A Veteran's Journey

Trivia Questions (Answers @ end)

1. Who said, “All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them.”?
2. Who said, “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, ‘I’m possible’.”?
3. In what song (and who sang it) did we hear the following?
   To dream the impossible dream
   To fight the unbeatable foe
   To bear with unbearable sorrow
   To run where the brave dare not go.
4. Bonus: In what Broadway musical was this song featured?

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Growing up in Gainesville, Florida, my parents gave my sister and me a Kodak disposable camera, sometime in the 1960s. You remember those … 12 shots in a weird-looking yellow box. You’d turn the entire camera in to be developed, which took a week or more.

I bought my first “real” camera when I was stationed at NAS Agana, Guam in 1973. It was a Pentax SLR. It took me a while to figure out how it worked. I remember taking my first roll of film to the base PX to be developed. A week later, I was disappointed when I saw all twelve photographs were completely blank.

Not once, not twice, but at least three times.

No, I didn’t leave the lens cap on. No, it wasn’t the settings (I used “auto”). I think it was simply the fact that I didn’t properly wind the film.

Once I finally figured it out, I started taking some great shots. Most of them were on base. I worked in Crash & Rescue as an Aviation Boatswain’s Mate-Handler (ABH) aircraft firefighter.

I also learned to fly while in Guam and received a private pilot’s license: single-engine, land. I took a bunch of great shots while flying around the island.

When I left Guam, 15 months after working one day on and one day off, I had six photo albums, crammed full of great memories.

I still have them. They sit on my shelf next to my big chair, and I often pull them out. I’ve scanned most of the photos onto the computer, though many of the color photos are faded.

Fortunately, I have a copy of Photoshop and know how to use it.

USS Kitty Hawk

I had two tours of duty during my short four-year Navy career. NAS Agana, Guam (Nov ’73-Feb ’75) and USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63 (Mar ’75 until I was discharged in July 1977). I went on one Westpac cruise in 1975. Like Guam, I was a Crash firefighter, working on the flight deck in V-1 Division.

Lots of great stories (I write about them often in this blog).

After the cruise, we spent a year in the Bremerton Shipyards retrofitting for the newer F-14 Tomcat fighters and the S-3 Viking ASW aircraft.

It was quite something to see this humogonous aircraft carrier in the dry docks, up on blocks like an old ’56 Chevy. Well, maybe a bit bigger and a few more blocks.

Even though I’d spent more time on the ship than in Guam, I came away with only two photo albums from my time aboard.

Man, I wish I’d taken more.

Older Family Photos

My sister recently gave me several photo albums from my mom & dad. Wow, talk about timeless treasures.

These were the old albums that had the black, “felt-like” backing, with photo corners to hold the photos without taping or glueing them to the paper. Many of these were photos from the late 1930s, when my dad played football at Bradford County High School.

He often told us he was “all-county” center when he played. He’d give a little chuckle, you know, like dad’s used to do when growing up, then he’d wink at my mom and look at us. My mom would say, “Now, Andy. You need to tell them there was only one center in Bradford County.”

I still remember those days. Precious memories of my mom & dad.

I’ve been sifting through these old photo albums. They have that musty smell, so I look through them outside on the porch. I’ve been trying to think of what to keep and what to toss. I’ve already asked my kids if they were interested, but I understand their hesitation.

However, since I have a digital scanner on my desk, I’ve been scanning a lot of these photos (they don’t fade like my Navy color photos did). I’ve sent some to other family members, many of which they’d never seen before.

Both my parents also kept a scrapbook of old newspaper articles. Some were about them; others were just “the times” that were of interest. But talk about a timeless treasure. I’ve donated them to the local museum/culture centers, which I’m grateful to pass along.

I’ve also tried to track down some families of others named in the photographs, but that’s next to impossible.

I should also mention that my dad was a photographer while growing up. Several of his photos were featured in the local “Bradford County Telegraph” newspaper.

Before he met my mom, he was … “popular” … with the high school ladies. I think I counted a dozen or so young ladies in bathing suits posing for his camera at the family lake house on Kingsley Lake.

I didn’t keep those photos.

Rebuild—Family Promise House

Here’s another “timeless treasure.”

I’m a volunteer with the local “Rebuild Together” association. Basically, a group of us (there are several different groups in the area, since Rebuild is a nationwide organization) work to help rebuild or build a new structure for someone in need. Often, it’s rebuilding an outside deck or, in many cases, a handicap access ramp or a set of stairs.

It’s truly rewarding, and our “crew” (I think I’m the youngest at age 71) works well together, have a great time, and always look forward to our next project.

Speaking of which, sometime in the next month, Rebuild has been asked to work on a house very special to me.

It’s the house where I grew up; we moved there in 1959 when I was a little towhead young man, age four. I moved out when I first went off to college (Florida State University) after high school in 1972 at the tender age of 17.

You’ve heard the story, but FSU kicked me out after my first year (“dismissed for academic reasons”) and I joined the Navy in July 1973.

Anyway, I haven’t been in the house since my parents moved out in 1979.

The house has been through multiple renovations over the years, specifically for multi-unit housing. Initially for retirement folks, and more recently, to a “half-way” house, then for young kids needing a home.

So, our job will be to work both inside (drywall, paint, etc.) and outside (decking).

I’ve already taken a walk around the outside (the house was locked up when we surveyed the outside deck to rebuild) and recorded the walk with voice over. And yes, the memories … those “timeless treasures” … began to flow. I thought it important to record my thoughts at the time.

I can’t wait to get inside and remember all those things I probably did while growing up.

I know it won’t be the same, but it reminds me of a not-so-long ago time when the Navy flew me out to the USS Ronald Reagan, CV-76, for “research” for my Navy memoir. It wasn’t the same as when I was aboard Kitty Hawk, but I’ll tell ya … it was damn close. Especially when the Flight Deck Officer, who was an ABH “mustang,” handed me a float coat & helmet and said, “Follow me!”

Then Versus Now Technology

Back in the day when we processed film for photos, it took a while to get the photos back. I mentioned in Guam, it took about a week.

Then you’d figure out what photos were good enough to keep and of course, I wanted to send a few of them home to my mom & dad to let them know what their 18-year-old little boy was doing in the Navy in paradise on the island of Guam.

The problem back then was that I couldn’t really “share” my photo album with more than one person at a time.

Now, with today’s technology, there’s this huge shared photo album called “the cloud.”

Imagine putting photos in a digital “album,” like Google Drive/Google Photos, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, or Flikr, and sending a link to family members so they can see your photos within a few minutes of uploading them.

Now, instead of only one person viewing the photo album at a time (“one-to-one”), today’s technology allows multiple people to simultaneously see the same image (“one-to-many”).

Wow, that’s the type of technology I love.

Hand-me-downs

My wife and I both have a lot of family heirlooms passed down from our parents and grandparents. They were at one time, timeless treasures. I guess they still are in a way.

But our kids don’t really want them. Let me take a step back … they have already taken what they wanted. So, my wife and I are in that “slow” process of trying to figure out what to keep and what to toss.

It should be easy, but I’ll tell you … going through some of these—not just our parents, but also our kids when they were growing up—brings back so many fond memories. The kids only grow up once, right?

We’re still sorting, and I imagine we’ll be doing it for a long time.

One thing we did a while back. We have a lot of photographs of our kids through the ages. The Halloween costumes Becky made for the kids … learning to ride a bike without training wheels the first time … my son playing little league baseball like his dad … kids at their prom.

Yeah, those types of timeless treasures.

Becky and I went through and selected photographs and put them into albums, two for each of our kids. We presented it to them one Christmas many moons ago. We still have a lot of old photos from those times, but now the kids have their own growing up memories.

One more …

My father’s father, A. Z. Adkins, Sr., was from Lawtey/Starke, Florida. He was a lawyer, then a circuit judge, then a Florida state senator. I never knew him; he died nine days before my older sister Anne was born. I’m the youngest cousin on my dad’s side.

Of course, while growing up, I’d seen lots of old black and white photographs of him and heard lots of old stories.

Back in March 2022, one of my cousins on my dad’s side sent the family a 30-second audio recording of my grandfather speaking in 1952 about the upcoming presidential election. He’d found it on an old 78rpm record (few people remember those records).

Talk about chills … even as I write this today and listen to my grandfather’s voice, I still get goose bumps. He sounded like I imagined he would: a southern gentleman—slow, deliberate, and confident.  

While I often have (and speak about) my love/hate relationship with technology, this is one—literally—for the books.

We all get older eventually. I’m trying to slow down in my retirement, but my wife’s philosophy of life is spot on.

“Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end of the roll, the faster it spins.”

Until we meet again,
Andy

Andy Adkins is a US Navy veteran (’73-77) and the author of several books (www.azadkinsiii.com), many of which are free downloads (PDF, eBook format). He is currently retired and lives in Gainesville, Florida with his wife and life-long soulmate, Becky.

Previous Blogs mentioned in this Post:

• #53—You Always Remember Your First
• #49—Westpac ’75: After Six Months, We’re Coming Home
• #30—USS Kitty Hawk @ Bremerton Shipyards, Part 1
• #42—The Shipyards, Part 2
• #201—The Journey Continues

Answers

1. Viola Davis.
2. Audrey Hepburn.  
3. The Impossible Dream (The Quest); song by Richard Kiley; written by Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh.
4. Man of La Mancha (based on Cervantes’ Don Quixote).