Air Force Gracious About Goof

Growing up on an Air Force base isn’t like being in the Air Force.

It’s like being a kid.

It’s like being a kid whose friends come from all across the United States and have lived all over the world.

OK, a couple of years on a remote base in the ‘60s don’t make me an expert. But on a personal level that was a happy time. It was made so in part by the fact that diversity was reality, not a slogan.

I think about those days whenever I drive by Blair Elementary School, tucked inside the fence at Fairchild Air Force Base. I wonder about the kids who go to class there. And I always tell myself I need to find some excuse to visit that school.

Then I saw it. A notice in the newspaper said the sixth-graders at Blair were going to perform Shakespeare’s “MacBeth.”

After a few phone calls Saturday, the plan was set. A lieutenant from Fairchild’s public affairs office would meet me just outside the base gate half an hour before that night’s performance. Then she would escort me over to the school.

I got there early. I told the uniformed young man at the gate about my scheduled rendezvous. He looked at me as if I had declared an intention to steal nuclear warheads.

He instructed me to wait.

Watching the slow-moving traffic come and go, I thought about some childhood friends from my on-base years.

Wonder whatever happened to the guy who secretly activated a lime-green water-rescue marker in the officers’ club swimming pool?

Or what about that girl I gave those salt and pepper shakers to?

Or the guy who did that knockout Joe Cocker impression?

The lieutenant, a friendly woman named Amy, arrived in her black sports car. I followed her to the nearby school.

There was an alarming lack of activity. No cars. No teachers. No kids running with costumes.

The only sign of life was a black dog that looked as if it had liberated itself from a backyard tether.

Then I glanced at the prominent sign outside the school. It said the play was being staged Thursday night and Friday night. Not Saturday.

Talk about feeling like a total civilian.

But the lieutenant couldn’t have been nicer. She said something about how “MacBeth” seemed like a somewhat unusual choice for grade-schoolers. She talked about how not having a show on Saturday night seemed a bit odd.

She talked about everything except what an idiot I was.

If I’d had salt and pepper shakers on me, I would have given them to her.