Living in Fairfield
Once Don and I returned from our one week leave we decided to take in Hawaii in March of 1969, we moved off Travis Air Force Base and rented a nice little upstairs apartment in the Air Force town of Fairfield. From there we watched the Apollo flights with utmost interest. We witnessed Neil Armstrong setting foot on another world, together on our little black & white TV in that $175-a-month apartment.
Before we knew one another, we had each enlisted in the USAF to avoid the draft. The Army was, at the time, collecting everyone it could, to serve in its infantry, waging conflict in Viet Nam. Four years later, once we were both honorably discharged from our military enlistments, we found jobs in Fairfield, and bought a town house condominium that was under construction in a nice new development. Don found work selling furniture, and I went back to work for Western Electric, installing telephone switching equipment in various telephone company central offices around the area. I had left WE in the Los Angeles area to enlist four years earlier, and the job was available after my discharge, conveniently in the northern area. Don made the condo into a nice home. The image at upper right is the view from the kitchen across the bar into the den.
|
Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, Donald is on the left in this image, holding our dog "Pepper." My sister "Beah" Mary Kay is behind the lens. My parents are in the middle (D is holding "Pooch," Mary Kay's doggie, who had just jumped up into his arms), and that's me
on the right holding the very same doggie that Don is holding on the left in this pair of merged photos. We're in front of our condominium on Villa Court in Fairfield. When I visited the old place in recent years after Donald's death, it was a pleasant shock to see the little tree had become big and mature with a fat, twisting trunk holding its branches above the two-story roof.
|
Donald's candelabra was always alive with drippy red candles. Note the little brass deer on the right.
BACK TO ALMITRA