Everyday Heros

    

   

 There was a lively debate raging in the United States over whether we had any business getting involved in a foreign was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The events that happened on November 7th, 1941 changed everything.

There were still people who felt we shouldn't engage in a war so soon after World War 1, but the majority of the country were outraged that another country would attack us without provocation.

Young men from all over the United States rushed to recruiting offices to sign up to fight. My father wanted to be one of those, but his mother informed him he was to finish high school before he went anywhere.

For anyone who knew my grandmother knows it would take a force much more powerful that a mere war to change her mind.
Dad waited six long months and the day he graduated from Boise High, he signed up for the Navy.

He was assigned to the USS Hancock, the Fighting
Hannah as she was called by those who served on her.
For a small town boy, this was the big time. He spent
most of his time aboard the Hancock in the Pacific,
raiding Japanese occupied bases in the Philippines and
Okinawa. He saw more action than anyone would have
liked including a direct hit to the Hancock by a Japanese suicide bomber.

In one of the worst incidents to happen on the Hancock, one of the newer pilots came back to the ship with damaged landing gear. He was in a panic, and all though the officers tried to calm him, he refused to listen. they advised him to bail out and ditch the plane in the sea. Instead, the pilot tried to land on the Hancock, crashing into other planes on deck. Fuel tanks exploded injuring many men and damaging the ship.

Raised in Pennsylvania, during the depression with twelve brothers and sisters, my father-in-law, John Bochenek, had two choices in life. He could become a coal miner like his father or join the military. He chose the latter and became a bombadeer during the Second World War. He flew many missions over what was called the Burma Hump. The hump was the name given by Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himilayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China to resupply the Chinese war effort and the units of the US Armed Forces based in China.

 The airlift began in April 1942, after the Japanese blocked the Burma Road and continued on a daily basis from May 1942 to August 1945.

He brought back many pictures and stories of his time spent there. John stayed in the military until he retired as a Master Sargent.

Thank you, Dad and John, and all the others who sacrificed to save out country. Thanks to all the men and women who still today give up so much so we can remain free.

Pets--beyond the range of cats and dogs

I firmly believe kids should have pets. Our kids had all the normal pets, plus a few non-normal (abnormal?) ones. They had dogs and cats, lambs, calves, pigs and the odd goat or two. By the time they were four, they each had their own horse.

Our daughter ran barrels and poles on the sweetest mare named Ammer. They were a great team. Our oldest son had two goofy horses, Bugsy when he was younger, and Ruff Luck Lynx, aka, Lucky. Somehow he managed to coax success from both of them. Our youngest son was fortunate enough to have a huge, gentle, talented horse we called Rimrock. When we first got him, Joe was five years old. He’d sit on Rimrock in a pen with no bridle or saddle while I saddled the other horses. It was the safest place for him to be as some of the horses I rode were colts and not too predictable. Rimrock was one of the best babysitters we ever found.

 Besides all the regular pets they had, they picked up a few odd ones along the way. My daughter brought a hermit crab home from a trip to the coast, and it lived for years. We’d find a bigger shell every once in a while, and it would move to better quarters.

Every Easter weekend for years, there was a large barrel racing and team roping in the small town of Murphy, Idaho. While the adults roped and ran barrels, the kids had fun catching Horned Toads. They grew in abundance in the desert area surrounding the Murphy rodeo grounds. Smokey brought several home over the years, and they were fun pets. He’d catch ants and feed the toads.

My youngest son’s weird pet was a snake. I know that sounds fairly ordinary, lots of kids have snakes, but I didn’t know he'd caught it and was keeping it in his room. I was cleaning one day and lifted a stack of fabric. Underneath was a dried snake skin. His secret pet snake was on the loose and had shed its skin. We never found the snake, and I was jumpy for quite a while.

The most unusual pet the kids ever had was a spider. It made a web behind the curtain rod, and being the fastidious house cleaner that I am I didn’t discover it for several months. (No comments on my housekeeping skills here. I’ve heard them all from my mother.) Smokey discovered that if he got a tiny piece of hamburger and tossed it into the web, the spider would run out, snag it and scurry back to the center of his web. He’d wrap it all up into a ball and eat on it for several days until all the moisture was gone.

One of the kid’s favorite sports was to take a piece of popcorn and toss it into the web. The little spider would race out, grab the popcorn and spin it into a ball. Then it would taste it, realize there wasn’t any moisture, or maybe it just didn’t like popcorn, and would cut it loose and drop in onto the carpet.

The spider lived behind the curtain all one winter. As the weather warmed up the next spring, one day, it was gone.

What are some of the stranger pets you’ve had during your lifetime? Bet you can’t beat a spider.

Five Star Review for Sugarwater Ranch

Only a few more days to find great books at great prices and help support Breast Cancer Awareness.

Sugarwater Ranch received a Five Star Review on Goodreads.

Here is an excerpt:

Ms. Berget captures well the trials, attitudes and disappointments too many face. Her characters are simply priceless--flawed, spirited and self-preserving, but utterly real. And the romance is unique, refreshing. The hero is not your typical, easy to sell hero and the heroine is not your typical too perfect to be believed miss. They're both troubled, with more baggage than one would want in a relationship. But yet, through their many rough and stumbled-over meetings, a sweet and caring relationship emerges--one easy to root for and enjoyable to follow.

Link to the complete review.  http://buff.ly/13trWOT
Thanks, Amity

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