Long Ago - Bengaltiger55

Days gone by , experiences gone with them. Some lovely.

In my early lfe, we had a lot of adventures.

Dads Submarines - as a kid- yep, his,he went there, they seemed small. until you went below. The top is like an ice burg.. shows almost nothing.

He was the ships doc, so i got  to go on subs at times. Always liked them, even liked the torpedo tubes .. not getting stuck in one tho'. Dad was in conference; i snuck in one, he had to be called to get me Just childhood curiosity.

Learned a lot , I do not fit in torpedo tubes, and when married and my son got lost on the USS Constitution, in Boston Harbor, well, that was normal.He found the under construction, not his fault they did not know it was there. He eventually came out.

Suppose not much would have been made of it , had he not then picked up a real cannon ball and prepared to drop it in Boston Harbor. So it was an antique from Old Iron Sides, he was a kid.

Luckily his grand father had known I was only being a kid. Passed it on.

Never told dad brother and I were on a mined field. Centuries did not tell either; their job to keep us off. On base war games. Not our fault.

Military bases are unique. Civilian life was tamer.

There we did normal things. Camping , fishing, amusement parks, zoos, cook outs. Relative visits.

Grand parents were upstate new york, had left the city years before. 9 aunt-uncles their spouces and kids - the cousins- made a full house. NY grand family was large and fun. We went swimming and picnicing and just caught up with each other.

Catching up was always interesting, we were all military, different branches ...we were not allowed to discuss life on base with each other. So , we just had adventures.

Cousins had fun, we did as we pleased, country freedom.. new to us. Weeds higher than our heads, we hid in them... moving grass gave away our location.

The house was huge, three stories, at night we turned off lights used lanterns and told ghost stories. Scared ourselves half to death.Bed time meant cousins slept on 3rd floor; we went in groups.... can't be too careful. That floor used dim light, no idea why. 3 of us would hide in a goose down mattress. Safe.. almost..as longas the country wind did not blow... we were unaccustomed to that... scarry at our ages.

Daylight meant , dress for breakfast. Play in fields and visit the wild milk cow next door. Our milk came from supermarket, she must have been exotic.

So went a portion of our early lives.