I have a ton of memories to share about having been a military child for twelve years, but right now I'd like to share the one that always comes to the front of my mind in Aprils.
In April 1958 I was 8 and 3/4ths, going on 9. I was living in Taipei, Taiwan. My Father was working there and at a mountain-top base he ran far to the south. He was in Army intelligence. The base he ran sent unarmed electronics-laden planes over Red China to spy on them. His people also spied on the Republic of China, on Taiwan. The ROC Army spied back on him. I had learned all this in December when my Father's own ROC Liaison Officer told me. That was after I had been driven up to the mountain base with my Mother, in an Army staff car. We had been blindfolded most of the way so that, if kidnapped, the kidnappers couldn't obtain the exact location of the base from torturing us. That sucked.
All that was behind me in April. All I knew then was that the other kids were saying that the island was being shelled, along the Western coast. Or maybe not the island itself, but some outlying islands. The Red Chinese were getting ready to invade. Before they do, they'll probably shell Taipei. We had a bomb shelter in the back of the house. It was a hole in concrete. I thought I'd be safer standing in the middle of the street with my arms stretched out and my mouth open, waiting for a shell to fall on my tongue, as I would be in that hole to have the surrounding concrete pulverized and bury me.
I also knew that a partial eclipse of the sun was going to happen on Saturday, April 19, 1958. My parents told me it was going to be a great show, because the natives were going to try to drive away the dragon that was coming to devour the sun, ha, ha. Silly ignorant natives.
Someone, I don't remember who, but it might have been one of the American neighbor kids next door, said that there was a good chance the Red Chinese would invade the day of the eclipse. He said that it would be a good time, because everyone would be distracted by the dragon. I tried to ignore that idea.
The day of the eclipse came. I remember it was due to happen early in the afternoon. At the time I knew to the minute when the maximum eclipse would occur. My father gave me a piece of exposed film to use as a filter so I could watch the progress of the eclipse. I was determined to ignore anything else that went on. I wasn't into sociology. I was a scientist.
At first as the moon's disk crept in front of the sun, it was just my parents and I in the middle of the road waiting for darkness to fall. Then as the sky began darkening, strings of firecrackers were draped over every wall in sight, and hundreds of Chinese ran out of the nearby houses. All of them were beating spoons on pots and pans. There was such a huge racket, I couldn't help but take my eyes off the eclipse and look at the people making the noise. When I did I made eye contact with one Chinese man about my Father's age. He grinned widely and winked at me.
I looked back at the sky, and I saw what he saw. I counted down to the second of maximum totality. Birds preparing to roost for the night raised their voices. Skyrockets screamed and arced at the horizon. With a thousand confused birds, hundreds of Chinese beating pans, and the remainder of the firecrackers, the din was awesome. I could have imagined an invasion. Instead I saw the most beautiful dragon, just doing what comes natural to a dragon, and only needing to be gently nudged away, the way you nudge dragons.
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