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Cort, Red, and Nap Cort: My Grandfather on my Father's side was Cortland Joel Backus. Everyone called him Cort. He was born in 1892 and was the youngest of 11 children. I don't know a lot about his father other than he fought in the Civil War and he was married twice. He had 6 children with his first wife and then 5 more with his second, who was my Great Grandmother. Her name was Mary and her maiden name was Stowe, part of the Harriet Beecher-Stowe clan and true to the Beecher-Stowe family,she was very religious. Evidently I am related to Harriet Beecher Stowe through my Great Grandmother. While it's true I am completely against slavery, I am not a religious person, but my wife is. Maybe I can get 50% credit. My Grandfather grew up a city kid, Cleveland. He learned to swim in Lake Erie when his older brother threw him overboard one day and told him to swim or drown. He told me he realized later that his brother would never have let him drown but...

Married WithOut Permission Donna with dried flower pic on wall End of November 1969, Keesler AFB. I finally reached the mid-point of my training and was granted leave. I took off for Valparaiso to marry my girlfriend Donna. There was one problem. Donna was of legal age at 20 but I was not. It was 18 for women but 21 for Men, at least in Indiana, and I was still a few months from being 21. However, in Kentucky, the next state south, it was 18 for men. I called my parents to see if they would sign off. While not thrilled about it, realizing I was going to do it regardless, they signed off. The day after I arrived in Valpo was the first draft lottery. I listened to it with some of my friends. I knew the unlucky ones were going to have to make some tough decisions. Donna and I got married a couple of days later at a Justice of the Peace's office. Two of our friends came along to be witnesses. It was the middle of the afternoon but the Judge had to be rouste...

how i went from why am i here to how did i get here: -    it was like 4 gazillion years ago and i was doing my best to not get caught up in the grind but then one day i'm hangin' with this silly valley geek set - it was all weird and stuff, i mean what's a wannabee counter-culture dude from waspville doing in the mother of all high tech suburbs? - but then i spied this xtra cute kinda back to the earth blondie fresh outa Santa Cruz and I says 'hey this is way cosmic, what kina sh*t was i doing this morning anyway" - and so i think what the f#$% 'nd jump on - next thing i know this same blonde chic forces a beer down me and says she's gotta a couch that's callin' my name and hers and then when i come down off that trip i am hangin out in suburbia city, blondie's bringin' home the salmon, and the music my parents used to listen to is invading my music collection - i take inventory only to find i'm like stable, with a day-...

1969 – AWOL – Part 2 – The Return I was AWOL and had caught an evening Trailways bus from Biloxi to Valparaiso. I arrived early the next morning. Donna was surprised but happy to see me. I can still recall the joy and relief I felt when I saw her. She was living in university housing. It was an old building that had just a few residences, but men were not permitted to stay in the women's residences. We spent the whole day together but at night I had to stay with one of my friends. Donna and I did not have much money but we decided to splurge and get a hotel room for the next couple of nights. We spent the next few days together and then did some LSD the afternoon before I planned to return to the base. A lot of emotions I had been holding in came out. I was holding on to more than I realized. It was cathartic, it really was. I'd been heading down an unhealthy path. I think Donna was a little surprised how deeply effected I was by my decision to enlist. ...

1969 – Going AWOL - Part 1 After about 4 or 5 months in the Air Force my method of dealing with my situation, shutting down, was wearing on me. I was missing Donna. At this time in my life Donna was about the only person who I felt connected to. Of course my parents were trying to support me but we were at odds and I didn't feel at the time that they understood my views or supported my decisions. I was needing to find someplace I could let myself out. I wanted to not be in the Air Force for a few days. I had been trying to cope by keeping myself locked away and the world around me at a distance. I was trying to just get through each day without doing too much thinking like I had through basic training. I was insulating myself from what was going on around me as a result, I was feeling isolated. I was putting myself on hold, kind of not living my life but rather watching it and to some extent trying to ignore it. I was feeling empty and sadly trying to stay that ...

Dear Mister Nash For poetry I have no zest Even when written by the best To tell the truth I haven't time To sit and think of words that rhyme I wrote this in 1960. I was 11 and in the 6 th grade. I had received an assignment to write a poem. I was not too happy about the assignment and struggled with it until I finally came up with the above. I got an “A” and it was put on the 1 st page of a school newsletter containing some of the students' writings. 8 th grade came around and again I received an assignment to write a poem. I decided to submit my now 2 year old poem. I got an “A” on it and it was included in the school's annual literary publication. It was either the 10 th or the 11 th grade when once again I received an assignment to write a poem. I worked on a few things, but in the end I fell back on the one I wrote in 6 th grade. Why not? It had already gotten me 2 “A”s. I was not an A student in anything except gym and math. I sub...

1969 Some Kind of Storm – Keesler Part 2 I was stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi Mississippi when Hurricane Camille decided to pay a visit. Camille came ashore at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi just west of Keesler. Camille was a Category 5 hurricane. Meteorologists described the wind as tornado force that even blew apart houses not touched by the storm surge. Only Hurricane Andrew was even close to Camille's wind speed. It had winds recorded up to 190mph but actual peak wind speed is not known since all the high quality measuring instruments in the area were destroyed during the storm. It was the weekend of Woodstock and we were going to be all restricted to base anyway but once Camille hit we were restricted to a cinder block building with no windows and no electricity. What seemed like half my generation was at Max Yasgur's farm listening to the likes of Joe Cocker, Country Joe, Ten Years After, CSN&Y and others that Sunday. Me, I was stuck sitting in ...

What is it you actually do? My Dad was an OR (operations research) engineer for the phone company. I'd been to his office a few times when I was growing up. From time to time I would ask him what he did at work. He would start to explain about the number of lines coming in, redirection, capacity, blah blah blah. I'd half tune out waiting for the part where he told me what he actually did but it never came. Then I would say yeah, but what is it you actually do? His reply of course was I just told you. I never got it. When I'm told or see a sign to not touch or not do something it immediately makes me want to do it even if it's something I would not ordinarily do. This seemed to be true for everyone in my family. I know with my sister, the best way to get her to do something is tell her she can't. What is that about? Is that human nature or is it something odd about my family? It even shows up in golf. If my thought while striking the ball is...

1969 and the Importance of Personal Hygiene 1969 was a seminal year for me and a signature year in America and it was following a rather notable 1968 where we saw the Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Democratic Convention protest debacle , and the Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised fist salute at the Olympics. 1969 was at the peak of the anti-war movement. It was the year of Woodstock, Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong's “ giant leap” on the moon. It was the year of the Beatles last live performance (London Rooftop). The year the draft lottery was established. It was the start of PBS and Sesame Street. It was the year of Chappaquiddick and the Charles Manson murders. It was the year Richard Nixon became President, and the trial of the Chicago 7, from the Democratic Convention the previous year. It was the year of Hurricane Camille, the fiercest hurricane to ever hit North America  It was the year of Muhammad Ali's conviction of draft ...

Standing In Line I hate standing in line. I've been told that there is a reason for everything but jeeze, there should be a good one for this standing in line business, because I don't like it. When I was young I had trouble just standing still. I was impatient. Waiting in line was torturous. Everyone in my family was quick paced. We walked fast. We talked fast. We ate fast. We drove fast. Being fast may have been one of the few things I knew for certain about myself. I struggled with who I was or rather who I was supposed to be. I was shy as a child, and still am reserved with those I do not know well. Even after graduating from High School and heading off to college I had little clue as to who I really was. All I knew was certain things were required, certain things were fun, certain things were not, and there was also a certain way to act or present oneself because that's what you did. I had no sense as to whether I had any value as a pers...

The Old Ball Game When I was growing up Baseball was the #1 sport in America. Baseball was and still is my favorite sport. Almost every kid I knew was a baseball fan. Almost every kid was dying to go to a major league baseball game, and of course every kid's "Holy Grail" was to catch a foul ball off the bat of a major league ballplayer, it certainly was mine. My first close encounter with getting a ball hit into the stands was on Old Timers Day in the old Yankee Stadium – when the monuments were still on the field of play out in center-field. I was at the game with my Dad and my two Grandfathers. We were in the upper deck just to the third base side of home plate. I was about 10. I was sitting on the aisle and my Dad's Dad was sitting next to me. Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek hit a foul ball that came up and landed in the aisle right next to me. I jumped on it and got my hands on it. The next kid, much older, a high school kid, reached down and ...