One of dad's assignments was Brize Norton Royal Air Force Base, so we lived in England
for about 18 months. It was a time when there seemed to be an abundance
of British bands taking the world by storm (The Beatles, Freddy and the
Dreamers, The Dave Clark 5 - to name a few). Men were growing their hair
long and women were wearing their skirts short. Daddy worked part-time at
the NCO club and on weekends, there were dance contests. We twisted and
then we mashed potatoed. Mom learned to knit (even in the dark of
theaters) and once a week we got to shop on a little truck - Mr. Giles.
The milkman delivered milk every morning (outside temperature,
unpasteurized, with cream on top - awful) and we had to take a teaspoon of cod
liver oil every night before bed (with a candy chaser).
It
was in England
we learned how to appreciate chocolate - well maybe not appreciate, but we sure
liked it. We always headed straight for the Cadbury's Buttons - they were the best! At
Christmas (we happened to be there for 2) Cadbury's put
out a special sampler tray and Santa would put one in each of our stockings.
We would run out to the living room (once we heard the Christmas music
and smelled the coffee) and glance around, taking it all in. We would see those
chocolates in our stockings and would run right past the tree with all those
things we wanted because we had been "nice" all year and grab our
stockings and break out the chocolate! Man, that chocolate was good!
I
have to tell you about the Christmas tree! Base housing did not allow
fresh trees in the family units, so our tree was spectacular and shiny. We
pulled each "branch" out of its sleeve, shook it so it filled out and
inserted it in the little hole in the "trunk". We plugged in
the light that had a colored shield over the bulb that turned non-stop,
directed it on the tree and it turned every magnificent color of the rainbow.
We had an aluminum tree. Oh, those chocolates were so good!
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