Pages from Photo Baby Album

On September 23, 1949, one Gregory Earl Sanchez came into the world at Tampa Municipal Hospital at 8:25 A.M. Mother, Anita Sanchez; Father George E[dward] Sanchez. The doctor was O.A. Ellingson. The nurse as Mrs. Morton. (If I am reading mom's writing correctly.) My grandparents were Ray and Gladys Breeze and George A. and Marie Sanchez.

Also, according to mom's entries, I held my head up at two weeks. I smiled at one month. At five months, I sat alone. I crawled at seven months. On June 6th, at 8 months and two weeks, I stood alone. I took my first step on July 23rd. My first word was "Da Da."

As for gifts, the photo album itself was presented by Ruth, Bill & Danny Daly. Soakers-sweater hood & booties from Doris & Frank Sutcliff. Gray rompers from Mrs. M.J. Durocher. Pillow & blue blanket - Scarlett, Bobbie Ruby & Herbert Stone. Dress - Mr. & Mrs. Jacobson. Rattler & Rompers - Sgt. & Mrs. Grantham. Rompers - Maj & Mrs. Leslie Payne & Leslie Jr. Initial safety pins - Capt. & Mrs. Jim Williams. Divided dish- Melba & Frenchie (Capt & Mrs. French Michael, Kelly & Cynthia). Yellow rompers and socks to match - Lt & Mrs. Ray Gardner. Yellow satin quilt - Lt. Mike Patton. White knit suit - Lt & Mrs. Jack Murphy. Dish with name inscribed - Lt & Mrs. G.K. Lutes. Bib & pillow case - Mr. & Mrs. Jose Sanchez. Blue shoes - Capt. & Mrs. Ned Brown. Red Horse - A.J. Bennetts.

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Telegram Announcing My Birth

It took me over 48 hours to find this. I knew I had it stashed somewhere, I just didn't know where I had put it for safekeeping. The envelope that it was sent in is completely nibbled around the entire periphery, which looks like the work of mice. This telegram was sent to "Mrs. Geo. A. Sanchez, 43 Balboa Coves, Newport Beach, Calif." The telegram says I was born at 8:30 AM. My Photo Baby Album says 8:25 AM. My Certificate of Birth from Florida does not list a time of birth, so I will just have to suspect that my dad rounded up to the nearest half hour for Grandma Sanchez.

In those days, people rarely phoned long distance, mostly because of the cost (and most people had party lines, where more than one household shared the same phone line: watch the movie MR. HOBBS TAKES A VACATION from the early 60's). Obviously, there was no Internet, no emails. Telegrams were often the quickest way to inform someone of an event. It was also a succinct way to communicate since the sender was charge by the number of letters in the telegram.

Telegrams are now, of course, pretty much a thing of the past, though Google indicates with several entries that you can still send one. In the 1960's, 70's, and 80's, there were songs about telegrams: "Hey, Western Union Man", among others.

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Mom & Paul Henreid 1943; Mom 1946

I found two more vintage photographs among my own things. The first is of mom and the actor Paul Henreid (NOW, VOYAGER and CASABLANCA, 1942, among many others). The photo is dated 1943; and though he looks like he's dressed as a pirate, researching his filmography, he doesn't appear to have been in a pirate film in 1943.

The second, a professional portrait, is stamped on back with the following: "Jan 1946, Photo by Jack Barsby, 4358 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Studio City, Phone SU. 2-2600." A quick google of Jack Barsby reveals a web page that is titled "Vintage Ladies; vintage nudes, pinups & other beauties." The primary photograph of a nude woman is by Jack Barsby. Another google entry lists a photo of a Ballerina entitled "Ballet", which was a 1944 Brooklyn Museum exhibit. On the back of that photo is the same stamp of the photographer and studio listed on the back of mom's photograph two years later. I can only speculate that mom had the picture taken to advance a potential movie career, but I cannot be certain.

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Christmas 1947

The first photograph is annotated "Mom Sanchez + Anita Downtown SA 'Xmas '47"--you can see Christmas decorations behind the two as they walk down the street. Initially, I could not determine when the second photograph was taken until I compared mom's hair style. It appears to be the same in the two photographs. I believe it's safe to conclude that both photographs were taken before Christmas 1947, as mom and dad decorate their tree (or at least pretend to be decorating the tree for whomever is taking the picture because the tree already looks fully decorated).

Throughout the two photo albums, one of which mom later annotated, the other not, are lots of Christmas photographs. These are two of the few which do not prominently feature either my sister or me or both of us together. If mom and dad were married in late 1946 or January 1947, in Florida, and Grandma and Grandpa Sanchez were present, when dad was later stationed in San Antonio, they must have come back to spend Christmas with their oldest son.

I must now, briefly, mention my Uncle Leon, my grandparents youngest son (they had had a daughter, but she died as an infant--they never spoke of her that I can recall so that I do not know her name nor what she died of). In the early years of the war, Leon was at college in Tucson, Arizona. I understand that he was not doing well and was in jeopardy of flunking out and being drafted. I believe he was fearful of being drafted as an enlisted man and not an officer, so he simply left the country. He crossed the border into Mexico and remained there, becoming a citizen after a number of years of residence. He married a Mexican citizen, my Aunt Lourdes, whom I have never met. They had five children and were successful. I also have never met any of my cousins, though my sister has met them all, including our cousin Jose, who would, several years back, commit suicide.

This explains Leon's absence from any and all photographs in mom's albums--he could not return to the United States for many years because he had dodged the draft. I believe I have only met Uncle Leon twice. Once when he was visiting my dad and stepmother in Garden Grove, CA. And once when dad was in the emergency room and would die a few days later in April 2002. When I asked Ann a couple of years ago how Leon was doing, she was not even certain that he was still alive and said she would call one of our cousins to see what has happened to him. He had later divorced Aunt Lourdes, perhaps in the 70's, and eventually remarried; I did meet his new wife at the time that dad was in the hospital. Leon also had conflicts with Jose, which may have contributed to Jose's suicide. I also heard that Jose might have been, or was, gay; and that that also contributed to his committing suicide. Two brothers whose oldest sons were both gay has a kind of symmetry, whether welcome or not.

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Ralph Houk Fishing In Missouri

The other night I watched the Billy Crystal-directed HBO film, "61*". It was about the year, 1961, that Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were chasing Babe Ruth's single-season home run record of 60.

The manager of the Yankees that season, and for several seasons to come, was Ralph Houk. He was first manager from 1961-63, winning two of the three World Series the Yankees appeared in.

After a brief stint as GM, he later returned to manage the Yankees part-way through the 1966 season and remained their manager until his final season of 1973. He also managed the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox. Prior to his becoming manager for the Yankees, he was a catcher for the team from 1947 through 1954.

I was aware that my mom knew Ralph Houk. On at least one occasion I even spoke with him on the phone when he called our house in South Gate, CA, in the 1960's. Whenever the Yankees were in Southern California to play the Angels, he would call and they would meet after a game.

From these two, old, B&W photograhs, which mom annotated as "Ralph Houk fishing in Mo." and "Ralph dumping boat", the two of them had obviously known one another for a number of years. What was the connection?

In reading more about Ralph Houk, one discovers that he was born (1919), and graduated high school, in Lawrence, Kansas, not that many miles from where my mom was born and raised in White Cloud, KS. These two photographs appear to be from the 1940's. His biography also states that he was a war hero and began playing for the Yankees in 1947. He died on July 21, 2010, at the age of 90 after a brief illness.

I never asked my mom how the two of them met and what the nature of their relationship was. I always figured they were two adults and that was their business. I am almost certain he was not aware that mom died in 2002, eight years before he passed away.

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Grandma & Grandpa Breeze and Mom at Red Rocks Amphitheatre

My Grandmother and Grandfather Breeze, my mom's parents, obviously visited my dad and mom while they were living in Denver, Colorado, circa 1947. Gladys and Ray Breeze lived most of their lives in White Cloud, Kansas, in the extreme northeast corner of the state, where my mother was born back on July 4th, 1921.

In the photograph, which my father must have taken, my Grandmother sits just behind my Grandfather and is barely visible. Mom stands in front of them.

Red Rocks Amphitheatre, lying toward the West of Denver, has hosted some memorable concerts and events over the years. Most notably, U2's UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY concert was recorded there. The ticket I have included is from a concert I attended in 2008, Cyndi Lauper's TRUE COLORS tour, featuring the B-52's and Joan Armatrading, among others.

How could my parents or grandparents have even comprehended that, approximately 61 years after they were playing tourist in an otherwise empty performance venue, a tour, celebrating diversity, especially celebrating gays as a significant part of that diversity, would appear there? And that same concert would be attended by their gay son and grandson, along with hundreds of other gays, lesbians, and gay friendly people?

As my mom used to say regarding all things gay, "Oh, we never spoke of such things back then." Heck, the music of U2 a couple of decades earlier than the TRUE COLORS tour would have knocked their eye teeth out and sent them fleeing the scene of utter madness. Rock and Roll music was still the better part of a decade off. Aliens landing from outer space might have created a lesser sensation in their eyes.

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Mom and Dad on Pikes Peak circa 1947

With dad still in the service, they moved around quite a bit before, and after, my sister and I were born. Mom used to talk about living in Spokane, Washington; Biloxi, Mississippi; San Antonio, Texas; and Denver, Colorado.

Here they are on top of Pikes Peak, probably while they lived in Denver. Decades later, mom still would complain that dad cracked the block of their car on the drive to the top of the Peak, though I doubt he had any direct responsibility for that, beyond actually driving the car.

She used to also tell me the story of a young woman with whom she shared an apartment in the war years while living not far from the bank where she worked in West Hollywood. The young woman owed her for the monthly rent but skipped out without paying and disappeared.

Shift ahead to the later 40's, when she and dad were living in Denver. One afternoon while she was walking along Colfax Avenue (I have lived near Colfax for nearly 20 years now), whom should she spy walking toward her but the very same young woman who had skipped out without paying her portion of the rent a few years earlier? Mom always laughed as she described the shocked look upon the other woman's face when she recognized my mother, a woman she probably never expected to see again. Mom used to offer that as an example of how one's past can always catch up, no matter where or when one might least expect it.

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Mom and Dad's Wedding

The back of the photographs are dated Jan. 17, 1947.

World War II was over. The Great Depression had been at an end a few years before. The country was in the midst of the post-war baby boom, and the conversion from military to civilian industry was well under way. These were two Kodachrome prints made by Eastman Kodak Company. But none of this was to last, not even Eastman Kodak.

By 1960, which probably would have seemed a long way off to those at this wedding, mom and dad would be divorced and dad just remarried.

It's like looking through a time portal into the distant past. Everyone in this photograph has been dead for nearly a decade and more. My grandmother died in the 1970's. My grandfather in the late 1980's. (They stand immediately to the left of my father.)

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Bank of America - Melrose

Here was the Bank of America branch mom worked at. She wrote in the photo album "Melrose".

I heard this story from my aunt, though my mom may have mentioned parts of the story over the years:

She fell hard for a serviceman she met in California early in the war. When he went overseas, she attempted to send him a package but was told by the postmaster that he had already received his postage-free package from his wife. This was the first she ever knew that he was married.

Later, this serviceman was in the same P.O.W. camp with my (future) father. The guy told my dad all about my mom and suggested he meet her. When they were both freed at the end of the war, dad returned to California and looked up my mom, explaining to her how he had learned about her. When she asked about the guy she'd been in love with early in the war, dad lied and told her that the fellow had died in the P.O.W. camp. (That was the part I do recall mom telling me all about years later. )

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My mom and Ginger Rogers at RKO Studios

During WWII, my mom worked at a Bank of America in West Hollywood. She met a number of Hollywood celebrities during the few years she worked at the bank. She also was sometimes sent to a studio with paperwork for a particular studio personality to sign.

Here she is with Ginger Rogers. There is no date on the back of this photograph. However, on the back of another, smaller copy of the same photograph, mom wrote "1944".

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Photographs of You and Me

Many months ago, my sister Ann told me over the phone that she was tired of hauling around so many photo albums that had belonged to my mom, albums that I had put together for our mother in the 1990's. She will have been dead ten years this upcoming June, so it seemed as good a time as any to decide what to keep and what to discard from among so very many pictures.

To say our mom took, and kept, photographs would be an understatement. She carried a camera in her purse for so many years and snapped away constantly. When she got the photos developed, she often had the store print two or three, or more, copies, each time, to give to others.

I took it upon myself to buy the blank photo albums and try to organize, as best I could, the many, many photos she kept in envelopes and drawers and, yes, even shoe boxes. It took between ten and twenty albums to put them all between covers. And, once I was done, she still had a few more years of life left to keep taking more pictures.

When we were forced to move her from her apartment of the previous twenty-five years to an assisted living situation, we had to discard so much of what she had owned. All of those pictures she'd taken after I organized the first hundreds, I was forced to go through and decide whether to keep or discard all of those, and there were many more. If I did not recognize the people in the photos, I instantly tossed them. The others I had to decide if they were worth keeping or not. In many cases she'd already sent a copy to me, so I did not need to keep those either.

Now, Ann wanted to be rid of these many photo albums after she'd taken them back to Maryland when mom died in 2002, and then back out to California when she permanently moved to Indio, CA, a few years ago. Fortuantely, I knew that there were a couple of treasures among those several albums. Specifically, two of them contained many black & white images from when my sister and I were very young, infants even. Or from the decades of the 30's and 40's, long before we were born. I knew that those albums were priceless, and I would keep them myself if my sister no longer wanted custody of them.

Over the past New Year's weekend, with my Aunt Jean also visiting my sister in Indio, we all began the arduous task of pouring through each album, to keep what we wanted and toss out the rest. I looked first and then left the other two to look through what I did not want. Then my aunt took her turn and saved what she wanted. Finally, my sister looked over what was left.

However, the B&W albums I kept, except where an entire page contained pictures of my sister or of her elementary school class, companion photos to those of my own classes, when we both attended Laural Elementary School in Whittier, CA, from 1956 until 1959.

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Air Force Academy adapts to pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans

The Air Force Academy now accommodates "Earth-based" religions.

From the L.A. Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-air-force-pagans-20111127,0,6813530.story

Since my own Rainbow Arc of Fire characters practice an earth-based pagan religion, this news makes it even more disappointing that I won't be there to become involved.

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The process, Part VII

One week and two days after they received my application (and one day before Thanksgiving Day), I received their reply: "We are in receipt of your application for the position of Assistant Professor of English, #11-45ENG. However, I'm sorry to inform you that your application has been rated not qualified. Specifically, you do not meet the minumum education requirement of an earned Doctorate degree as outlined in the 'Qualifications' section of the vacancy requirement."

It's completely accurate, of course. But it's as if they did not take into account the fact that I'm more educated and better qualified now to teach there than I was back in 1978, when I was first hired.

So, the dream I had from even before the day I resigned on October 12, 1979, that I would one day be able to return, is now shattered completely. I am too old to return to the Air Force. Had I been able to do that, I could have applied to be one of the military instructors at USAFA where a Master's Degree is sufficient education, and all of the rest of my educational experience and background would have been even more reason to hire me.

When I once more applied back in 1992, while their notice for a civilian instructor stated that they preferred to hire a PhD, it was not absolutely required then as it is now. But then it was all too soon after my forced resignation. And then, of course, they still had that aversion to having anyone who was gay present and teaching there, whether in the service or not. This was a year before DADT came into effect.

They might have read about me, read between the lines. They might have made an exception this time around. They might have been willing and able to set an old wrong right after more than 32 years. But they chose not to.

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The process, Part VI

The package was delivered to "Reception" at 11:04 AM today. Signed by "SHOCK".

Now, the real waiting begins.

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The process, Part V

Out for delivery.

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The process, Part IV

My transcripts did not arrive on Thursday either. Before I learned that, I contacted Dominguez Hills and told the woman I spoke with that I would gladly pay to have my transcripts sent via FedEx overnight. Late in the afternoon, just before I learned that my transcripts that were supposed to have been sent the previous Friday, priority mail, did not arrive, she called me and informed me that FedEx had picked up the packet.

Yesterday afternoon, the transcripts sent via FedEx on Thursday did arrive. I put them in with all of the other required documents and took them whole thing to Office Depot to overnight them to USAFA on Monday. I have been following their progress since yesterday. (BTW, the transcripts supposedly sent last Friday did arrive today. Unfortunately, regardless of what I had been told about their being sent last Friday, the postmark was November 8. They were postmarked Tuesday, not last Friday. That is why they never got here on Wednesday or Thursday.)

At 2:32 AM early this morning, the application packet left the UPS station in Commerce City for Colorado Springs. Nothing has appeared to confirm that they have arrived in Colorado Springs yet. But the packet is supposed to be delivered at noon on Monday to USAFA. I can only hope that that happens. Until I get actual confirmation of delivery on that day, I won't rest easy.

With so many road blocks in the way, just to put the packet of documents together and send it all off, I have questioned whether or not this was the direction for me to take. However, after 32 years, I would never have let the opportunity pass without trying very hard to go back.

Again, the Academy can simply say that I do not have the required PhD, and I will have no further recourse. I only have a few years left until retirement. I, at least, want to have the opportunity to teach once more. But it's all out of my hands now.

When I tried to get accepted at UCCS for their teacher certification program back in 1988, I might have been beyond the deadline when I called about applying; however, the head of the program allowed me to apply anyway, and I was accepted, beyond their cutoff date. Even my horoscope the next morning said, after I visited the campus the previous afternoon, that I should consider returning to school to get a teaching certification. That certification didn't actually get me a secondary teaching job, but the additional education regarding teaching, and especially teaching English, might be enough to get me hired now. Or none of my experience and background will matter one bit.

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The process, Part III

As of late yesterday, my transcripts from Dominguez Hills still had not arrived. Tomorrow is a legal holiday for the Air Force and the post office. That means, if I don't get the transcripts today, I definitely won't get them tomorrow. Saturday afternoon mail delivery will likely be too late to get them to the Academy by Monday. The college said they would send them out last Friday, priority mail.

If they do arrive later today, I will probably use FedEx or UPS instead of the post office since they will be closed. I don't know if they would be able to send my application package on Saturday anyway. And, if I did try to mail it late today, they still might not get it there on Monday.

I am now also having to contemplate driving down to the Air Force Academy on Monday morning and hand delivering my packet, that is if the transcripts arrive in the mail today or Saturday.

It should not have had to be this hard. I ordered them more than a month ago and paid handsomely for two sets of each of my MA degree and BA degree transcripts, separately. Yet, even though there were no problems with my MA degree transcripts, the college still did not bother to send those out separately, weeks ago.

Waiting 32 years to have even a slim chance to return to the best job I ever had, and now I have to worry because something as simple as "Official" transcripts not arrving could undo the whole process.

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The process, Part II

A flury of phone calls and emergency requests. I find out that East L.A. College was having trouble finding my records, and that Dominguez Hills discovered that my records for the Fall of 1970 were damaged on microfiche and unreadable. Fortunately, having photocopies of my transcripts, I was able to tell the woman from the college what three courses I took. She said on Friday that they would send the transcripts out priority mail.

Yesterday, I got the transcripts from East L.A. College. I hope the ones from Dominguez Hills arrive today. It should not have been this much trouble. I was able to get them all without any problems more than a year ago.

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The process

By that I mean what it takes to actually apply for a job for which you are overly qualified yet do not actually have one of the key qualifications--namely, a PhD.

I had no intention of covering up or concealing or otherwise ignoring the fact that I am gay. And that it was because I was gay that they forced me to resign from the Academy 32 years ago. However, I have no idea in this post-DADT era how that will impact my application. They can easily say, "We need a PhD, and you do not have a PhD. We are sorry, but we have other applicants who are more qualified for the position than you." They don't have to openly admit, even to one another when they reject my application, that it was actually because I am gay that they have no intention of hiring me. Or it could be because I am 62 years old. Likely, I would be one of the, if not the, oldest faculty members on the staff.

They cannot reject someone these days because of age or for being gay. But they don't have to say that's the reason when they have a perfectly legitimate justification to do so.

Or they could be an entirely unique group of individuals who realize what happened 32 years ago and decide that they actually want to see an old injustice undone all of these many years later. This is the English Department. How many of their current instructors are gay? How many of their favorite writers were gay?

But right now none of that is my problem. Right now, I have been waiting over three weeks for transcripts from East LA College and California State University at Dominguez Hills. The month is nearly over, and I sent off a check with all the information about myself the first week of October. Day after day, I have looked for the transcripts in the mailbox but, like Charlie Brown fishing for Valentine's Day cards therein, I have not seen transcripts from either of those two institutions.

Finally, yesterday, I called East LA but got no one on the phone repeatedly. I eventually left a message, but no one called me back. I called again several times and finally got someone. However, when she tried to look up my personal information (I did not have my student ID handy but gave her my name, date of birth, social security number, and attendance dates; however, still she could not find me in their computer. She put me on hold but then there was a click and the phone started to ring again. I had been transferred, without knowing that, to another woman who was responsible for those former students whose last names began with "N through Z". I left another message, this time with my "permanent no.", what it says on a copy of my transcript that I do have (the Academy requires "Official" transcripts).

She did not call me back.

I tried one more time, left a third message, and got no return calls for the remainder of the afternoon. All I wanted to know is if they still had my check (my bank records do not show that the check was ever cashed) and could they finally send out my transcripts. Unfortunately, I could not afford to wait any longer. I had my roommate pick up an overnight envelope from the post office, and I inserted another cover letter with all the information about me, and included a check for $20.00 to get Emergency Transcripts sent to me. Time is running out.

Dominguez Hills was another matter. I had paid over the Internet for two copies of my B.A. degree transcripts and then two copies of my M.A. transcripts, using a company that takes care of the financial aspects of this sort of transaction for the university. I believe I paid $20.00 for each pair of transcripts. I next got emails, confirming the receipt of the money, and confirming that my transcripts were being sent by the university. That was at least two weeks ago. No transcripts have yet arrived. I called their customer service yesterday, and the rep who answered checked and said he would request that additional copies be sent since I never got what I was supposed to get over the past couple of weeks.

Those were two separate orders, and two separate charges, for two copies of each set of transcripts. Yet I got no copies of any transcripts, so far. What are the odds? And not just the odds their neither set came from Dominguez Hills, but that neither of the two transcripts I had ordered from East LA College have arrived either?

Even after 32 years of waiting to return to teaching at the Academy, I still am having problems with something that ought to be so simple: getting transcripts. I got my transcripts from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where I obtained my secondary English certification back in 1988-9. They arrived in one week. I even got my DD 214 from military records early last week. Over a year ago, I needed official transcripts from East LA and Dominguez Hills when I applied for two different community college teaching jobs. Those arrived with no problem within two weeks of each request. Now, with the most important application in my life pending, I have received nothing yet from either source.

I suppose that I have become one who pays attention, as the Greeks and Romans used to, to "signs and omens". In our modern era, it isn't the flight of birds or the entrails of other animals that do it--it's just this sort of thing such as messed up transcript requests that make one wonder what the heck is going on. Am I not meant to teach there once again?

Is it because, if you want something bad enough, regardless of how long you have already waited, it still is not going to be easy? This additional time has certainly caused me to ponder why I am doing this, why I still want to return to take up once more the best job I ever had in my entire life.

After my discharge on October 12, 1979, life sent me on this entirely different expedition. I wrote several books, including an autobiography, before finally writing and publishing the Rainbow Arc of Fire series. Had I not been forced to resign, had I not moved to Denver, had Amendment 2 and DADT not passed, I probably would never have written the series.

Now, some might question, as I certainly do, that RAoF has never been very popular or sold more than several hundred copies of all volumes, combined. Beyond being significant for me, it's not been significant for more than a few of my readers. (The very few reviews on amazon.com attest to the fact that, of all the books I have sold there and elsewhere, only 1-3 reviews exist for any one volume in the series. Only a couple of people have cared enough, negatively or positively, even to write a review.)

No, the writing of the series was mostly for me, cathartic or otherwise. It got me through the years while I waited for Amendment 2 to be overturned as well as DADT to go away. Just as the autobiography and the other, abortive novels helped get me through the years immediately after my forced resignation. The 80's was the toughest decade to endure. I still lived, metaphorically and emotionally, in the shadow of the Academy, just down Academy Boulevard.

A person's life features so many challenges along the way. Triumphs are a culmination of what happens after overcoming those challenges. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of personal triumph is often fleeting.

I survived my resignation. I survived this interminable era of AIDS. I survived to see DADT come into effect and then see DADT overturned. Sadly, the sun is indeed setting upon my working life. Before I can collect social security, I have to work but six more years. To get the maximum out of social security, I have to work until I am 70, eight years off. I have lived in my condo for 14 years. I have lived in Denver for 20 years. I have lived in Colorado for 33 years. I am 62 years old. The scant years I have left to work seem very short indeed.

So, am I going to get to teach once again at the Academy? I have no idea. I haven't the slightest clue what these latest signs and omens mean. I have two weeks left to submit my application materials. Who knows how long after that when I may hear that I am rejected or if I am still in the running for one of the two positions? Or if some surprise awaits because they want me to teach there though by some means other than by these two positions in the English Department?

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After DADT's Demise, Part III

The SLDN option did not really pan out.

They suggested I try to apply to the Air Force Reserves, given my age. But while I was searching online jobs associated with the Air Force, I did come across two notifications that the English Department at the Air Force Academy was looking for two civilian professors next fall: One with a degree in Rhetoric and Composition and the other in Post Civil War American Literature. While I do not have a PhD, I do have a Master's Degree in the Humanities that was good enough to get me hired at the Academy back in 1977-8 to teach, starting in the fall of 1978.

I am currently reworking my cover letter, resume, and professional/personal references to apply. Fortunately, I have already sent off for an additional copy of my DD 214, for veteran's preference; and I sent off for Official copies of my four sets of college transcripts.

I suppose this means I could return to teach at the Academy in an ideal situation because I would be a civilian instructor there. While I would not be in uniform, I would be back in the classroom. That is, of course, if I am selected. And that could be a long shot, depending upon the other applicants.

Of course, while I have significant experience teaching military students at Fort Carson and Peterson Air Force for Pikes Peak Community College, as well as Academy cadets in the fall of 1978 and the spring and summer of 1979, it's been a few years since I was last in the class room. I have also been a technical writer/editor at IBM and elsewhere for the past 31 years, so that ought to count for something.

When I taught at the Academy, I was also chosen to be the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) of the Cadet Film and Badminton Clubs, in addition to being co-editor of the cadet creative writing publication, Icarus. I was selected to be the English Department liaison for the introduction of computers since I was the department supply officer. In the fall of 1979, I was to teach the prestigious television course, Blue Tube. That never happened, obviously. But the fact that I was selected ought to also count for something.

Tomorrow will be the 32nd anniversary of my leaving the Academy on October 12, 1979. When I was clearing out my books from my office, the elevator stuck between floors while I was aboard. I took it as a sign that even the building didn't want to let me leave. Eventually, it reached the top floor and opened to let me out.

When I got home, I took off my uniform for the last time and went to dinner with a neighbor. It all seems like recalling the immediate events of yesterday not yester year.

AIDS, PCs, laptops, Hi Def TVs, Blu-ray discs, the coming in and going out of DADT, gay marriage, and so many other tragic or remarkable developments have occurred since then. Of those whom I met at the Academy or knew because of events at the Academy, Dan Stratford's friend George Gordy and his partner, Dick Tuttle, died in 1989, while Dan died in 1995. I do believe they would have been surprised at many of these changes.

Not a day would go by--if I were able to return to teaching at the Academy--that I would not remember all that we went through back then and all that has happened to us since. Will the cosmos click back into place, undoing what was done so many, many years ago? I simply do not know though I always remain optimistic.

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