Page 13 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2025 - Online Magazine

EXCEPTIONAL SENIORS

checks, health physicals, the shipping documents for our forever.” Eventually the questions and comments ceased.
personal belongings and automobile to Germany, etc.
We had a great thirty-year career teaching America’s
Rashell and I departed Lubbock in 1990 to teach in the military-connected children, circumnavigating the globe
Nuremberg Military Community at Erlangen Elementary from Germany to England, Japan, Spain, and finally
school. It was a huge transition—leaving friends and Belgium. Through the years we were stationed with the
family behind, living in a foreign country, working with Army, Air Force, Navy, and NATO personnel. I left the
the military, speaking neither German nor ‘military classroom to become a school principal, district chief
lingo,’ and teaching with colleagues from all over the of staff, and eventually a community superintendent.
United States. We weren’t in Lubbock anymore! During Rashell became a stay-at-home mom after our first child
our first year in Germany, I remember being humored was born but eventually returned to teaching in later
by colleagues about the ice trays we kept in the teachers’ years. We had unique experiences in every location
lounge freezer and wanting our glasses filled with ice. that we will forever cherish. Our oldest was born in the
When Europeans are served a cold drink there might be 180 US Army Hospital-Nuremberg, the same hospital
th
one or two token ice cubes if any, and iced tea is never where my father was a patient recovering from shrapnel
served. I remember our first principal commenting on wounds during WWII. In England we caught a glimpse
my western boots and Wrangler jeans that I wore on of the Royal Family one Christmas morning on their
Fridays. “Do people really wear those? I thought it was traditional stroll from Sandringham House to the estate
just in the movies,” he commented. chapel for Christmas services. My son and I climbed to
the summit of Mr. Fuji, thirteen hours up and nine hours
Our contract with the US government included a down. Other experiences weren’t so pleasant. During
furlough trip every other year. Each summer that we our first year of teaching, we saw the outbreak of the
visited home, family and friends would often ask, Gulf War in 1990. As Desert Storm ensued, almost all of
“When are you coming back?” As the years rolled by, the our students had either a father or mother who left in
question evolved to, “You must really like it over there,” the night headed to the Persian Gulf. Our small school
and later, “Looks like you’re going to stay over there became a ghost town the next day as many remaining
parents kept their children home from school uncertain
of the future.

We lived through the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and
tsunami and Fukushima nuclear aftermath in Japan.
The quake shook all of Japan that Friday afternoon
just after school dismissed, but there were still over
a hundred students in the building with afterschool
activities. Following the announcements blaring on
base loudspeakers, we huddled everyone together and
proceeded to higher ground unsure of how high the
tsunami flood waters would reach in our part of Japan.
It was several hours before I knew where my own family
was. My son had been at his own after school event and
made it home safely. Our younger daughter had ridden

Japanese Samurai and Kimono Memories—Grant, Molly, and Kaitlyn

Lubbock Senior Link 13