A simple question that is often asked is one of the most difficult and puzzling for me. What’s your hometown (a different version of this is: where did you grow up)? Hmm, that’s a good question. How should I answer that? I used to hesitate before answering. It took many, many years, meaning decades, before I settled on a pat answer that never explained very much. I would answer by saying that my father was in the military so we moved a lot.

For years I adopted my father’s hometown and home state as mine. There was good reason for this. After sailing from Japan to the United States in 1959, we drove cross country and spent the summer in Ohio, my father’s home state. Soon, we were off and living in South Carolina. Mid way through second grade, my father was headed to South Korea for a year being posted along the demilitarized zone. While he was away, I returned to Ohio.

After my father’s year in South Korea ended, he was posted to Ft. Knox, Kentucky. Rather than interrupt another school year, I finished the school year in Ohio in May 1963 before moving to Kentucky. Arriving on this massive army post, little did I know that this would be a time of “normalcy”. We lived on post. Ft. Knox had elementary schools, middle schools and a high school. It offered sports for the kids, pools and everything any other community has for families.

As a kid, it was an interesting place because this was the U.S. Army’s home of armor—tanks. Driving around parts of Ft. Knox meant seeing tanks rolling down the road. For people familiar with a shooting range, just imagine living near a tank range. Yes, tankers had to improve their aim just like someone shooting a pistol or rifle. The only problem was that living near a tank range is like living through earthquakes as those shells shook everything upon impact.

Ft. Knox felt like a hometown for a while. It’s late afternoon in August. It’s 1964. I’m splashing around with my two much younger brothers. We’re in one of those water filled vinyl or plastic swimming pools, but it isn’t really a pool. It’s something that holds water because it’s only 12 to 15 inches deep and maybe ten feet in diameter. The lining is secured around the metal frame. It’s on the back patio, providing a nice flat surface.

My ears catch something through the open back door. Read more