Going to Portsmouth
(Virginia) – the Shipyards by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
The
sixty-five degree, humid air outside made the sweat on my hands feel even more
cooler as I clenched my car’s steering wheel and entered the tunnel that
connected Portsmouth with Norfolk (Virginia) – my first week as a Navy wife.
“Why
aren’t we picking daddy up?” cried Florence as she brushed a wisp of straight,
brown hair aside that had stuck to her forehead in the day’s heat.
Her
round, kiddo cheeks flushed as she cried in sobs that increased with intensity
each time that she asked about her father.
We
had just spent an hour looking for my husband Laurent through the sprawling
United States Naval Shipyard, which seemed to be one bumpy, pot filled parking
lot.
My
husband’s ship, the U.S.S. Austin (lead battle ship) was resting in dry dock
for repairs. When I had come to the ship
with Laurent earlier in the day, we had to go to several gates to find the
right ship.
I
had forgotten what the right gate looked like.
That was easy to do, since all the gates resembled one another with
puddles filling potholes, electric fencing, a lone gatehouse, and a pay
phone. Wu-Tang Klan rap group posters
covered the warehouse walls around the dry dock areas.
My
inquiries as to where the U.S.S. Austin was were greeted with shrugs and “I
don’t knows.” No one put forth the
effort to find Airman Paget for me.
(Laurent did his French military service in the air force and served in
Chad (Africa), a French-speaking “Black” African country.”)
Florence
fretted more and more with each “the Austin isn’t here” answer.
Dusk
was approaching. I decided to drive back
to the Navy Lodge where we were staying until we could find an apartment as our
new home.
I
could still make out the streets and took advantage of that to find my way back
to the hotel.
This
was my first day driving solo in the Norfolk – Virginia Beach conurbation of
1.5 million people. Freeway driving
still made me nervous. (I grew up
walking and taking public transportation in Detroit and Chicago.)
Testosterone
drivers in Norfolk zigzag in and out of traffic all the time, especially since
I still had Wisconsin license plates on the car.
Taking
I-264 made me do a big loop around Norfolk that I could have avoided by taking
Tidewater Drive, but I was unsure of bearings in my new city. Florence continued crying, “Don’t worry. Dad will take a taxi to the hotel.”
I
hoped he had some spare change to make a call from the pay phone as well as
access to the yellow pages, so he could call a cab company. I worried that he might catch cold in the
damp air at night.
“I
want my daddy,” Florence continued.
Laurent had been away for three months at boot camp before our arrival
in Virginia and was afraid he would disappear again.
Florence
reacted to this boot camp situation by throwing temper tantrums with me. I was worried about how she was going to hold
up when Laurent would have to go on his six-month deployment in the
Mediterranean. Some deployments were
even extended to one year and sometimes two in war situations.
I
was not so sure how I was going to hold up myself as a single parent for such a
long period of time. I was absolutely
learning how to drive on freeways with speedy, single guys and peanut farmer
Southerners from Suffolk (Virginia) to make sure I could take care of the two
of us.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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