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What is the purpose of this?

Almost 45 years ago, I arrived in Pt. Lyautey all the way across the world from Portsmouth, Virginia to begin two of the most memorial days of my life. Who knows how that experience shaped my life for ever. My family was very committed to faith, the church and the concept of being a missionary. Every week end we would pack up our Rambler station wagon with everything you could imagine from the commissary and head to a missionary family somewhere in Morocco.

We travelled all over Morocco, places probably not even on the map. We brought missionary families things they had probably not had in years. This was my mother and father’s ministry. I remember Agadir and other very remote sites. I also remember our basketball team at school travelling all over Morocco to play basketball at Moroccan schools on their courts that had the oblique foul lines. Boy, were those rough and tumble brawls. There was no concept of how to play without fouling. it was a full contact sport. I remember we tried to played with technique and finesse but a few minutes into the games we decided if they wanted to foul we would show “them” how to foul. lol

I remember trips to the beach and into the medina and how you could look around and see no one out of town and stop to repair my scooter or check something and all of a sudden look up and realize there were fifty people all around you out of nowhere.

I remember sculling and crewing on the Sebou River at sunrise in the morning with my trainer Monsieur Noel when the river was smooth as glass and the mist sometimes showed in the morning. I remember our training sessions in the afternoons three days a week and the smelly bodies and my rowing partners changing and putting back on the same woolen clothes after working out. Deodorant what is that?

I remember the reaction we had to men and boys holding hands out of basic simple friendship and how that freaked us out. lol

I remember the trips to Gibraltar and the basketball games at all the military bases in Spain.

I used to life guard at the pool where I was also a short order cook. I also ran the canteen truck and sold popcorn at the movie theatre. I also worked stocking in the PX. Lots of the older kids ended up going to college after graduating from Wilhoite at University of Maryland in Munich I think.

I remember when we tried to play basketball again the Navy and Marines on base we got killed. Those guys were phenomenal. We didn’t have a prayer but with fast pitch softball, we did not do so badly. We were quick and ended up having a great bunting offense. Of course we had to import a fast pitch pitcher though.

And then there were all the motor bikes….fast fast fast. Me of course had a slow lambretta scooter. I used to be friends with Karen and Sandy Hansen. Capt Hansen was base commander at one point and Col. Canton was the head of the Marines.  Robbie and Irving were on the basketball team. My secret crush back then was Anne Durgee. Met her again after so many years when we had our little reunion here in DC back in 2000 I think. Okay gotta get back to work.

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