Tag: kadena

Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: writxiety

While it’s Thursday, February 22, 2024, the weather has twisted toward spring here in Ashlandia in southern Oregon. Winds be blowing with a wintry taste but sunshine blinds the eyes and blue sky mixes it up with piecemeal white and gray clouds. None of the clouds are large but they can be something if they unite and stay together.

It’s 54 F now after mid 30s as our overnight lows, and will tweak a few more degrees north of the current temp. The cats are not happy with the situation. “It’s the wind,” they complain. “Too much damn wind for our whiskers.”

The house painting is done and the bill is paid. $7650. Looks fab, though, and we’re happy with it, so I guess it’s worth it.

The Neurons have infiltrated the morning mental music stream (Trademark coming in two weeks) with some Rush flavored prog rock, aka progressive rock or prock. Today’s song is “New World Man” from 1982. I can’t find the roots of its presence in the MMMS, only that sometime while I was in the kitchen after feeding the floof boys, that song was in my head as I prepped my brekkie. It’s a song I know from a military co-worker on Okinawa. Rush music was a big staple of his listening hoard. He considered them severely underrated and unappreciated.

Stay positive, be strong, lean forward, and vote. That’s all we ask of you; is that so much? I hope not. Coffee has been served and sampled. Here we go, into the winds of a new day. And here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

A day like this requires a voice like this, singing a song like this.

“Momma’s gonna worry, I been a bad, bad boy. No use saying sorry, it’s something that I enjoy.

“Cause you can’t see what my eyes see. And you can’t be inside of me. Flying high again.”

I feel compelled to note that I thought Ozzy was singing, “Crying time again,” for the first few months after hearing this song.

I’d been reassigned from Brooks AFB, in Universal City, just outside of San Antonio, Texas, to the 603rd MASS, Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan, when this song came out. We’d arrived in May, lived in the base hotel for a month while finding arrangements, which was normal, and had moved to an apartment just outside of Gate 1. Living on the economy, the government provided our furniture. We didn’t need much for the tiny place. It would fit into our current living room.

The furniture was hideous stuff. Cheap, with orange polyester covered cushions, the sofa and chair had all the design elan of 1950s lower-class America. So did the dining room table and chest of drawers.

We had fun at that location, living there for a few years until we were authorized base housing. Thirteen apartments were in the building. American service personnel and their families lived in all of them. We experienced some memorable parties there.

From 1981, Ozzy Osbourne with “Flying High Again”.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Summer brings to mind the parties orchestrated during my military years. We had good parties every where, legendary parties. Part of that was being with good people.

Doug was one of those good people. I was stationed with him at Kadena AB on Okinawa. Our parties at his house began modestly and then mushroomed into block parties. Parties could be declared for anything from the end of an exercise or operational readiness inspection, to holidays and promotions, to “just because.”

Ad hoc teams were established for music, libation, food, set-up, and games. At the height of the parties, we had four or five sets of Bose 901s set up. The music was cranked up. One of the songs that had to be played was “I Want You to Want Me,” from “Cheap Trick Live at Budokan.”

Doug loved that song. It was one played later in the evening, after the most sensible and sober people had departed. Then, up went the volume, and out came the air guitars.

I think of Doug often, especially when hearing this song. I’ve only seen him once since leaving Okinawa, when we encountered one another during exercises in the Middle East, but the memory of him burns bright.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD9pRogVJ0A

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‘Phooon Party

Okay, first for the schmaltz alert. This post will get schmaltzy.

Like many, Gene Wilder’s demise dredged up memories. I associate specific music, movies, actors and events with epochal life moments. Gene Wilder is a large swatch of the moments because his rising fame coincided with VCRs rising and my long term assignment to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

Arriving in May of 1981, base housing wasn’t immediately available. We put ourselves on the wait list and then found an off-base residence in Kadena City. The apartment building was a fort-like three story cement structure with minimal windows and external doors. The owner/managers lived in a bottom residence, and American service personnel and their dependents occupied the ten apartments spread throughout the rest. Keeping with the local way, none of these domiciles were large, but they were well built. A water cistern was on the roof. With it and the stout walls, the building was great for enduring earthquakes, typhoons and droughts.

Typhoon watching was almost a sport. Armed Forces Radio and Television Services provided us with our news and entertainment, and we tracked the storms across the Pacific and through the various seas. Which base was it going to hit? Hickam in Hawaii, Anderson on Guam, Clark in the PI? Or was it heading our way in Japan, or north to Korea?

Whichever place it struck was a cause for intense business on the base. If it was heading for us, we scrambled to launch the aircraft out of the typhoon’s path while securing the base. If you were on duty when the typhoon struck, you were on for the duration. Otherwise, you stocked up on food, water and things to do, and settled in at home.

This all took planning. Lines grew everywhere, but especially at the Commissary where we bought our food, and the USO where we rented our movies.

That’s where Gene Wilder enters. As AFRTS didn’t offer exciting programming options and often went off the air during a ‘phoon, we bought a VHS player. A huge, toploading Magnavox unit, it cost a grand, weighed over fifty pounds and took up the top of our twenty-five inch console television. But with it, we could rent movies from the USO. Thus we could sign out ‘Blazing Saddles’, ‘The Producers’, ‘Young Frankenstein’, ‘Silverstreak’, and ‘Stir Crazy’, along with movies like ‘Blues Brothers’. ‘Absence of Malice’. ‘Body Heat’. ‘Pennies from Heaven’. ‘Eye of the Needle’. The offerings were not broad, and it was serving the entire base population stalking entertainment, so you grabbed what you could, and then traded with others in the building, watching movie after movie and trying to catch some sleep as rain deluged the island and the wind hurled items through the charcoal skies.

Back on base, working in the Command Post, it wasn’t so good. We were pretty limited to what was available to watch. Scrambling aircraft and dealing with the emergencies, nobody raced out to rent movies. Then once that was done, the phones and radios went still as our status changed to monitoring the passing storm and waiting for it to clear. We watched what was on hand. How many times did I see ‘Silverstreak’, ‘Young Frankenstein’, ‘Blazing Saddles’ and ‘Stir Crazy’? Enough that we would start going stir crazy. Enough that I remember the characters and who played them, and whole scenes of dialogue.

Yet, now, watching scenes from these movies as I remember Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and the others, I laugh and laugh, again. Remembering these things last night with my beer buddies, we just had to mention a character or a line from his movies to trigger laughter.

Thanks, Gene Wilder. It was a memorable stint with you through the many, many typhoons.

 

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