Time In the Sun, by Carl Owen

There’s an old saying that everyone will get their 15 minutes of fame; or as I like to call it, time in the sun.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Hollywood will discover you and give you a bit part and I suppose it means different things to different people.

I recall a few memorable moments in the sun that I have enjoyed or at least felt a sense of achievement.

Of course there were the smiley faces on school papers but as I thought about those smiley faces; I realized that, in fact, they were quite plentiful. As I discovered one day as I turned around in my school desk to show my smiley face to a pretty girl who was a little light upstairs and before I embarrassed myself, I saw a smiley face on her paper. So I guess you have to take some of those moments with a grain of sand.

Speaking of school, one of my earliest proud moments and a genuine “time in the sun”, was when I graduated from High School. I was the first of 13 kids in the family to graduate and back in 1964 in the hills of North Carolina, that actually met the measure mark. At the ripe old age of 17 I gazed out from the stage as I was handed my diploma and saw the proud smiling faces of my mother, my grandmother and my sister, Thelma. That certainly qualified as one of my times in the sun.

To take a little polish from the apple, my Dad did not show. He kinda felt that going to school took a lot of time away from hoeing corn or trimming creek banks. He of course had one important point there. It was those fields of corn that helped him to raise 12 of 13 kids. He turned the corn into white lightning and then sold the product. My brother Ronnie lived only a short time after birth.

My brother Harold named his first and only son Ronnie and that certainly brought a smile of satisfaction to my Mother’s weathered face .That smile certainly counted as a moment for Harold. My Mother always said that she wanted to go before any of her children and. except for Ronnie, she did. She died at the age of 51 from complications of Diabetes combined with a hard life.

I come from strong stock: English, Welsh, Irish and some Scottish. Some say we have Cherokee Indian in our family but I haven’t proven that yet through genealogy research. I have a strong suspicion that it is true because I have gone on the warpath a few time and I have seen some of my brothers and sisters do the same. My daddy did it quite often.
The overall factor in this eclectic mix is determination, which my dear wife, Anita, refers to as stubbornness. Be that as it may, that trait has helped me through some tough times over the years.

One of my moments was at a family reunion where my brothers and I kept passing by the dessert table again and again. Just seeing the Chapman clan and the Owen clan together was such a joy. I recall my grandfather, Edmond Chapman, sitting on the back porch of his house in his wheelchair. How proud I was to finally garner a seat on the porch close enough to my Grandfather to hear some of his stories. Of course, I had heard them many times before. What a story teller he was. His voice inflections and his vivid descriptions made me feel as if I were present in the story instead of listening to his recital. I only wish I could sit next to him again and hear those time-weathered stories again. He made me feel like I was so important when he spoke to me. A definite countable time in the sun.

I’m not leaving out the time I spent with my Grandmother, helping her weed her garden, running to the store for her or just listening to her tell about my Mother when she was a child. My Grandmother always took time to make biscuit sandwiches full of jelly for me and my cousin Eddie Dean. Eddie and I grew up together and often we would show up at Grandma’s back door. The door would creak open and a wrinkled hand would hand out two biscuits full of homemade grape jelly, without a word, but with much love.

I joined the Navy at 17 because no one would hire a 17 year old kid who hadn’t “put in his military time”. My high school friend, Henry McDevitt, and I joined under the “buddy” program which meant that we would be stationed together.

Another moment was when Henry and I ended up stationed in the desert of Arizona at Naval Air Facility Litchfield Park. That is where Henry and I met our future wives, Anita and Lupe or Guadalupe. We decided that they were our girlfriends and Anita of course took umbrage at me referring to her as my girlfriend because she had not agreed. I of course did not let such a thing deter me even as she stated that she wouldn’t marry me unless I was the last man on earth. (See my story about “My Woman, My Woman, My wife and the Last Man on Earth”). Well, to make a long story short, since she had already stolen my heart, we later married, after my time in Viet Nam. So, I guess the Last Man on Earth got his way. Ha Ha. I told you determination or “stubbornness” could be a good trait.

As the war heated up a bit, Henry and I volunteered for Viet Nam. I spent a few years in Attack Squadrons. We flew A4 low level attack bombers and another moment in the sun came when I qualified as a plane captain. How proud I was to maintain my airplane and sit in the Squadron Ready Room during mission briefs and debriefs. I recall seeing the bombs from my plane destroying bridges and ammo dumps from the observation plane’s cameras. We sometimes painted messages on the bombs for the North Vietnamese. I won’t go into graphic detail but some of the messages were X rated.

Fast forwarding, another moment was in Grand Prairie, Texas when I stood outside the glass windows and gazed at my daughter, Margaret Rose. What a joy. Margaret would lie in her bassinet and sleep and I would stand for hours watching her and of course pointing out to anyone that stopped by that that little girl was my daughter. She filled a spot in my heart and I still smile proudly when I think about her. She of course became a Daddy’s girl and I became a girl’s Daddy.

Another happy time for me was in Iceland when my son, Kyle Edward was born. I think I might have got on the nurses nerves a little as I watched the little birth announcements get tacked to the bulletin board. I would go over and look each time and verbally voiced my displeasure each time the announcement was for someone else. I persisted and finally, an exasperated nurse posted Kyle’s birth announcement. How proud I was. For a while, Daddy’s girl took a backseat as another part of my heart was occupied. Kyle and I are good friends and we share some memorable moments. I told him when he was just a wee boy that I had the Doctor put a tattoo on his butt that said: Made in Iceland.

As you can probably tell, I did not make this long story short and I have had many moments in the sun since then, but, I will save those times for another story. Such joy it is to count my blessings and think back on those moments. They sustain me.