Ft. Sill, Oklahoma

       We liked Oklahoma.  We rented a house with George and Anne.  All the people were friendly and we had good neighbors.
While we were at Ft. Sill several things happened.  That first spring they ended the Korean Conflict so I never had to go there.  Shortly afterward we got a new sergeant.  He had spent several months as a prisoner of war in Korea.  They were caught behind enemy lines and ran out of ammunition.  He told us that one of our 5 star generals had something going on (party)  so the ship that had the ammunition had to sit in the harbor and wait to get unloaded.  So they ran out of ammo.  He was in that big torture march of prisoners.   They had to march a lot of miles.  

When Eisenhower became president he gave a one year extension to all soldiers who had less than one year left to serve.  I had more than a year left so it didn't affect me but some of our guys had just a couple of weeks left so they had to serve another year.  They were not happy!

Our oldest son was born while we were there.  I took Darlene to the base hospital early in the morning.  When we got to the nurse's desk they took Darlene and told me I couldn't stay.  I was to go home,  then to work and they would notify me when she gave birth.  They notified me  between 10 and 11 am.  When I got there Darlene had Steve with her.  They were in a large room with two other women with new babies.  There was no air-conditioning.  This was July 16th so it was real hot.  There were no screens on the windows and there were big fans in them.  The women took total care of their babies 24 hours a day.  They had to walk to the cafeteria three times a day for meals.  The birth and hospital cost us $7.50.  That was a good thing because I got $37.50 per month.  We did pretty good the first week then it was "beans" for the rest of the month.  Darlene got $96.00 so we were able to pay our half of the rent but we were broke most of the time.  But we were young and in love so we lived on that, I guess.

Fort Sill was  a Field Artillery Center.  One day they were practicing  shooting 105 Howitzers.  They made a mistake on the setting and one landed in someone's kitchen in town, blew up their refrigerator.  Fortunately, no one was injured.  The commanding officer got shipped to another base.

We enjoyed the Wichita Mountains and Dodo Park.  Darlene liked fish and chips and Dodo Park had the best.  We also often went to an amusement park west of town.  They had rides and miniature golf and usually had special entertainment.

Steve's crib was by the window in our bedroom and when he was big enough to stand up in the crib he would get up at 3 am to watch the train that went behind our house every night.  He would grab the venetion blind in the middle and bend it down.  When the train was gone he would let go of the blind and it made a big noise from bottom to top.  He would go right back to sleep.  We got used to it and didn't even hear it.

We had a fan we ran in our bedroom at night.  One night we decided it would run better if we oiled it.  So, we oiled it--while it was running!!  This was NOT smart.  We had a circle of oil spatters all around the room.  We decided we'd have to wallpaper the room.  They had this new wallpaper that was pre-pasted and that sounded easy so that is what we bought.  The instructions said to cut the rolls to the proper length and wet them in water in the bathtub.  We finished the papering in the evening and it looked real nice.  When we got up in the morning it was all coming loose and falling off.  Those were the "good old days"???