Before getting in to Christmas stuff I have to mention a couple of other things. First of all I have to say that I was very happy to watch Ohio State beat Michigan today. It was played the way the OSU-Michigan rivalry is supposed to be played. A close game with a lot of emotion. To see this group of Buckeyes go undefeated for the season made it even better.
Next I have to say that I'm really looking forward to the Las Vegas Half Marathon on December 2. My training, which didn't seem to be going really well after running the Columbus Half Marathon in October, has really taken off the past couple of weeks. I've continued to get faster. The only thing I worry about right now is starting off too fast and not remembering to pace myself early so that I can keep running (hopefully for ALL of the 13.1 miles). I'll fly in to Las Vegas on Friday morning and head over to the expo to pick up my running packet and check out what vendors they have there. I'm hoping to be able to pick up some tickets to the opening night of the Shania Twain show at Caesars Palace for Saturday night. I'm also a little nervous about the fact that the half marathon is an evening run. I usually run better first thing in the morning after having a light breakfast, so I'll have to be careful about what I do during the day on Sunday and what I eat. I'll have all day Monday to recover from the run, and will fly back to Columbus on Tuesday the 4th.
Yesterday I began doing some decorating around the house. All eight of my Nativity sets are set up throughout the living room. The corner curio cabinet now displays the Rudolph figurines, the three foot nutcracker now guards the fireplace, pictures have been switched out to reflect the holidays and I'm working to figure out where the tree, which I'll probably buy in the next couple of days, will be placed.
That got me thinking about my own first Christmas tree. I enlisted in the Army in 1984 and left for Basic Training the Monday following Thanksgiving. The majority of my Christmas season that year was spent listening to drill sgts yell...alot. The following year I was stationed at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLI) in Monterey, CA.
DLI is the school where the four branches of the military send people who need to learn to speak a foreign language as part of whatever job they are doing for the military. Most people there are going in to military intelligence, but there are also some with other jobs, like working at an embassy where they needed to know how to speak the language. I was a military policeman, and at that time, the Army was looking for MP's who spoke German to work with the customs units in Germany.
The classes were a combination of people with different ranks, different jobs, and different branches of the military. There were also civilians dependants in the classes. They were allowed to take the classes that their spouses were learning, or of the language for the country where their spouses would be stationed following the school. So, in my class there were two of us who were Army MP's fresh out of MP school (myself and Norm Babcock), an Army Chief Warrant Officer who was a helicopter pilot instructor (CW2 Roman), an Air Force Sgt. who was going in to Air Force Military Intelligence (Sgt. Priquette), an Army soldier who was going in to Military Intelligence (Maril Burnsed) and two civilians. One of the civilians was the wife of a Marine Corp. Major who was going to be an embassy liaison officer and the other was the wife of a soldier who was going in to Military Intelligence.
In the fall of 1985 I spent a lot of Sundays with Norm Babcock and his family watching football. His wife would make great spaghetti and meatballs. I spent my Thanksgiving in 1985 with the Babcock's in California and again with them in 1986 when we were both stationed over in Germany.
Christmas season of 1985 was much different than 1984. I was still in the Army, but being stationed at a school in California was much different than being in Basic Training in Alabama. In 1985 the class got together and had a Christmas Party/Dinner at our German instructor's house. We kind of "volunteered" him to host the dinner. That was the first of many Christmasses when I made Robert Redford (a desert that I now make pretty much every year at Christmas time). Obviously, living in the barraks, I didn't have the ability to cook anything, but Maril allowed me to come to her off post apartment and cook there.
We had a nice class dinner that year shortly before training shut down and everyone went home for Christmas leave. It was a nice break from class, which was six hours a day, five days a week for thirty-two weeks of nothing but learning to speak German.
The barraks I stayed in at DLI had two man rooms, so I shared my room with one other guy. We weren't allowed to do a lot of decorating, but I did manage to get a small two foot tree to put up in the room.
Next I have to say that I'm really looking forward to the Las Vegas Half Marathon on December 2. My training, which didn't seem to be going really well after running the Columbus Half Marathon in October, has really taken off the past couple of weeks. I've continued to get faster. The only thing I worry about right now is starting off too fast and not remembering to pace myself early so that I can keep running (hopefully for ALL of the 13.1 miles). I'll fly in to Las Vegas on Friday morning and head over to the expo to pick up my running packet and check out what vendors they have there. I'm hoping to be able to pick up some tickets to the opening night of the Shania Twain show at Caesars Palace for Saturday night. I'm also a little nervous about the fact that the half marathon is an evening run. I usually run better first thing in the morning after having a light breakfast, so I'll have to be careful about what I do during the day on Sunday and what I eat. I'll have all day Monday to recover from the run, and will fly back to Columbus on Tuesday the 4th.
Yesterday I began doing some decorating around the house. All eight of my Nativity sets are set up throughout the living room. The corner curio cabinet now displays the Rudolph figurines, the three foot nutcracker now guards the fireplace, pictures have been switched out to reflect the holidays and I'm working to figure out where the tree, which I'll probably buy in the next couple of days, will be placed.
That got me thinking about my own first Christmas tree. I enlisted in the Army in 1984 and left for Basic Training the Monday following Thanksgiving. The majority of my Christmas season that year was spent listening to drill sgts yell...alot. The following year I was stationed at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLI) in Monterey, CA.
DLI is the school where the four branches of the military send people who need to learn to speak a foreign language as part of whatever job they are doing for the military. Most people there are going in to military intelligence, but there are also some with other jobs, like working at an embassy where they needed to know how to speak the language. I was a military policeman, and at that time, the Army was looking for MP's who spoke German to work with the customs units in Germany.
The classes were a combination of people with different ranks, different jobs, and different branches of the military. There were also civilians dependants in the classes. They were allowed to take the classes that their spouses were learning, or of the language for the country where their spouses would be stationed following the school. So, in my class there were two of us who were Army MP's fresh out of MP school (myself and Norm Babcock), an Army Chief Warrant Officer who was a helicopter pilot instructor (CW2 Roman), an Air Force Sgt. who was going in to Air Force Military Intelligence (Sgt. Priquette), an Army soldier who was going in to Military Intelligence (Maril Burnsed) and two civilians. One of the civilians was the wife of a Marine Corp. Major who was going to be an embassy liaison officer and the other was the wife of a soldier who was going in to Military Intelligence.
In the fall of 1985 I spent a lot of Sundays with Norm Babcock and his family watching football. His wife would make great spaghetti and meatballs. I spent my Thanksgiving in 1985 with the Babcock's in California and again with them in 1986 when we were both stationed over in Germany.
Christmas season of 1985 was much different than 1984. I was still in the Army, but being stationed at a school in California was much different than being in Basic Training in Alabama. In 1985 the class got together and had a Christmas Party/Dinner at our German instructor's house. We kind of "volunteered" him to host the dinner. That was the first of many Christmasses when I made Robert Redford (a desert that I now make pretty much every year at Christmas time). Obviously, living in the barraks, I didn't have the ability to cook anything, but Maril allowed me to come to her off post apartment and cook there.
We had a nice class dinner that year shortly before training shut down and everyone went home for Christmas leave. It was a nice break from class, which was six hours a day, five days a week for thirty-two weeks of nothing but learning to speak German.
The barraks I stayed in at DLI had two man rooms, so I shared my room with one other guy. We weren't allowed to do a lot of decorating, but I did manage to get a small two foot tree to put up in the room.
The teddy bear was a present I bought for Erica (Norm's daughter) who was born just a couple of months before this Christmas. The larger of the two presents was a clock for Norm and his wife. I can not remember what the other present under the tree was or who it was for. But this was my first tree. I think it got left in California when I left a couple of months later, along with all the decorations on the tree.
Even though I wasn't home for most of the Christmas season, I enjoyed myself this year. The people I was stationed with, and the time we spent together, kept the Christmas season fun and enjoyable. Christmas of 1986 was spent in Germany and during Christmas of 1987 I had moved back home after finishing my enlistment, so it would be 1988 before I got my next Christmas tree. Those stories will have to wait until another entry. For now I'm sitting here blogging and watching "The Santa Clause". I'll probably look to get my next tree tomorrow or Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment