Now For Something Different

 

An aerial view of NSA Headquarters at Ft. George G Meade, Maryland 1960
I was stationed there from October 1960 to January 1963. I was in the next to last barracks above to the right of the NSA Building. The NSA headquarters was opened in 1957. Only three years old when I arrived there in October of 1960. I used to walk to work everyday. You can see the winding sidewalk to the left of the barracks buildings. I made that walk for two and a half years. Some of the best years of my life. I will always remember my time there.

Good morning folks! 

I'm going to try something different this morning with my blog post. I'm taking a break from sharing my caregiving adventures (last night was a doozy) and share with you some of my past personal history.

At this time of my life (nearing the end), I often think of my past experiences of the past eighty-two years of my life's journey on this earthly plane.

Of course when I graduated from high school I wanted to go to college. Or at least an art school to train to be a commercial artist. Alas it was not to be because my family neither had the money for college nor was I smart enough for a scholarship. Perhaps the main reason was that I lacked the self confidence to work my way through college. 

I wanted to get a job in the commercial business field but back in the Fifties most of the office jobs in the newspaper were for females. Remember those ads? Male and female? The jobs I wanted were almost always in the Female column. Gay from Day One, that was me. What was I to do? Join the Army. Get that obligation out of the way. And yes, I did feel that I owed my country at least three years of my life in service to my country. Unlike The Orange Jesus who has voiced that anyone who served their country were "suckers and losers." But I digress. 

As regular followers of this blog know, I was in the Army from January of 1960 to January 1963. I joined the Army because I felt it was my obligation as a citizen of this country and also to avoid the draft. I knew I would eventually get drafted and I figured if I joined I would at least have a choice in what branch of the Army I would serve my duty to our country. I definitely didn't want to be in a combat unit. I didn't want to shoot anybody and I definitely didn't want anybody shooting at me. 

I originally wanted to join the Navy ("see the world") but through a serendipity set of circumstances I was persuaded by the Army recruiter at my local U.S. Post Office to join the Army and I could "still see the world" but only had to serve "three years instead of four."  Well, he talked me into switching my enlistment papers from Navy to Army. 

The Army recruiter suggested that I join the Army Security Agency. That would six months at Ft. Devens Massachusetts (after an eight week Basic Training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey)

Me after completing Army Basic Training 1960, before I went to Ft. Devens, Mass.

they assignment, almost always overseas. He said "Ninety percent of ASA school graduates got over seas assignments." 

As my luck would have it by the time my class of twenty-seven graduated only a few of the assignments were overseas. We choose our assignments based on our class standing. I was #6 in my class of twenty-seven. There were two England assignments (they went FAST!), a couple in Turkey (a mountain top near Russia) and the rest were in mainland United States. Two Rock Ranch, Arizona, Ft. Bragg North Carolina, and a couple of others that I forgot. There was one for Ft. Meade Maryland, only two hours from my home in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. I could go home every weekend (which I did most of the time). I choose Ft. Meade. This I spent all three years of my enlistment in the Army on the East Coast. Funny thing, both of my younger brothers followed me in joining the Army their big brother joined. Both went to Germany. They wanted to stay stateside. Didn't happen. In fact my youngest brother's oldest daughter was born in Germany. I have yet to visit a foreign county. Oh wait, I do visit Canada. Does Canada count as a foreign country?

Me at Ft. Devens, Mass (tall guy second from the left) with Duane Osten and Russ Hagerman. I soldier on my right was our platoon sergeant whose name I've forgotten. He wasn't in our clique.

My stay at Ft. Meade was great though. I was only there a few months when I was asked to be the assistant platoon sergeant, Cliff Taylor

. Mainly because I was the only soldier in the barracks who cared about keeping the barracks ready for weekly inspection. The platoon sergeant lived off base with his girlfriend and he didn't want to be bothered with the weekly Thursday night GI parties. Didn't bother me. A big plus was I got a private room. Actually I shared a room with him but he was rarely there, spending all his time at his girlfriend's place. Cliff was from Georgia. A great guy.

One of the rare times my roommate Cliff was in his bunk. 

Even loaned me his car once for one of my disaster dates. That's another story which I may (or may not) share later). I've always wondered what happened to Cliff. Maybe someone will read this blog after an Internet search for Cliff's name and tell me. Cliff was one of those guys in my lifetime who was very kind to me and changed my life. Thank you Cliff.

Me in the main barracks at Ft. Meade before I moved in the private room with Cliff Taylor - 1960 (back in my cigarette smoking days)

I just got a call from Delaware Hospice. Bill is being readmitted. The nurse is coming over this afternoon. I have to get ready. I have some errands to run this morning. I will continue this personal history of mine in a later blog post. 

I'll end with this latest picture of the NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade. Wow, they have grown!

NSA Headquarters, Ft. Meade, Maryland. You can see my old barracks in the upper right. The row of red brick buildings.

Good News and a Brief Autobiography

 

Bill's healed leg wound

Bill's open leg wound has healed!

Praise be God! 

I'm not a religious person (nor will I ever be) but I feel it appropriate to use the PBG epitaph at this time of good news.

This is the longest for one of his open leg wounds to heal, almost two months. 

The swelling of his right leg, where his blood clots reside, has almost shrunk to normal. Notice how there is space between his toes? There was a time when his legs and feet were so swollen there was no space between his toes. I could hardly fit his size 12 Crocs on his feet.

Bill is still on home hospice palliative care. The hospice service reevaluates him every sixty days. He was just extended for another sixty days.

Bill is weaker but stabilized again. Of course I think much of his condition has to do with the customized care he is receiving here at his home, where he is most comfortable. We are so fortunate that Bill can live out his final days here with me and our home in which we are so comfortable. 

In other news, almost all of my daffodils are in bloom. The change of seasons is what I love about living in southern Delaware. As much as I love Palm Springs, if I moved to Palm Springs permanently, I would sorely miss the change of seasons. And of course as I have often said in my blog posts I would miss the comfort of our home here in southern coastal Delaware. I could never replicate a home like this in Palm Springs or even the nearby cities of Palm Springs where the homes are less expensive than the Palm Springs address. Pat is intent on living in Palm Springs. Me, not so much.  Maybe part of the year in the winter from December to March but the rest of the year? I have low taxes here in Delaware, a big comfortable customize house, nice quiet neighborhood of very nice neighbors. In fact this is the best neighborhood we've ever lived in our whole lives.

Lately I've been having flashbacks of my Previous Life and all the pleasant memories. Both Bill and I have been very fortunate in that we have lead interesting lives. When I was younger I thought the only people who lead interesting lives were the rich and famous. Now in the wisdom of my old age I have discovered that money and being famous isn't a recipe for happiness. You make your own happiness, rich or poor. Famous or not famous, just one granule of sand of the beach of life. That's me and what a life I have had.

I've always meant to write my autobiography. I've started several times but just became too overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Also a factor was would anyone be interested? Probably not but for me, it would be interesting to write about it, my life journey. "Journey", such an overused word today.

Below is the broad outline of my life:

1941 - born first son (of three) of Ike and Betty Tipton

1944-1954 - lived in a cockroach infested second floor apartment at 120 Washington Ave., Downingtown, PA. A small manufacturing town thirty-seven miles west of Philadelphia, PA.

Me with my two brothers and other friends at our Washington Avenue home in Downingtown, PA. Rent was $22.50 a month. That building is still there in the White Trash section of town. All these years later, some things never change.

1954-1959 - moved to another second floor apartment (rent free with family) that was brand new and not cockroach infested at Book Road, Downingtown, PA. I remember asking my Mother where were all the cockroaches and she answered "Homes aren't supposed to have cockroaches. This is a new home." Seriously, I really asked that because I just assumed every home had cockroaches scurrying about when you turned on the lights.

1959-1960 - moved to our first home, an 1,100 square foot ranch house. For the first time in my life I had my own bedroom. Previously I slept in a bed with my two brothers, except at the very end when I insisted on my own bed and my parents gave me a fold up bed for Christmas. We three brothers sill slept in the same bedroom but at least I had my own "space".

1960-1963 - after a near death experience with contracting a staph infection in the hospital because I failed my fist Army physical and had to have an operation, I joined the Army (Army Security Agency) for three years.

1960 - January to March - Basic Training at Ft. Dix New Jersey. 

1960 - April to October - Army Security Agency Training at Ft. Devens, Mass.

1960-1963 - Assignment at Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland at the National Security Agency. Back in those homophobic years I barely got in. The day I was supposed to take my lie detector test, which one of the questions that if I failed to answer "correctly" ("Do you have homosexual tendencies?" - DO I EVER? Did I have brown hair? Yes! Born with both!) They never did reschedule me for another lie detector test and I served my two and half years at Ft. Meade at the National Security Agency as a gay man. Ft. Meade was where I met my first gay friends and had my first "experience." The Army had a policy that no gays could serve because they would be subject to blackmail for being gay and thus give away state secrets. First, there has never been ONE case of a gay man being blackmailed in the service and this whole policy was fucked up because the only way they could be blackmailed because it was against Army policy to be gay. But I digress. I was lucky, but others I knew were not. You only had to be accused and they Army ditched you, no matter how good  you were at your job. This was a policy put into place by Eisenhower, that hateful notorious homophobe. As I said, I was lucky and I even had my own room while I was at Ft. Meade because I was the assistant platoon sergeant. Go figure.

Me during my Ft. Meade days 1962

1963 - I would have stayed in the Army and/or NSA but when my time came I decided not to take the change of being outed and kicked out of either the Army or NSA just for the plain fact I was gay so when my enlistment was up I left.

1963 - I moved to Pittsburgh, where a friend of my from the Air Force lived. His name was Sal and we were good friends at Ft. Meade. He was just a friend, no romantic entanglement but I wanted to come out in the gay world. I went into my first gay bar in Clairton, PA, a dingy steel town. It was another whole world, that gay bar. A new world opened to me. The town was dingy but this new gay world I entered for the first time in my life was a rainbow hued paradise. Especially when that cute, crew cut butch guy asked me to dance. The first time I ever danced with another guy.  I quickly discovered why people liked to dance. I always liked dancing but this was another whole experience. Of course I was at first puzzled why my dance partner would have a "ruler" in his pocket (which my friends at the bar later explained to me wasn't a "ruler" but simply my dance partner found me attractive." I was hooked. 

1963 - I only stayed in Pittsburgh for three months. I wasn't making enough money ($250 a month before taxes, less than I was making in the Army, $389 a month) and I was lonely. I came out in the gay world but I didn't know how to act. I left and went home. I originally went to Pittsburgh because I didn't want to come out at home and embarrass my family. 

1963-1965 - I got my own apartment in Coatesville, PA, a small steel town next to Downingtown and came out. I embarrassed my family and lost half my friends but I made new friends. One my best friend in the Army who revealed to me he was also gay. Here I had no idea nor did he.

1965  - to now - I met Bill, moved in with him and we will have been together fifty-nine years this July. Of course a lot has happened in those fifty-nine years which I have previously revealed in my many previous blog posts.

Here's my brief job history:

1951 - 1959 Paper boy, dishwasher, office cleaner, apple picker, meat counter boy, mowing lawns, shoe store clerk, department store clerk. Of those early jobs, the paper boy job was the best. I had that steady for five years.

1960-1963 - Army Specialist 5

1963 - Night Auditor, Pittsburgh Hiltol Hotel

1963-1965 - Accounts Payable clerk, Lipsett Steel Products (yes, a steel yard)

1965-1986 - Girard Bank (remittance clerk) then Mellon Bank

Me during my Trust Operation Manager days at Mellon Bank in Philadelphia 

1986-1994 - Fidelity Bank (Reconcilement Research Project manager

1994-1994 - Gardner on an estate

1994-1998 - Downingtown National Bank Trust Operations Manager

1998-2006 - Hampton Inn front desk clerk and First Financial Bank Trust operations. Yes, I had two jobs for three years. Saved some money.

2006 - 2020 Inn At Canal Square front desk clerk

2020 to now - Caregiver to my partner and husband of fifty-eight years. 

And that's my life folks! Of course a lot of "interesting" facts in between those dates. And as I said before I've posted before about those facts in previous blog posts and perhaps I will post about many of the "events" I haven't posted about before. But at this time of my life I am cognizant of the fact that I have to respectful of others, living and dead, before I go willy nilly and post about "everything."

I've have a nice life folks. I can see the end coming. I know some of my friends say I will outlive then and I have already outlived most of my friends but eventually my Story will come to an end.  

I  reflect now on all those windows of history in my past years and know how lucky I am to have lived this life. Of course I'm hoping for some more years, especially trips with my good friend and soulmate Pat. I think there are a few more Palm Springs adventures in our lives.  If not, then I will go to my eternal rest knowing that I have been most blessed with this life I have lived.