When I was in boot camp in far away San Diego I was fascinated by the Spanish Mission architecture of the base.
Something about the low, sprawling, adobe colored, red tiled buildings resonated with me, and as we marched around doing push ups and other silly things I would occasionally feel a wave of déjà vu wash over me. That feeling was directly associated with those buildings. Somehow I had the strong feeling that I'd walked among those same buildings in the past.
Which was silly, because none of those buildings had existed in the past. The ones that resonated so strongly with me were of recent construction, and the real old buildings on base, the ones that were two- and three-story whitewashed and red tiled structures, didn't resonate at all.
Weird, eh?
Funny how the mind works. Well, my mind anyway.
Those were interesting days. I went from this:
To this:
In about four months.
Yeah, we was some stylin' bitches back in the 70's.
My son enjoyed an extended visit at MCRD, San Diego some years ago. It is a pretty place.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
Paul L. Quandt
It's very pretty there. I'm glad I can tour NTC these days.
DeleteIt was an interesting mix.
ReplyDeleteThe buildings at Camp Nimitz really clashed with the rest of NTC and the mess halls lacked the je ne sais quoi of the rest of the buildings in '61.
BTW - good to see you back in the blogosphere.
DeleteThanks Skip. Yeah, the chow halls didn't match up with anything else. I still get a tingle of apprehension when I recall chow at boot camp.
DeleteWhen I was three we spent a Colorado winter in a dirt floor tar-paper over 2x4 structure. Later felt right at home in the "temporary WWII" barracks at Ft. Leonard Wood. The tar paper house was warmer.
ReplyDeleteMost of the naval hospital at Balboa was still in WWII temp when I was there. I didn't have any other naval hospital experience at the time, so it seemed normal. But it was kind of weird.
DeleteStyling indeed!
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad there weren't many cameras around when I was a lad.
So glad to see you posting again, weird or not.
ReplyDeleteIt is strange when you are in a place you haven't been before, yet feel like you have.
And if you are a really old fart and went to Great Lakes, your first few days were spent in the wooden barracks of Camp Berry.
ReplyDeleteCamp Barry not the autocorrected Berry.
ReplyDelete