Friday November 2, 2012

It started out as another cool November day. After my at-home routine I headed to the MAC in bright sunshine. I must take my car into a paint sealing place by 1300 so I hurried through my routine and did not have time to go to the Kava House. I had a small coffee at Starbucks in Breton Village. I got home at 1200 and had a quick lunch before heading to the car finish shop. It took about 1.5 hours to put the sealer on. I took my Kindle so I read all the time. After the car work I headed to Woodland Mall. I stopped at the Apple Store to see if the iphone can use the Sprint cell system. It can. I also stopped at Radio Shack to get an electrical converter for our trip to SE Asia. When I got home about 1500 I suggested to Nancy that we take Ms P on our 1 mile walk early. She agreed so we put on our walking shoes and headed out the door. It was a beautiful fall day for a walk. I spent the rest of the afternoon checking on relatives who served in the Revolutionary War. I found two. Mark Sanborn who is a direct ancestor 6 generations removed served in Col. Warner's regiment in Jersey, Captain Barron's company for defense of Connecticut River frontier and Col. Bedel's regiment, April 1778. Mark Sanborn was born in Hampton Falls, NH March 4, 1750 and died in Bath, NH July 27, 1821. I found his record in the Sanborn Genealogy book. In fact they had an appendix titled Revolutionary Sanborns. Captain Stephen Tucker, direct ancestor 7 generations served in Backus (4) Light Horse, CT. His card # was 37071857. I found this reference in a web site called fold3.com. I also have a photo of Captain Tucker's tombstone in Woodstock, CT. He was born 1732 and died Nov 8, 1808 all in Woodstock, CT. I also found two letters that I wrote Mother. This first letter was written Saturday October 28, 1960. It was near midnight and I told Mother that I was real busy with a lot of exams recently. I just got a letter from my Draft Board that I had to report for a physical. I transferred to the Ann Arbor Draft Board so I would not have to go back to Alpena. I remember the physical. We took a bus out of Ann Arbor to Ft Wayne near Detroit. The physical and testing took most of the day. I passed. 1960 was the first year I could vote and I had an absentee ballot. I voted for Nixon. The second letter, 30 Oct 61, was from Port Hueneme, CA the home of the Pacific CBs. I was attending the Civil Engineering Corps Officer School. The school was about two months. There were 39 officers in my class. We had 4 Lieutenants, 16 Lieutenant junior grades, 17 Ensigns and 2 Officers from the Turkish Navy. The Lieutenants and Ltjg were all Naval Academy graduates. All the Ensigns, like myself, were all graduates of a ROTC program or OCS. The Turkish officers were classmates of mine at UM. Classes ran from 0800 to 1500. We had about 1.5 hours of homework each night. After classes were over we all headed to the gym. Morning roll call was at 0600. We stood two inspections since classes started. On Friday we all headed to the Officers' Club for Happy Hour. Drinks were 1/2 price. Last Friday we had a dance at the Club and local girls were invited. Last Sunday I went into LA to see the Lions play. We got in for 1/2 price if we wore our uniforms. I went with five classmates. My spelling and grammar was really bad on my letters home. A portion of our training had to do with weapons of mass destruction. The Navy was really concerned about nuclear blasts and chemical and biological attacks. I think the Soviets had just exploded a big H bomb. We had a lot of classes on survival methods. I even became certified on design of blast proof buildings. It all seems kind of silly now but folks were real serious in the 60s. Nancy fixed chicken burritos for dinner. They were good. We will watch CSI, NY before heading to bed.