Chris Writing Anything

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

If I could go back in time, or, at least, back to an earlier portion of my life, I think I know where I’d wind up. In that transitional era, my high school career had ended, and, well, yeah, the real world was wide open.

And while that world was wide open, and as I think back, there are things I would have told this naive farm boy. Yet, it was time to let go of everything I had known, and I had to accept the risks and advantages of adult living,

I was nineteen, and I didn’t have a dollar in my bank account. I had signed my name on the dotted line, and I set off for Lackland Air Force Base.

Lackland resides in San Antonio, Texas. In late January, the nights and mornings were frigid, and, oddly enough, the midday temps were searing. That was not like Wisconsin weather. Heck, in basic training, nothing was like Wisconsin. It was my first time away from home.

The men in my flight, (we called our group a flight not a platoon) were from all over. California , Maine, New Orleans…you name it, I could probably name a dude from any portion of the country.

Anyways, after basic training, we headed off to school. That was in Texas also, just hours north of San Antonio. My instructors taught me how an F-16 worked, and we then road tripped to Shaw AFB. At that South Carolina Air Base, we received some on the job training.

What had started in January, at Basic training, ended at Eilson AFB in Alaska. There, after days of eternal sun, and after the summer months waned, I realized that Wisconsin winters were fairly short. Yet, during nightfall, while Alaska’s frozen skies went twenty hours without sunlight, the northern lights lively danced.

At the time, I didn’t realize how much I had seen and done, and in such little time. The places I had experienced, the people I had met, the phenomena I had witnessed…well, as I write this, and as I jot down my last sentence, I have stirred some very vivid recollections.

Have an Excellent Day!!