Fort Hood Texas. 1967-1968. Bring a young man back from Vietnam and station him in a dry county. My wife has family living there. It took 44 years before I took her there to visit.

Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Think of anything a young man would like to do. It ain't there.


To paraphrase Erma Bombeck, being at Fort Polk ranks about halfway between getting a tooth pulled an dropping a bowling ball on your foot.

Kansas City, Kansas. Hotter than balls except when it's colder than snot and occasionally the sirens sound, the rain comes in sideways, the wind's faster than a '57 Ford, the basement's flooding and then, and then! you see the funnel cloud with a house in it.

My only fond memory was seeing the First Star Wars movie on a wraparound screen in a packed house for a midnight showing. I take some comfort in that.

St. Louis.

When I got a new job there, I was very enthusiastic about the city. Soon learned:

- Possibly the most racist area I’ve ever experienced. That applies to persons of ANY color and their attitude towards persons of ANOTHER color.

- City government that is either on the take or determined to use their power to punish persons they don’t like.

- Self-centered citizens who feel St. Louis is the paragon of civilization. Fer cryin’ out loud this is St. Louis, not Paris.

- Then there is The Question, “Where did you go to school?” By “school” they mean high school. Your answer to this question allows the questioner to pigeon hole you and determine if you’re worth talking to. Correct answer is “Country Day” where the wealthy send their kids. I’ve had people literally turn on their heel when I answered “Snider High in Fort Wayne.” Which meant I was a “nobody.”

- Old money. If your great great grandfather ran a dry goods store during the gold rush years and your family never wandered from the city limits in all those years you consider yourself far and above anyone else (hence the importance of The Question above).

Summers are hot and humid, winter is bleak and windy. The area has mostly oak trees so the Fall is sort of a dull brown.

I was miserable while living there. Never again.

^^^^
I don't know how long you lived here,
mttaylor1066, but amazingly perceptive IMO. Snooty to a fault.

I'll throw in one factor you might not have seen. St.Louis is schizo, the farthest north southern city, the farthest south northern city, farthest west eastern and farthest east western city.

I figured the city got rich selling shoes to folks heading west and the locals laughed and counted their money as those shoes fell apart by Columbia.

I'm stuck here but I will give it credit for the lessons learned doing union work, opening my eyes politically. By the way, the World's Fair is over.

Springfield, Colorado. I ran the range program for the Comanche and Cimarron National Grasslands. The Comanche in SE CO and the Cimarron in SW KS. Springfield is one of those dying Great Plains towns with half the businesses in town boarded up. It’s 30 miles from Kansas, 30 miles from Oklahoma, and 180 miles from anywhere you’d want to be. Our daughter was in 8th and 9th grade there; she called it “Russia.”

There were some good people there, and there were some that had perfected their insular view of the world. I could tell stories for an hour…

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
…but the Department is tossing money at me like I’m a stripper on a pole.

Yeah, I know the current situation here- Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. The trifecta of political bullshit, graft, stupidity, and corruption. But for me, right now, the Juice is worth the Squeeze. If something happens in future, it’s a great feeling that I can just walk away.

Squeeze it dry. Lord knows everyone else in this state does. Then run like hell.

Santa Barbara was not a favorable 16 months
for me or Bonnie .
Not in work,relationship or play.

Denver wasn't very good either.
I didn't feel right the whole 18 months
that I was
there.

I read a book about varying degrees of
magnetic gravitational pull
and how it affects people's health, decision
making, attitude and even reproductive
abilities.

Some people are very sensitive to the effects, others
not so much. Kind of like some people require
more or less direct sun light.

Without any testing, a Dr. In Denver said
It's possible that I had altitude sickness.

Norfolk, VA in the early 90s.

Thank God as a Surface Warfare Officer most of my 3 years there was at sea…then off to Japan and parts only known to cartographers and Sailors of yore where charts were marked with “Here be Dragons!”

As an aside, had a 3+ decade career in the Navy with only that first tour in Norfolk! #Winning

Godspeed and Good Hunting, Always