Calm Before the Storm

Here's my Father, now Captain Browning, in Korea outside a tent, being a Sentinel of Security (Vigile Salutis!) for the Army Security Agency. This probably was taken before the war broke out in June 1950. I guessing it was too hectic for this kind of thing during the two weeks between the North Korean invasion and my Father's departure.

While Dad was getting the light bulb shot out over his head, I was back in Schofield Barracks with my Mother in a little two bedroom shack in the officers' housing. The officers' housing area looks like a low-income suburban housing project. Here's a shot of the base of one of the neighbor's house that was taken a couple of years later. I'm showing it now because it's the only shot I have that illustrates the ample crawl spaces under the houses. There are no basements. I think it's because of the monsoons.


The weeks before my father came home there were no heavy rains. It was very hot. My Mother drank a lot and ignored me, allowing me to crawl around outside in a shirt with no diapers so she wouldn't have to ever change me. Just hose me off at the end of the day. To escape the heat I learned to crawl around in the space under the house. It was dusty but cool. I remember it being a huge relief whenever I could get in there, and I didn't mind that I wasn't near my Mother, except when I was hungry.

I don't remember it but the story is that I couldn't handle my Mother's milk and a doctor advised filling bottles with warm papaya juice, which I loved. What I do remember are solid food feeding sessions in a high chair filled with cursing and yelling.

Back before the heat wave when my Mother kept me in diapers in the house there were attempts to toilet train me. One feature of this early toilet training that stands out in my mind was that whenever I completed a bowel movement my Mother would say, "Look, you made a present for Daddy!" At the time I didn't know what the words meant.

With the heat wave the tension was reduced, thanks to neglect. My world almost collapsed into the shady world of the crawl space. It was like a return to the womb. Maybe I didn't miss my Mother because I'd rediscovered her in the earth. There were grubs and cobwebs growing in her, but I didn't know I was supposed to mind.