Long Valley, NJ

OK, coming up on ~24hrs until we're off to LGA in New York and then on to Columbia, SC, to visit with our dear friends, Chuck & BJ... can't wait!

Just doing a bit of reminiscing this evening about when/how we met Chuck & BJ....


Chuck, Rosie, BJ and YT on our deck in Chesapeake, VA

Back in 1991 I was stationed at Patuxent River, Maryland, at the Naval Test Center, Strike Aircraft Test Directorate, serving the tail end of my payback tour after completing the US Navy's Test Pilot School.  Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and President Bush, Sr, was building up a coalition of allies, who would eventually oust the Dictator from Kuwait, under the code name of DESERT SHIELD.  I had been lobbying BUPERS extensively to allow me to leave SATD early and roll back to the fleet, hopefully, in time to participate in DESERT STORM.  So, and in order to keep this blog to a manageable size, I got my wish and we left Pax River for the Tidewater area of Virginia in July of 1991.

A couple of months before we left Pax River, Rosie and I'd made several trips down to Virginia in order to find a place to live.  We found a terrific builder putting up gorgeous homes in a very new, wooded housing area of Chesapeake called Etheridge Woods and signed a contract to have a 3,000 sqft Colonial style home built on a small 1/4 acre lot... we had no idea who our neighbors were to be since the whole neighborhood was new construction.  Work for me at the Master Jet Base, Naval Air Station Oceana, in Virginia Beach, would be a comfortable 19mile drive for me.  Excellent schools for the kids and easy access to any and all types of shopping and recreational activities.  All good.

We moved from base housing at Pax River right into the biggest, nicest house we'd ever owned on Lieutenant Commander (04) pay - still true to this day!  Our neighborhood would eventually sprawl into a very large one but, at the time, our location was very rural and everyone was friendly with plenty of other children the size of our 2.  Meg was 6 and Conor was 4 that year.

I didn't take much time off and joined the training squadron, Fighter Squadron 101 (VF-101), the 'Grim Reapers', for assimilation back into the Fleet, hopefully to ramp up as quickly as possible to deploy in time to make the War.  Much of my training was quite abridged due to the fact that I was already qualified on all versions of the F-14 (A, A-, B, D) and just really needed updates on ACM, EW, Tactics, Weapons, A-A and A-G Gunnery, and CQ.  Training moved quickly.  I knew I would be joining Fighter Squadron 142 (VF-142), the 'Ghostriders', assigned to CVW-7 onboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) for deployment and DESERT STORM.

On the home front there was plenty to do with a new house, new location, new community, new life back in the fleet on my 2nd sea tour and, all of the challenges with getting a small family acclimated and settled.  We knew no one at the time in our very new neighborhood and were actually in our house before anyone had moved in next door to us on our left side.

Rosie and I had, obviously, noticed when someone finally moved into the house next door but, didn't know who they were, where they were from, what they did, etc...  Wanting to be neighborly, Rosie decided she would make brownies to welcome the newcomers.  I also thought that was a terrific idea because while I was gone for what would end up being a 7 month cruise, I knew things would be a bit easier on her and the kids if we had some friends in the neighborhood we could rely on.  All I knew was that she made the brownies, delivered them, let me know they were nice and from the South and, life went on.  I was way too busy with the Training Command to have noticed much about our new neighbors.  Rosie tells me that Chuck and BJ and 1 young son, Charles, our daughter's age moved in August and I left for war a month later in September.

Anyway, sometime before I shipped out, we were in the house one day during a weekend.  The windows were open and both of us recall hearing Jimmy Buffett tunes wafting in through them from next door... we both took pause to go to the windows and take a closer listen.  Yup, it was definitely Buffett - I had been a Parrot Head since 1977 - coming from our next door neighbor's home, blastingly loud in fact.  :-)  We both looked at each other at the same time and smiled excitedly.  How cool that our neighbors would like Jimmy Buffett, our favorite singer?  I recall saying to Rosie,"how bad could any neighbor be who liked Buffett?"

Right then and there we decided it was time for me to meet the neighbors!  So we went out the back door, crossed the short expanse between our homes and knocked on their back door!  I do remember Southern Accents, red wine, lots of laughing and an immediate bond of friendship which as endured and strengthened over the past 21years... the rest is history and we look forward to making more history with them!