Sunday, July 6, 2008

I'm Too Gullible

I was thinking back about John's long years working for the Department of Defense, and I started remembering all the long business trips he had to take. It was particularly hard when he went places I would have loved to go and couldn't, like Spain or Hawaii, and stayed away for two weeks for two months—or more.

I reminded him about the long trips he made to Alaska. He got a little uncomfortable, since he knew where I was headed. I always love to tease him about his four-month long trips to Kodiak Island. I wanted to go on one of those trips. It was a time when we could actually have managed it. He said it would be nice, but there were no women there. Well, I certainly wouldn't want to be the only woman on some outpost way up north, so I was very understanding, even though I was really disappointed.

Now, with John's security clearance, whatever missiles they sent up, or whatever designs they flew, I never heard about them. If it wasn't on the news or in the paper, I often didn't even know exactly where he was. Perhaps some of the other husbands would share information and trust that it would go no further, but John had always figured that he gave his word to keep his mouth shut, and that's what he would do.

When he returned from his final trip to Alaska, he handed over some awards he'd been given, along with the newspapers that told what had been accomplished by the team there. He showed me the beautiful coat they had presented to him. Then he said that the final test launch had turned into a real zoo. 

Zoo? Yeah. It seems that so many military officers wanted to fly into Alaska for the test launch ceremony that they had to close down the schools and use the school busses to carry the officers around.

Hey, honey? Who takes care of the children at night when the schools are closed, SINCE THERE ARE NO WOMEN THERE ON THE ISLAND?

2 comments:

Schmath said...

What a mean trick! I'd be so mad, I'd make him take me on a 4-month vacation wherever I wanted to go.

Kathleen said...

He wasn't trying to be mean. He wasn't even trying to lie to me. In his mind, what he meant was that no women married to his team members would be visiting, so I'd be the only woman there. They were given an entire B&B, so to him it would have been strange. I could have dealt with it. He took me on a cruise to Alaska for our 25th anniversary a few years later, though—wonderful compensation.