Memories of Dad II - Make a Friend

My Dad just after WWII -First Lieutenant
Sister Susan and Me - on our way to France

Quonset Hut Schoolhouse

After France, the Bean family moved to Fort Worth, Texas where Dad worked at Carswell Air Force Base. It was 1956 – the start of the Cold War. The biggest bombers of them all , the B52’s carrying hydrogen bombs, took off at all hours of the day and night. The sign at the base entrance said "Strategic Air Command: Peace is our Profession".

Our trip back was pleasant – a first class cabin on the S.S. United States from Cherbourg to New York. There was one frightening episode the first day out. The lifeboat drill alarm sounded when I was by myself. and I thought the ship was sinking. Otherwise it was smooth sailing. My sister, Susan, and I loved the Spanish melon in the dining room. It was Easter in the North Atlantic complete with an on-board Easter Egg hunt for kids.

Driving a new Buick from New York to Texas was an experience. My sister, Susan, worried the whole way about our new school. She was afraid no one would speak French!
She was right, they didn’t.

Our school in France held 35 students in six grades . One teacher for grades 1,2 and 3. And one for 4,5 and 6. The two classrooms were housed in a small Quonset hut on the army base in Sampigny, about 8 miles from St. Mihiel. Each classroom had a coal stove for heat in the winter and there were no flush toilets – just latrines at the back of the playground. A military ambulance picked us up and delivered us to school each day. By the time I left France for ‘home’, I had only had one teacher since first grade.

The day I entered the 4th grade at Castleberry Elementary School in Fort Worth was a complete culture shock. It was a two story building with 600 kids. I knew no one. There were 25 kids in my classroom and one teacher. She seemed OK. At the first opportunity, my classmates were delighted to show me the state regulation classroom paddle on a hook next to the blackboard. That was for the bad kids I was told. I wondered how many bad kids went to school in Texas if every teacher needed a paddle to defend herself. The alarm bells for recess and lunchtime reminded me of the lifeboat drill on the Titanic. I was petrified!

That night when I went home, I cried and cried.

“I don’t want to go to school,” I bawled.

Dad came into my room and knelt down next to the bed.

“I know it’s hard,” Dad said.
“Don’t worry, Listen and I’ll tell you what to do.”
Then he gave me these words of advice.
“Tomorrow, when you go to school you only have to do one thing,” he advised. “Make a friend. That’s all just make a friend.”

The next day, I did what he said - I made a new friend. Dad was right. I definitely felt better and after a while I knew I would be OK in my new school. Since then, whenever I’m in a new situation, I remember Dad’s advice and look for a friend. It worked for him, and it works for me too.

DAKTARI

Memories of Dad I - March 8, 2009

Manley Lafayette Bean - (Feb 20, 1921- Feb 4, 2009)
U.S. Army- Fort Logan, Colorado
April 17, 1943


Our Chateau in St. Mihiel, France -1954-56

Manley L. Bean, 87, of Lafayette, Colorado died peacefully on February 4, 2009 after a long illness. Born February 20, 1921 in Clarksville, Arkansas, he joined the U.S. Army in 1937 and served in WWII and the Korean Conflict. He married his wife Geraldine Bowles of Fort Morgan in 1946. He retired from the Air Force in 1958 and moved to Colorado where he attended C.U. He graduated with an M.B.A. and worked for many years as Comptroller at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Manley then joined the private sector to become a Vice President of Neoplan, USA. He helped to plan and build the Neoplan bus manufacturing plant at Lamar.

(This is the first of a series of memories of DAD.)

My first memories of Dad go back to our time in St. Mihiel, France – 1954-1956
Dad was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force and commanded an ammunition depot on the Meuse River in Northern France. Mom, Susan and I arrived about three months into his first command. For the next three years, it was just the four of us living on the second floor of a villa in this small French town.

Our villa had previously been the headquarters of the German commandant during the occupation. The house had bunkers in the basement, blackout paint on the windows and carrier pigeons in the dovecote to remind us that D-Day had happened just a decade before.

We had no TV. I remember listening to the English language Armed Services Radio at night in the living room of our small chateau. Before bed, Dad and I would play a game of dominoes while listening to Lawrence Welk or Captain America. Dad and dominoes taught me how to add numbers in my head. I’ve been blessed with good math skills ever since.

I remember my first trip to the local ‘salon de coiffeur’. I am 7 years old and Dad is taking me for my first ‘store-bought’ haircut. Prior to this outing, Mom always cut my hair at home.

Monsieur le barbier places a board over the leather armrests of the big barber chair. I clamber aboard. A large serviette is tucked around my neck and secured with a straight pin. The shop is not electrified. I sit bolt upright and scared stiff. Dad watches from the row of chairs. I can see my head in the mirror. The barber squeezes his clippers – snick, snack. They open and shut a few inches from my ear. I close my eyes so as not to see any blood.

Fortunately, the barber is a pro, comme il le fait Edouard Scissorhands. No nicks and no red-stuff. The manual clippers pinch, however, if I flinch even the tiniest bit. After an eternity the barber whips off the drape with a loud “Voila, c’est finis!”. I open my eyes. I’m still alive! “Merci beaucoups!” I exclaim in relief. Dad takes me to the confiserie for a bonbon as a reward for bravery under fire.

The second trip to the barber was not nearly as bad. For the rest of my childhood and adolescence, haircuts will be a guy thing – something Dad and I always do together. I always go first, then Dad. I read ‘Boys Life’ and ‘Field and Stream’ while I wait patiently for him to finish. My hairstyle hasn’t changed since I was 7 years old. I still comb it the way Dad taught me. I will always remember him every time I run a comb through my hair.

(By the way, you can still purchase a flask of Vitalis at your local Walgreens. I did last week just to refesh my memory of the barbershops of my youth. The odor hasn’t changed a bit. It’s a time-travel-in-a-bottle experience for just six bucks and change.)

At eight, Dad and I collect stamps together. He likes American and Greek stamps. I like Mozambique and Tanganyika. We both like the smell of carbon tetrachloride. We pour the ‘carbon-tet’ into a small black tray and this allows us to see the ‘secret’ watermarks that show through the special paper from which stamps are made. It’s a protection against unscrupulous stamp forgers (if there ever was such a thing). The black letters and symbols are like a magic secret code revealed only to us numismatists in our private laboratory.

Later, I lick the glassine stamp hinge and place it carefully on the upper 1/3 of the back of my new stamp with special stamp tweezers. Then I lick the long end of the hinge and apply it carefully to the stamp album, attaching the stamp in its proper place among the stamps of its own country. “Any job worth doing, is worth doing well,” says Dad. “Good job.”

These colored stamps bring the world to me and my Dad. At night, I dream of traveling to faraway places. I’ve never stopped. I’ve been to Greece and will be going to Tanzania this summer. I’ve not yet made it to Mozambique, but it’s on my list.

DAKTARI