Idaho

When dad got back from Lowry, he received a new assignment to Mountain Home, AFB, in Idaho. Off we went to spend a little over a year living in a tar-paper shack while dad was waiting for a new assignment.

Dad was selected for a new career field, the Office of Special Investigation. The training was 18 months in Virginia.

He left us in the Sugar House area of Salt Lake City, in a house behind my uncle Don. He went to Quantico, Virginia to attend the F.B.I. Academy. He was gone for about 1 1/2 years. While living behind Uncle Don and Aunt Rene, Don gave me my nick name. At the time there was a radio show, "My Friend Irma". A line that was alway in the show was, "Hello Joe, watcha know?" Everytime I saw my uncle Don, he popped up with that line and somehow the name Joe stuck. After 65 years, name has still stuck amoung my family members.

Shortly after he returned, my brother, Dan, was born in Nov. 14, 1950.

Dad was assigned to the OSI detail at Hill Field. Dad was severly burned while working at Hill. One night he was taking some classified documents out to be burned in a pit behind his office. Somehow, while burning the documents, the dirt collapsed, dropping him, up to his knee, in the hot ashes. Dad spend quite a bit of time in the hospital. For the rest of his life, he had no hair on his left foot.

In 1952, life changed for us. We were off to a grand adventure in Germany.