two stories

The whole time we lived on the base at Lakenheath, we were in a two story apartment quadraplex. In San Antonio (where we moved from), we lived in a one story ranch, so having a second story was pretty cool for us kids. And, above the front door, there was an outcropping plank-like cement cover. It extended about two or three feet out and protected anyone on the porch from weather coming straight down. Above the porch cover was a window. Naturally, one of the first things my brothers and I learned how to do was climb out the top window and drop down a couple of inches onto the porch cover. Above the porch was a great place to look at the world (the key part was the tangible danger of falling off and possibly breaking a limb of some sort).

Getting back in from the porch cover was not quite as easy as getting out. The several inch drop from the window meant that to get back in, it required (for an eight year old boy) a leap (of both faith and real vertical) and a steely grab with both hands, followed by a pull and then a leg over. If you have seen any number of sheer rock climbing scenes in movies, that's exactly what it felt like.

Our apartment was on the end of the quadraplex. Our building and the next closest were located diagonally from each other, separated by about 100 feet and a sidewalk (the one we rode or walked to school on). Being on the end, and being a budding baseball super athlete, I spent many hours throwing a baseball against the wall of my family's apartment. I don't remember either of my parents telling me to stop throwing the ball against the wall. It either didn't bother them or was like a baseball GPS - they knew exactly where I was as long as they heard the ball bouncing off the wall.

The sidewalk that led to school also led to the American Post Office (APO) and the British Post Office (BPO - again, BEE-poh for those who wish to use the corrent pronunciation). The APO and the BPO were close to each other physically, but miles apart in coolness. The APO had stamps and post office boxes and would mail your letters; that was it. The BPO was an entire store which just happened to sell stamps and mail letters if you wanted them. The really cool thing about the BPO was that it sold candy of all sorts (by the bag, by the scoop, American, British, really every kind of candy), magazines of every type, comic books (Spiderman, Superman, Flash, the Justice League, the Fantastic Four, Sgt. Rock - one of my all time favorites - the reading of which helped me develop a pretty good vocabulary), soda, cookies (including scottish shortbread - really good) and newspapers and the little lady who ran the store spoke with a lovely English accent.

It was at the BPO that I found the best candy in all the world, sherbet UFOs. They are a UFO shaped set of two tiny saucer wafers, sealed together, with a sugary, tart powder in side. There are multiple ways of eating them, but the best way was to put the whole thing in your mouth, let the wafers dissolve and then let the powder hit your tongue like a sweet explosion (as I learned in science class, a powder is the state of any element which has the maximum surface area and so gets the maximum bang for whatever properties it exibits).

I loved sherbet UFOs while we lived there and then never saw them again, until, 35+ years later when I had a work assignment in England and asked some of my colleagues about them. They took me straight to a BPO and I bought a very large bag of my favorite candy (and then took that bag home and shared it with my family - who I think were not as excited as I was about them, but they smiled and acted enthusiastic - which I appreciated).

Have a good one. KipK