The History of Daddy Claxton

Over on Facebook, I’m part of “I Survived KI Sawyer AFB,” and having lots of fun reconnecting with old friends and hearing stories about a place that our government has closed now that the Cold War is over.

But in the day, KI Sawyer AFB was an amazing place. And it’s where I feel like I had an amazingly rich childhood.

There were photos posted on the group page recently of the front of the ski hill.  Well, the back side of it, and an opposing hill almost dropped straight down it seems.

Here, take a look.

A long time ago back in Atwater, CA on Castle AFB, (now closed and largely flattened) I used to spend my summers from my 8th grade and 9th grade summers at the Officer’s Club Pool.  One of the lifeguards for both years was Michael J. Noret.  I think his dad had been in the Air Force, too.   I remember at the time Michael married an Air Force Tech Sgt.

But what I remember more about Mike were two things he used to say, and say often. 

The first you’ve already read in the headline above: War Is The Nature Of All Men, Peace Time Is Only The Resting Period.

Castle AFB, by it’s nature, was a training base for B-52 pilots like my Dad and KC-135 Tanker pilots.  We were in SAC–The Strategic Air Command–really, the heart of the USAF.  The pilots trained at Castle went to various bases around the world where they would later be on Alert Crews–ready at the sound of a Klaxon horn and these cool little red radios, to be in their planes within 13 minutes and off the ground headed for their strategic targets around the world.  To this day, Dad still can’t tell me where his primaries were.  It’s still Classified.

But the reason I explained so my about SAC was this, their motto–Peace Is Our Profession.  It was always plastered across the base front gate signs at every SAC base I ever went on.

And why is Michael J. Noret so important to this story?  Simple.  In addition to the first phrase: War is the nature of all men, peace time is only the resting period, Mike took the SAC slogan to a new level by adding a corollary.  His was this:  SAC–Peace is our profession, AND WAR IS HOW WE KEEP IT.

The irony of all this is that with the ending of The Cold War, SAC is no more.  B-52s don’t sit out on the Christmas Trees at places like KI Sawyer AFB, and people don’t get lucky enough to spend three-to-six months of their lives TDY in Atwater.  The BRAC commissions of the 1990s have devastated the local economies around the two SAC bases where I lived at least three times in my life.

But B-52s out of Barksdale AFB in “Sleaze-port,” LA still fly, and from Google Earth or the photo above, you can look at the base and see their Christmas Tree runway–it’s at the top of the pic above.  (Alert aircraft were positioned on it so all they had to do was taxi and be on their way.)  While you’re at it, zoom up to KI Sawyer in Gwinn, MI.  The planes are gone, but the memories of this ghost town, well, area that’s trying to find new life, live on.

Thanks for all the things you taught me about life guarding Mike.

Related articles

• California’s Castle Air Force Base Learns a Hard Lesson in Reinvention (dailyfinance.com)
• Cleaning Up the Toxic Legacy of Closed Military Bases (dailyfinance.com)
• Bombs Away: Afghan Air War Peaks With 1,000 Strikes in October (wired.com)

I have only a couple of friends who I’ve been able to keep up with since my childhood days in Northern Michigan.  One of them is my good friend Michelle.  Tomorrow’s her birthday.  My how the times have changed since we were kids.

She now lives in up-state New York.  I’m in Texas.  Thankfully, we got to visit with each other in the past year or two when she was in Fort Worth for a conference.

Anyway, here’s an old photo I found this past Spring when I was at my mom’s in Alabama.

For those of you who did not have a dad in the military growing up, it’s important to understand that, particularly in the Strategic Air Command, you seldom stayed anywhere for very long.  That’s what made it very hard to keep up with friends of yesteryear. (And yes, by God, that is a Dallas Cowboy sweater that I have on!)

Michelle and I were the student council reps for our fourth-grade class.  That year we also led the way in getting all the other classes in the building to make Bicentennial Flags.  We then did a presentation that was done at our school, Leo P. McDonald Elementary School, and even at the K.I. Sawyer AFB Rec Center later in July.  We marched in a parade in Gwin, and even went to a school off Highway 41 headed into Marquette.

We left Michigan in 1978 and went to California.  Michelle and her family later moved to Shreveport, LA to Barksdale, AFB.  (Her father used to call it “Sleazeport” which is what you hear me call it now when I mention it.)

After California, we moved to Montgomery, AL to Maxwell AFB.  The first day of school my sophomore year of high school, I had gone into Mrs. Reese’s third-period English class and sat down on the far side of the room, in what then was where the remaining seats were.   So I sat down, and just kind of began to look around the room.  My eyes passed by this girl sitting about four rows over but sitting in front of the room.  She was beaming at me and our eyes met.  Mine kept going because it wasn’t often in those days (these either) that I had women I didn’t know staring at me like I was Tom Jones.

As I passed back across the room visually back to my side, I crossed her again and she was still looking at me.  Then it hit me.

We’ve been good friends ever since and have kept up with each other.  I think the first time we were in a class together either was second or third grade.  DeWayne Henshaw, one of my best friends from the KI days, is probably the only person outside of my family who I’ve been able to connect with since those days of long ago.   I’m still looking for Jimmy Love who moved to Hershey, PA, and Kim and Kevin Casey who moved to the Air Force Academy in 1977 and I’ve never been able to find either.

But I do have the trusted friendship of Michelle and her sister Renee.  Thanks, Michelle for being such a life-long friend.  And Happy Birthday, my dear.

Something’s wrong in America. I hate to say that the day after our nation’s 234th birthday, but there are many things that have gone bad and I’m not seeing much on the horizon to fix it.

All my life I’ve had a great love for our nation.  My father was an Air Force B-52 pilot.  Red, white and blue is sewn into my mental, emotional and life fabric.  In my younger days, all I wanted to be was an Air Force pilot like my dad, to help protect and serve our nation.  In 1984, the Air Force wasn’t granting waivers for asthma, and those dreams of military service ended.  But my patriotism didn’t.

In front of the house I fled at the end of March, we kept an American flag flying almost 365 days a year.  Well, we changed out for a Santa flag in December–334 days…

But I have to say that after enduring in the injustice I suffered in our legal system from June 2009 to June 2010, having been exposed to Veronica Galaviz’s near death in Rowlett on April 21, 2010 because Rowlett Police failed to act when she needed them most, and after being exposed to my friend Marshall Harris’ ordeal over his missing daughter and after repeated requests of the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Sheriff’s Office, I don’t really feel anymore like our legal system is designed to protect, nor serve.

Add to that, our US Supreme Court struck down the 28-year-old Chicago gun ban only for the Chicago City Council to re-enact it once again last week, but with some changes.

What I’ve seen about law enforcement and the laws of our nation is that the laws are for those who will follow them.  For those who won’t, for the time being it seems, they don’t care about them, and upon violation of them and court orders, well, I’ve not seen a whole lot of good come to those who deal honestly with the law, and it’s whatever goes for those who fail to observe them or respect them. Pardon me for my cynicism, it’s just really how I’ve come to feel.

My first ex wife fabricated incredible stories about me and told them in court, on the stand and under oath.  When we showed evidence of her lying, she claimed the evidence was a lie, (though created by doctors and trained medical staff) and her lies mattered not.  The documentation was two-inches thick. It had no bearing on a fair and impartial decision and wreaked havoc on destroying the rest of my family life.

VERONICA GALAVIZ’S NIGHTMARE

Veronica Galaviz had a protective order issued in late 2009 to protect her from the dangers of her now-late estranged husband.  She showed the police video evidence of him being in her drive way, slashing tires on a car in front of her home and Rowlett Police told her it wasn’t conclusive that it was actually her ex-husband.  Only after he broke into her home at 1:30 a.m. on April 21, 2010 did they seem to believe her claims that her husband was going to try to kill her.

Of course, the Rowlett Police Department still won’t tell her the obvious, “We, the Rowlett Police Department, effed up big time and you’re damn lucky to be a live.”  (NEWS TIP: I got word this past weekend that the City Council may now start an investigation into the department.  Hallelujah.)

MARSHALL HARRIS’ NIGHTMARE

Marshall Harris’ ex took off with his four-year-old daughter on May 25, 2010. He now believes his ex has taken his daughter to Mexico, making his daughter’s abduction a federal matter.  But in talking to the FBI in Dallas yesterday, they said they can’t classify the ex as a fugitive until after the judge in his case issues an interference with custody.  He called DPD again yesterday and they came out and took new information that we have.  Still, the paperwork is sitting in la-la-land at DPD somewhere and nothing has been done since 3 p.m. yesterday when the latest report was filed.  There are other calls we’ve made or will be making to advocacy groups to get law enforcement off it’s proverbial ass, but who knows how at risk this child is. 

I read yesterday on the Parental Abduction Child Recovery Team website that there are between 200 and 300,000 parental abductions and kidnappings in America each year. Law enforcement has become desensitized to it.  Even with a decree in their hands, orders from a judge to find a child, and a little damn common sense, they are moving at a snail’s pace at DPD, if they’re moving at all.

A PROTECTIVE ORDER ISN’T A BULLET PROOF VEST, IT’S A PIECE OF PAPER

While at her first speaking engagement Tuesday night at the Limestone County Courthouse in Groesbeck, Texas, the district attorney got up and talked about how yes, you can have a protective order and papers from the court, but you still have to do things to protect yourself.  As he said, “A protective order isn’t a bullet-proof vest, it’s a piece of paper.” In Veronica’s case, even though she could and did dial 911, it was from her neighbor’s house.  She was able to get past her estranged husband and his shotgun, who then lit her house on fire and then killed himself. She’s lucky to be alive and we will have a website up shortly to talk about her story of survival and the mission she feels God has given her for sparing her life.

And yet I was told of a Fort Worth woman who shot her estranged husband a couple of years ago as he attempted to kill her.  She spent months in prison before the justice system released her.

Today is another day when Marshall Harris will sit on pins and needles wondering where his daughter is, and when, and if, he ever shall see her again.  He’s not even begun to think of the emotional stress and harm this has caused his child.  That will no doubt become a reality for him and her later, provided something is done by the very system that’s supposed to protect us and is spending more time letting the alleged violator get further and further away and he is able to get his daughter back.

Fox News this morning is talking about how the Illinois state government at present is $5 Billion in the red for next year’s budget.  The governor there is proposing a $1.4 billion plan to cut spending.  Yeah, in doing the math, it seems like there’s still a ways to go.

MY SIXTH GRADE TEACHER’S WISDOM FROM HISTORY

When I was in the sixth grade at Leo P. McDonald Elementary School on KI Sawyer AFB in Michigan, my teacher, Mr. John Nesberg, led us through a study of the Greeks and the Romans and the vastness of their empires, how they were the model countries of ancient times, and after about 200 years of prosperity, things began to wither away and eventually, their empires, their goodness, and their glory all faded into what now are history books.  Mr. Nesberg predicted to us 12-year-olds then that he felt like America already was on a much-to-similar track.

MY RELATIONSHIP WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT

Through the years, I’ve had many good friends who have been in law enforcement.   In college, I spent more time writing things for the school papers, riding with police officers, talking with them in the middle of the night when I could have been home sleeping (notice I didn’t say studying!), and getting a taste for what’s real.

I carried a police scanner in those days and knew all of the Montgomery Police Department’s 10-codes,  and the Alabama State Trooper’s 10-Code system.  They were two different languages with some overlap, but I knew what was going on, and was able to use that knowledge to have a better understanding of the troubles of society.

When I was in the Governor’s Office of Alabama for 10 years of my career, I was known for riding with Troopers, talking with them, and getting to know more about the dangers they were facing and what they were doing to protect and serve.

When I was the communications director of Dallas ISD for six years and a seventh year when I was done fooling with the incompetency of Michael Hinojosa and predicted the financial catastrophe and problems that have come in his administration, I was known for my closeness with the DISD Police Department. For seven years of my being a part of the district I carried my own police radio–I was number 706.   There were times when I got to calls as quickly or even one or two quicker, than the officers of the department.

I say all this to attempt to show I’m not at all down on police officers.  I know of their own pains and struggles. They constantly live with the threat of danger.   One officer I knew at Auburn University Montgomery was patrolling through a campus building under construction one night and the next thing he knew, his face was crushed by a pipe from a still unknown assailant.  Even with a Double-Zero alert sent out to all law enforcement agencies within 100 miles, no one was ever found who did that to him, and the officer almost lost his life and if he’s still alive today, is severely disfigured.   I know of the stories of multiple marriages and divorce.  I know how little money they make.  How they often work two or three other jobs, work over time whenever they can, just trying to scrape by to keep their lights on, to pay child support, to live a half-way decent life when they’re not at work.

AMERICA, WHERE ARE WE GOING?

So, America, I ask again, where are we going?  We have a legal system that benefits most those who abuse it or just don’t follow it all together.  Chicago, in it’s infinite wisdom, makes it illegal to own and possess certain firearms in its city.  But the Bad Guys don’t care about that.  And so the break into homes, rob people, and on, and those who believe in the strength and protection under the law, get victimized by the very laws designed to protect them.

I could go on and on with a list about what else is wrong: the economy, national healthcare, illegal immigration, the Gulf Oil disaster … but in her talk Tuesday night, Veronica Galaviz said that we “need to stop victimizing the victim.” She’s so right.  The question is, how in the world to do we get America back to where that’s even possible?

The girls and I once again are in Northern Indiana back at my dad’s and my grandma’s.   I hated rolling out of Marquette, MI once again yesterday.  There were just a swirl of emotions clinging to me as we drove south on US Highway 41.

I spent a good part of my childhood in the Upper Peninsula.  I never became a “Yupper” but at a young age I fell in love with the protected world in which I roamed the trails and woods without fear of weirdos, poisonous snakes or things that would have been a bad influence.

My Window of Opportunity

Times before, I’ve mentioned sitting at a particular downstairs window in our home at 208 Fortress on what was KI Sawyer AFB and writing.  When I was in second and third grade, I would use a kid’s typewriter and wrote much like I do now. 

One of my most vivid memories of writing came from sitting on the other side of the window you see to the right.  I sat there at the now very antique kidney bean-shaped desk I have in my Texas living room.  This was my creative space, even before the age of 10.  Outside the window, was where I acted out those dreams.  Thoughts of being a bomber pilot like my dad.  Thoughts of being a fireman, like Randolph Mantooth, one of the first TV paramedics.

This was my window of opportunity.  This is where I dreamed of what could be and didn’t worry about the things that were.

We played baseball in our tiny front yard, with each corner of the yard being a base.  That meant I pitched from the middle of the yard, and yes, if thrown the right way and hard enough, the baseball did go through the bathroom window.

That bathroom, mom once painted yellow.  For some reason, which neither of us understand, even to this day, I once wrote the word “elephant” in ink pen on the freshly painted wall.

The garage you see wasn’t there when I was a kid.  The air force put them in later.  I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before, but I always heard as a kid that KI’s base housing, located in Northern Michigan, was designed by someone who lived in Florida.  Yeah, government in action.

The point of all of this is that this is where my imagination and my quests for adventure came to be.  We’d get up in the morning, head out into the woods behind our house, build tree forts, climb hills, and out the hole in the fence, past the two ski hills and off to the south east was a lake I only made it to three times.  We had a great name for it, too, “The Lost Lake.”  And the name was fitting because there was no path to it.  And for what it was, it was indeed, lost.

My suspicion of it being lost today remains.  between the garage and the garage on the other side of the parking lot, once was a well-traveled trail right into the heart of the woods.  Thursday, that trail was overgrown.  Even the trail that ran parallel to our house a good 50 yards back was overgrown.

I’ve heard the quote before that “the past is like a foreign country, they do things different there.”   Today, that has new meaning for me.

What’s Left of KI Sawyer AFB

And different is what KI is today.  The BRAC at the end of the Cold War closed it all down.  The 644th Bomb Squadron building, the Tanker Alert Facility, the gym, BX and commissary all stand empty today with no use.  My old school, Leo P. McDonald Elementary School, has been taken over by a company that’s ripped many of the walls out and put in garage doors.  The windows of the classrooms I learned to read and write in are now boarded up.  Some of the windows have had rocks thrown into them.  It was painful to see. 

Half of what was a robust area of base housing is now in ruins.  I took a picture of the house my friends Michelle and Renee lived in.  I took a photo of Kim Casey and Kevin Casey’s.  I’ve tried to find them since we were kids, but have never heard from them since they took off for the Air Force Academy in Colorado with their dad, an F-106 pilot.  

We couldn’t get out to the Alert Facility where the B-52s on alert used to park.  Thursday what appeared to be Michigan State Trooper cars were doing reverse J-turns and obstacle courses where once there were guards who would have shot you on the spot for trying to get to.

We were going to spend another day in the UP yesterday, but by noon it was clear it was going to rain all day and we knew we didn’t want to sit around in a hotel room.  So we headed back south.

Before leaving Marquette, we took the girls down to Presque Isle.   It was raining lightly on and off.  I initially gave up and began heading off the isle.  But then it stopped raining and I decided we were going to go back and try again.  As though an answer to a prayer, it did.  We got out and I got new video of the twins playing in the same spot where I also have video of my brother Richard and I doing the same back in 1970.  To me, it was almost critical to get that video.  A once in a lifetime sort of moment.

So when I get the chance to sit still, I’m going to build the next video featuring then and now.

More Adventures To Come

Okay, time to wrap up the thoughts from today’s adventures.  The 2010 Chevy Traverse has been a great car for this trip.  It rides so smoothly.  I’ve been highly impressed with it’s comfort and yesterday, driving south, I let dad drive for a couple hours and I got in the third row and laid down side ways so I could take a nap.  Yes, a big guy like me can get his body in a comfy enough position to be able to sleep. And I enjoyed it.