Fred Remembers~Part 11

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Back to our stay at Tyndall AFB, Florida.

Photo credit WJHG.com
Credit Google search

We were there from summer of 1951 through the first of February of 1955.  I attended 6^thgrade at Cherry Street Elementary School.  From there I went to Jenks Junior High School. [It was spelled Jenks when I attended, but now it looks like it is spelled  Jinks, don’t know why]

                                                                                                          Credit Google Search

Jenks was a new school that year, and had been planned for 750 students.  The first day there were 930 students attending. They had to quickly put up portables for some of the classes.  I had my health class in one of them.  I attended Jenks Junior High School for 7^th,8^th, and 9^thgrades, and one semester of 10^thgrade at Bay High School.

Credit Google Search

We lived in the house at 107 Cove Lane, as I recall, until sometime in 1954. Then, because of Dad’s job, they wanted him to live on the base.

Charles wrote:  …Tyndall became for me the longest assignment in the Air Force.  I was the senior chaplain at Tyndall during the period 1951-1955 and, as such, the Base Chaplain.

 

Chapel, Tyndall AFB, Florida

So we ended up getting quarters on the base, out on what they called Beacon Beach. It was an old, old , fairly small house, right on the beach, maybe 50 or so yards from the actual Gulf of Mexico. There was some protection there, because out about a mile or so there was a sand bar.  I remember that Mom and Dad and the girls lived in the house, as it was just a two-bedroom house.  And out in a separate building – a detached building or shed – which had two fairly small bedrooms and one really tiny bathroom.  That’s where Larry and I lived.  I had one end of the building, which was away from the door and it kind of slopped down a bit, but it was big enough for a bed and a small chest of drawers. Between my room and Larry’s room was a small bath with a shower.  Larry’s room was just barely big enough to have a bed in it.  He also had the door that went out.

One of the interesting things about living out there by the beach was that, out in the water there was a lot of grass growing, about 8″ or 10″ tall grass.  I would wade out about waist deep and, if you were careful, either with bare feet, or preferably with some old sneakers, you could step on scallops.  So I could go out there and in maybe an hour or so could pick up a whole bucket full of scallops, probably 3″-3½” in diameter. I would take them back to the beach where I had a hose, away from the house, and we could clean out the scallops right there, take out the muscle of the scallop, put them in a separate bowl, take them back in the house, and we would have fresh scallops for supper.  If we got tired of scallops, we could wade out with a spin-casting reel and catch Spanish Mackerel

Atlantic Spanish Mackerel – Credit Google Search and Wikipedia

and occasionally King Mackerel with a spinner.

King Mackerel – Credit Google Search

Once in a while we would even get a Flounder, if we let the bait fall to the bottom.  So we enjoyed that.

Flounder – Credit Google Search and Diane Rome Peebles

It was probably a four or five mile trip from the house back to the main part of the base.  We rode the bus in to the schools.  We enjoyed our stay out there at Beacon Beach.

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years

Tags: A military man remembers his life.