. I think memory is one thing God blessed me with. I might have other talants, but I know I can remember things much easier then some can, and some are better then I. Of course, how do you really debate things almost what, three decades ago and mom is like 58 now LOL Who you think has a better memory?
1st Grade and Kindergarten though I can't recall my teachers name. I remember a few images from what the class room looked like, I bullshit you not. I remember the walking field trips and how we caught a tadpole in the pond, but I wanted to get a snake. I remember that winter as well. Big time snow fall. I used to play with the snow on the hill with the two boys next door. I remember their names too. Michael and Steven Meyers. Don't ask me how or why I just do, and I swear to God I wish there was some way to verify this just so you can see I really do recall these things.
So anyways, Steven was the older of the two brothers, and older then me, he was in 3rd grade but I was actually bigger then he was. I think Michael and I got into an arguement over a toy or something and of course his big brother had to jump in. I got my first black eye out of that, and of course since dad was at work all day, mom had to teach me how to fight. Go figure that too.
So like a week later, my little brother, I'm 2.5 years older then he is or something to that degree. He was born April 14, 1973. My little brother Timothy Michael Votraw. You know what? I named my brother!!! Ok actually what happend was, being the only child at the time, I pitched a fit so much mom and dad just named him that lol. So yes technically I picked my little brothers name. They didn't really have the technology like they have today of course. So the deal was if Timmy was a girl, she was going to be Terri Michelle, yes at 3 I can compromise!!! Soop's probably saying cough*bullshit*
So anyways, sorry for sidetracking here, Michael got into a disagreement with my little brother, so I jumped right in that one. If anyone was going to bully my Timmy Michael, it was going to be ME by God!! Of course Steven has to jump in for his brother only this time I was ready for him lol. So after that, you know how boys are, we were really good friends after. That winter, big snow fall, we all were going sledding. I was probably one of the smaller ones of the boys out there though and like I said, it was a BIG hill, so probably like 20 or 30 kids were there going down it. I was feeling a little alone because Steven and Michael already went down, and boys would line up on the side of the hill to dog pile those going down. These were like older kids in 5th and 6th grade. I ended up getting dog piled on so my head ended up scraping the snow on the way down. For whatever reason I got mad at Michael for not going down with me and went home crying.
The following year in 77, much like today, the reminents of a hurricane that formed actually worked it's way up the east coast, and hit somewhat in New Hampshire. All I can really recall out of that, massive rain and winds, looking out the window, and seeing a garbage can tied down go rolling down the streets from the wind. That's impressive for a 6 year old believe it or not.
So July rolls around I'm seven now, going into third grade. I forgot to mention. 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Mills. A rather large lady since all that was shown on the class picture was her mid section and the polka dot shirt she was wearing lol. My school, Frank Jones Elementary. School mascot, The Dragon. Asain symbol. Sign of things to come in my life ironically.
So again, now I'm seven and going into the third grade. It was about this time, when mom and dad became active in the CYO. For the record, I am raised Roman Catholic, however, at my age now, I will say, yes I believe in God, Jesus as his son, and the Holy Ghost forming the Trinity. I do not however keep ALL the same views of the church. Mom and dad are much more devoute Catholic then I am. Mom still today works for her church. They both were raised up in Catholic schools with nuns. My dad's sister, my Aunti Jennifer is a mother superior for her Convent. Needless to say, I don't have cousins from my aunt.
So now at the age of 7, I'm beginning to interact with older kids, teens from the church who would come over for get to geathers at the house and such. A 17 year old Chuck Brown was my best buddy! He taught me about baseball, and how I, in a house of New Yorkers and devoted Yankee fans, became a Boston Red Sox fan from Chuck Brown. He also taught me the values of professional football as well, an much to my fathers irking, a Dallas Cowboys fan. I know this bugged dad very much because the Giants never won squat back in the day. Yes with my memory, I remember Super Bowl XIII, and Roger the dodger Staubach almost leading the cowboys back that game and how devestated Chuck was watching that. Chuck actually kept in touch with mom and dad over the years. On a sad note, I didn't and even more sad though, Chuck had a heart attack and died about 10 years ago :(
I know some of you who read this must be thinking Jesus H how much can he remember or tell? Ok for sake of brevity, I'll cut this blog off and continue it after we got transferred again. That is life as a military dependant though. You get moved around every few years. I don't know if any studies have been done on this. I personally think this either makes or breaks you. Some people or rather children just can't adjust to the constant moving around. Some feel all the moving makes your stronger and more able to adapt. I think I have a little of both myself.
So anyways, going into the third grade at Frank Jones Elementary, I don't really recall my teacher there that well, was only there for about a month since dad was getting transferred to Chanute AFB in missle maintenence school. The last thing I'll say I remember about being in New Hampshire is the first girl I found myself having those funny feelings about, was a Hawaiian girl named Heidi. Maybe it wasn't all that or I'd think I could remember her last name too....Like I said, the dragon thing, and then a Hawaiian girl, the darker skin...sign of things to come. So tomorrow we'll pick this up, still in third grade, age seven living in Rantoul Illinois, at Chanute AFB.
Jon
