February 1970 GFAFB Map and End Notes

 

And with that, my one-month assignment to keep a diary ended.  I think I was probably happy about that.

For reference, here is what GFAFB looked like in the late 1960s.  Our house on North Cypress is shown in the lower right corner, with a small line drawn next to it.

Twining Elementary School is shown nearby.

A separate school - Eielson School - was created for the officer's kids.

One of my relatives gave me a signature book as a gift and on this page we recorded the signatures of my friends at the time - likely 1968 or 1969.

My mom probably suggested my friends sign it or perhaps this was done at one of my birthday parties, I really don't recall.

Tommy and Wesley Moore signed it.  If my recollection is correct, they were the sons of my dad's boss Ed Moore.  I think I only met Tommy and Wesley a few times.  The only memory I have with them is one of them - can't recall if it was Tommy or Wesley - suggested we play in their basement.  He pretended he was Elvis Presley and made me "The Colonel".   I had no idea at the time what that meant and went along with it.  Hey, it was something to do.

I don't recall a Jeffery McC but from the address listed I think we did play together a few times.  Only recollection I have of being at that house was seeing a Sea Horse for the first time - those were commonly advertised as something kids could send away for at that time.

Steven Harris was a friend and I think we had sleepovers a time or two.  I believe the first time I read a Dr. Suess book was at his house.

Next door to Steven lived Glenn Bleakley.  Don't remember a whole lot except when the adults had a party one evening, us kids played with a toy bowling set in the hallway, then had bowls of ice cream with chocolate syrup.  They taught me to mix the syrup in real good to create chocolate ice cream.  I thought that was the coolest thing!

"Mitchell" was Mitchell Worden who I played with a lot - he was just a few doors down on the opposite side of the street from our house.  Mitchell had one of those "time bomb" games we played with a few times and I watched at least one Peanuts cartoon special in his living room.   He and his dad also built a wooden go-cart (they planned to add an engine later but don't think they ever did) which us kids nick-names the Hogan's Hero Wagon as apparently we watched a lot of that show back then.  And his parents bought a new 1969  Chevrolet Malibu that I thought was just gorgeous.

Steven Gray and his brother lived on the other end of the Cypress Street horseshoe so we didn't play together all that often.  They had a Play-Doh set we used in their bedroom a time or two.

I have no clue who Michal or Kenny were.