The house at 933 S. Pickwick Avenue

This is the house we moved into when we left Amory, MS in the summer of 1965 for Springfield, MO. I finished high school at Parkview High in Springfield in 1966. That summer I got a job at Glorieta Baptist Assembly in Glorieta, New Mexico. I worked with the sound equipment there. That fall I enrolled at Southwest Missouri State College (now Missouri State University).

Since the house was only three blocks from the campus, I lived at home and walked to classes. Instead of graduating in 1970, I applied for and received a ROTC extension of one year. There was a war going on at the time (what's new?), and I hoped to avoid being caught up in that. I graduated in 1971. From there I went to Ft Eustis, VA for training in the Transportation Corps for eight weeks or so. I returned home for a few days, and then I flew to Ft. Dix, NJ and from there on to Europe.

I am glad I was sent to Germany instead of Vietnam. I was stationed at Wurzberg, Germany for a couple of years. I applied for and received a "European out," meaning I was discharged in Europe instead of the U.S. Almost every weekend I would take a road trip in my VW bug. I saw many castles and fortresses.

After getting my European out, I traveled to England via train and ferry, and pedeled my way from Dover to Canterbury; Then I went to Winchester, Salisbury, Wales, and back finally to Stratford on Avon. I parked my bike in Stratford and took a train up to Glasgow and Edinburgh (seeing the home of poet Robert Burns) and then going back down along the east coast to Stratford. I then took a train to London. I saw a few plays in London and then returned to Wurzburg. A friend drove me to the Air Base in Frankfort where I caught a flight be to the U.S.

Due to the fog around Ft. Dix, the plane had to land at JFK. To get a flight back to Missouri, I had to go to La Guardia. The flight landed in St. Louis, and I took a bus to Springfield.

In 1973, I returned to the home shown in the picture above and for two years took graduate level courses at the university. In 1975, I accepted a job teaching English and history at Charleston, MO. In January of 1976, I met J W, who had just graduated from Southeast Missouri State College. She was hired to take the place of a retiring math teacher. By the end of the semester we were engaged to get married. Due to budgetary constraints, J could not continue teaching at Charleston. The next year we got jobs in neighboring communities a few miles to the north. I never lived again at 933 S. Pickwick.