|
|
The Sierra Chronicles:This is the beginning of what became a rather unique "book" of sorts. It's unique, I think, because it was almost completely begun in the form of a series of email letters sent to family. Each new section began with the normal "chit-chat" between family members and then continued the story of, "The Sierra Chronicles"... memories of my active Air Force days that affected my family members in many ways. Date: Tuesday, 17-Oct-95 12:21 AM
From: John Burch \ PRODIGY: (AFWA58A) Subject: The Sierra Chronicles -Part I Hi Larry, Sharon, Lindsay, Sara & Samuel, We are enjoying our meeting with Robert Bolton and R. J. Stevens. The lessons have been great and the singing absolutely wonderful. I wish you could enjoy them with us- R. J. Stevens is working on a new songbook and received a big box of proof pages yesterday which we helped him proofread last night after services. His typesetting and music writing is all done by a friend of his on a computer. Tonight, he called the friend to give a correction on a song that was messed up. You could hear him saying, "On that last line, put a "doe" where the "ti" is and make the "fa" a "so"". He went on like that for a moment or so and then turned to ask me where he could receive a FAX. I told him that my computer would receive FAXes and gave him my home phone number. Thirty minutes later, the friend called, I pushed my "Manual receive FAX" button and we had a brand-new FAX of the corrected song. Two minutes later, R.J. was playing it on the piano to check it out and it was OK! Technology is grand, isn't it? THE SIERRA CHRONICLES -PART I It was 1957 and the beginning of winter so it must have been about October of that year. I had just finished Navigation School at Mather AFB in Sacramento, CA. Sharon was about 13-14 months old and we had orders to report to MacDill AFB, FL in Tampa in November. We were excited about that because many of my classmates had drawn assignments to Minot, ND and other charming places. Some friends who had an advanced look at assignments had offered to trade me assignments...sight unseen (though they had seen!) We stuck to the luck of the draw and were pleased that it was to Florida. BUT FIRST... I had to leave the family in Sacramento and report to Stead AFB, Nevada for almost four weeks of survival training in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Coming from Sacramento, the weather there seemed like late summer, but by the time I arrived at the school, there was a definite chill of fall in the air. Because it was early in the season, they issued us only a "partial " winter issue. ..wool sleeping bags and warm clothing, but no snow shoes because they weren't expecting snow yet. Among our gear was a parachute and all of the emergency equipment we would normally have in a bailout from an aircraft. They took us to the base camp area high up in the Sierra Mountains where we would spend one week in preparation for the actual survival experience to come. And here was the first surprise... As we got off the bus, the first big, fat snowflakes began to fall. It was almost a whiteout where everything is so white and the air so full of snow that you couldn't see where you were going. With heavy backpacks on, we slipped and slid along the path through the woods to the base camp. There, we split up into three-man teams (like a three-man crew surviving a bailout) and built a pretty good-sized indian-style teepee with the parachute wrapped around long fir poles and a hole left at the top for the smoke from our campfires. Because of the DEEP snow (about two feet on the ground), we had to DIG down to ground for the floor of our teepee. When the teepee was up, we gathered pine boughs for beds around the inside of the teepee and gave each bed a boundry with logs to hold it together. With TWO sleeping bags of GI blanket wool material (one inside the other) on top of the pine boughs, it made a pretty warm and almost comfortable bed. Since we would be learning to survive off the land, they DID NOT give us much food. We each had one pound of beef (which we were to dry and make into beef-jerky) to last the week. They also gave each of us ONE orange, which we ate...peel, seeds and all! Anything else we would eat would be what we caught or found in the woods. And they gave us no water ****************** (Next time... what we found to eat.) If this gets boring, let me know. We love you all very much! How is the practice going, Lindsay? Sara, are you learning her routines at home? Sam, how are you handling all of this activity? We look forward to seeing you all soon!
Love, Mom & Dad Grandmommy & Granddaddy Copyright © 2001 by John T. Burch. All rights reserved.
|
|
If you are looking for Burch Associates insurance prelicensing classes click on -->> http://www.jtburch.org |