Cursed Tongue: Little Tent in the Desert

Posted by CursedTongue on July 14, 2006

I don’t remember exactly how Mom and Dad dropped the bomb that because Dad had reenlisted in the military, we were moving from Milwaukee to the Mojave Desert. Dad’s new station would be George Air Force Base, Calif. My parents must have sat us down at the kitchen table. I remember they opened a huge, glossy book to show my brother and I a picture of Death Valley, vast rolling hills of barren sand.

They also showed us a picture of a ballerina from a ballet troupe in the area. (At the time I was obsessed with ballet. I was forever begging people to watch me twirl and plié while I tripped on my feet and destroyed the living room.)

Then my kind, loving father told me about sidewinders, and gave me a snakebite by twisting his hands around my forearm until my skin stung and turned a vibrant shade of red. I don’t recall much more explanation than that. My arm still red and throbbing, I was left with my vivid imagination. Dad had gotten out of the military and into the Air Force Reserve. I had experienced the malodorous olive green canvas tents, during a special occasion when we had visited him on base while he was serving “One weekend a month, two weeks a year.”

When I pictured George, I saw the vast, dusty nothingness of a golden brown sandy desert with a cluster of olive green canvas tents. It would be barren like Death Valley, or Tatooine, monotonous sand dunes as far as the eye could see, with only mirages and the occasional sidewinder to break up the landscape. We would live in green army tents and have an outhouse (or actually an out-tent), sort of like Little House on the Prairie (another childhood obsession). There would be dangers like mirages of soda machines to lure us into the inhospitable desert. Where we’d wander aimlessly until the baking sun forced us to drag ourselves through the sand by our elbows. (Yes, I was old enough to know better. I also thought that babies came out of belly buttons. A misconception that I completely blame on TV.)

We made the trip in a Chevy Cavalier wagon, which was the color of pumpkin pie. We called it the Pumpkinmobile, and it ran on Popcorn Power. The caliber of motor that was in the car was about the same, give or take, as the motor in a hot air popcorn popper. We got up steep hills by leaning forward and praying, while Mom or Dad laid the pedal to the metal.

We took approximately the same route as National Lampoon’s Vacation. Like Rusty and Audrey, my brother and I also begged to go up in the St. Louis Arch and were denied. But we had a plastic cargo box, not Aunt Edna, strapped to the roof of the car. And instead of stopping to see the Grand Canyon, only the most famous hole on earth, we went to see the Meteor Crater. A big hole, no doubt, but not as big as the Grand Canyon.

It was one of Dad’s life-long dreams to see the Meteor Crater. And this move would also enable him to realize his other life-long dream: a sojourn under the sea on the Submarine Ride at Disneyland (instead of Wally World). Yes, the Submarine Ride is as thrilling as it sounds.

As we drove through Death Valley, Mom told to roll down the windows (since this was in the olden days, this had to be done manually with a crank) and she turned off the A/C to conserve Popcorn Power. We had emergency water, but as previously mentioned this was in the olden days, so we lacked that great communication device, that candy bar sized wunder-technology, destroyer of movie plots, the cell phone. I do believe there were car phones at the time, but this was before everybody and their five-year-old had a cell phone. We made the most dangerous leg of our drive without incident, and without passing out from heat stroke.

I was relieved when we got to the Mojave Desert. It was not at all Sahara-like. It didn’t look as though Jawas would pop up from behind a sand dune and attack the Pumpkinmobile. It was dotted with Joshua trees and creosote bushes, arranged in hilly folds beneath mountains like calico fabric. Eventually, at the bottom of a tall hill, we saw a sign with an official-looking blue and red seal and the words “George Air Force Base.” But there was no base. We leaned forward, holding our breath in anticipation as Popcorn Power took us up the hill. Just as we crested, a gleaming grass green island appeared like a mirage. I blinked, but it remained.

What we saw was the base golf course. It’s a point of pride for every base commander to have a lush green golf course. A base commander without a lush green golf course is like a drag queen without a fabulous wig.

We had arrived at our new home – the only place I ever lived in for six consecutive years (a record for me). We might have been stationed there longer, except for the imminent closure of George. Now it’s overgrown with tumbleweeds and creosote brush. The house where we got first hand experience on earthquakes, and the room where I hung my posters of teen hunks and unicorns and dreamed my girlie dreams are left to crumble, probably occasionally trampled through by the combat boots of soldiers training to fight in urban settings. Like a male Streisand impersonator in a wig cap and smeared eye shadow, George is no longer gleaming beacon of green in the dusty brown Mojave.

- Sarah Letnes

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