California HERE I COME!!!!!!!

[Judy Hamilton]

God is good!

I will report to work at the Amarado Hopsital in San Diego in March
am hired to work as part of the nursing team in the ICU

I have been a bit discouraged as there are few openings
for travel positions at this time in San Diego

and Hannah and Hayley are expecting Nana

sure do not want to disappoint two little girls


Judy

and BTW

Mildered Hamner should get a handsome check for recommending this nurse
to this travel nurse company

[Joel Merrill]

Look out New Mexico, ARIZONA and Nevada drivers. Don't worry about Lindsey, Judy is coming through.:eek:

jOeL :fav12

[Judy Hamilton]

jOel

I resemble that remark:eek: ...you left out Texas

made a trip to Dallas last week end..Texas survived!!

Judy

[Dana Grant]

Look out New Mexico, ARIZONA and Nevada drivers. Don't worry about Lindsey, Judy is coming through.:eek:

jOeL :fav12

HAHA HA HA -- Hey, Judy, if you come through Tucson give us a call if you need to stop!!

What a great opportunity to get to work near your little ones!!!


Dana

[Anita F. Henck]

Judy--
We've never met. But, if you're coming west and need someone to keep a spare set of keys for you, mail them ahead. I'll cover you! Something about you getting locked out of your car multiple times seems to be a Naznet story!

It would be fun to meet. And, now that I learned that one of my students is your "California son", maybe you'll be coming up this way to see him? If so, you're both invited to dinner!

Keep me posted!

[Judy Hamilton]

Thanks Anita for the emergency-set-of-keys-offer
At least am driving and it will not be necessary to mail
ahead a passport (just in case my identity is los)

Remember near four summers ago when I was to fly home
from California and lost all my ID on
a flight somewhere out of DFW???

I will e mail Authur with this good news
we have already made tentative plans to meet at the
Joshua Tree National Park sometime before summer
heat sets in..a trip to LA
and Arthur showing me the sights would
for sure e a "Keeper Memory"

He can be a very spontaneous riot

And Dana

Thanks for the invite
you would not believe the northern route I am
planning..if March does not hold a blizzard!
Plan on viewing the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and also
making a side trip to Page, Arizona and secure the
services of a Navajo Indian guide to the Antelope Canyons

All of this depends on Mama Nature
so I may still drive thru your town

And Marsha...hold your laughter girlfriend!!

Judy

[Doris Grant]

And as always we expect lots of pictures. Both of landscapes and those beautiful little girls.

Doris

[Anita F. Henck]

Judy--
Remember ... if you plan to cross into Mexico at all, you MUST have your passport now. A recent change requires that for all US citizens traveling outside the 50 states (even to US Caribbean islands, Mexico, and Canada). I don't want to think of your family having to get you out of a Mexican jail!

I ran into Arthur today and told him you were on your way next month. He is excited to get to see you ... I promised dinner at our house if we can get the schedules to work. Email me with your timetable, if you don't mind!

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

Have fun, Judy, as I know you will.
Do you remember that stormy, rainy night in Memphis, Tn. when you were traveling before? But, I want you to be VERY CAREFUL!
Maybe we will be able to relax over a nice meal on a beautiful day, the next time you come in this direction.

[Judy Hamilton]

Hi Anne
That rainy evening we met (almost two years ago) was unforgetable. While I did so enjoy meeting you and Dywane
The scary auto accident on I 40 ..I do not care to repeat.
thanks for your caring. I will place a prayer request next month when i
am on my way West on Interstate 40

[Judy Hamilton]

Anita

Thanks for the invitation and the info on the passport when traveling to Mexico
I am not allowed (per my son-in-love) to take my car to Mexico
however I hopefully will find someway to make a trip to the Baja.

So will tuck the passport in when leaving home.

I am planning to make it to LA end of April or in May

My start date in San Diego is 19 March and I will need a bit of rest,
after driving across country before any sort of another road trip.
Also Shannon has plans in April to do the
San Diego Mission Beach Triahalon
..and I am designated childcare
person prior to and during this event.

I am looking foward to adventures with Arthur
One of the requests I have for him is for him to take me to
Catalina Island (he worked there for most of a year)

Looking forward to making plesant memories and finally meeting you.
This will be a highlight of the journey to the West Coast.

Care to join me on a trip down the Baja of California?
twould be fun!

Judy

[Barb Bouldrey]

Judy,

When I try to piece together everything I remember about your life, past and present, that you have posted over the years I am amazed at the world traveler you have been and the wide range of experiences you have had.

I noticed that you asked Hans about a photo he took on vacation of a place where you had been. How many countries have you visited? What took you to those countries? Vacations or business, too. (I know about VietNam)

And, somehow you got into a traveling nurse program that has taken you all over our nation.

Also, if my memory is correct, you have connections with the Catholic church in your past, SNU and the Church of the Nazarene and pentecostal experiences. What church do you currently attend...when you are home, that is.

Your life sure has been more interesting than mine!

And I love the photo under your name...that symbolizes your entire life!

Someday you have to find a way to travel through Sikeston and have throwed rolls with me at Lambert's. LOL

Barb

[Judy Hamilton]

Judy,

When I try to piece together everything I remember about your life, past and present, that you have posted over the years I am amazed at the world traveler you have been and the wide range of experiences you have had.

I noticed that you asked Hans about a photo he took on vacation of a place where you had been. How many countries have you visited? What took you to those countries? Vacations or business, too. (I know about VietNam)

And, somehow you got into a traveling nurse program that has taken you all over our nation.

Also, if my memory is correct, you have connections with the Catholic church in your past, SNU and the Church of the Nazarene and pentecostal experiences. What church do you currently attend...when you are home, that is.

Your life sure has been more interesting than mine!

And I love the photo under your name...that symbolizes your entire life!

Someday you have to find a way to travel through Sikeston and have throwed rolls with me at Lambert's. LOL

Barb

First i want to thank you for the invite to throw rolls at Lamberts! I would love to make such a memory with you!!

I traveled all over Europe with Shannon and Kris in tow for curiosity and pleasure. Have a German family who were our hosts on several trips.

Also traveled to Greece and Portugal and Germany as a Flight Nurse with the USAF before I changed to the Army and went to Vietnam. Was stationed in Japan and the Philippines with the Airforce prior to Vietnam. This is when i got so close to the War that I finally jumped into the fire.
Also my dad lived in the US Virgin Islands so have visited these extensively and the British Virgin Islands, and the West Indies
and Panama and Puerto Rico and Haiti and Jamaica.

I do not attend a pentecostal church..attend a nondenom church here in OKC..and it is not charismatic.

I just try to connect with a good church when I travel nurse. Last contract was able to attend the Nazarene Church in Fredericksburg, Salem Fields. Enjoyed this church very much.


That's about it Barb

Will take a rain check on the dinner offer. Just know that one day I'll come out your way.Keep the light on!!

Judy

[Barb Bouldrey]

What a life! It is so wonderful that you have been to so many areas of our nation and our world. Who would have known that when you went into nurses training God would take you so many places?

You could write a book that would equal Mark Twain's writings. LOL

Barb

[Judy Hamilton]

What a life! It is so wonderful that you have been to so many areas of our nation and our world. Who would have known that when you went into nurses training God would take you so many places?

You could write a book that would equal Mark Twain's writings. LOL

Barb

That I could Barb and it would center around the Mekong River, South China Sea,
Sapporo, Hokkaido and Mt Fuji Japan, and Wake Island. However I do have a picture of the Titanic..I rushed to shoot on take off from the flight deck of a C-130 in Athens. I am (was) gullible to a fault, so much so that my Airforce friends told me to put these oddities in a book and title it "Gullible Travels"

have managed to naively genuinely embarrass myself in so many places over the globe.

You asked about the Catholic in my background. One of my stepmothers (we had three) was Catholic. As young girls age 6 and 7 my sister and I lived in a Catholic boarding school in New Orleans. This is where I drank the holy water from the little dish on the wall one late night, as I was thirsty and it was there. and I was too frightened of the nuns to go out to the fountain.
Then we were raised for several years in the Methodist church by dear foster parents in a small West Texas town.

As a teen I raised myself in the Nazarene Church and attended BNC/SNU
Hope this is clear as mudd..it has been an interesting journey.

Judy

[Joel Merrill]

I really wish you would write a book about your life and travels!!!! I just read an excerpt of a book called "Ia Drang Valley from Chickenhawk" by Robert Mason. It was very gory and not the type of thing I usually read but I've known enough Vietnam veterans to know that it was really that way. I know that would bring back horrible memories to write in that much detail but you wouldn't need to be that graphic. The stories you have shared with us here on Naznet over the years have been very interesting and that is the kind of thing I am talking about.

Besides those of us who know you, this is history. Eye witness accounts are the best. It is not at all uncommon for veterans not to want to talk about it but the rest of us and future generations need to know what it was like, if for no other reason than not to repeat the mistakes.

I don't think there are any WW1 veterans left. My great uncle was in the Lost battalion in WW1. He was interviewed and told his story to a magazine right after the war while he was still in the hospital. I have that magazine. There are lots of books that tell the big picture and books that were written by historians years later but the books right from ground level by the people how were there are the best.

There are very few WW2 veterans left. My dad was in the Americal Division in the South Pacific during WW2. They went island hopping all the way to Japan. He talks a lot about it and often exaggerates but I always listen. I've tried to get him to write it down but he is not a writer, you are.

My uncle was on the USS Heermann in Taffy III in the Battle of the Leyte Gulf in WW2. Most of the ships in their group were sunk at nearly point blank range. They were told they were going to die. My uncle's ship had a shell go clear through it and it barely made it back. That shell went through the forward magazine and should have blown the ship to bits. When you get to San Diego, go the the USS Midway which is retired there. To the left of it a ways in a monument to Adm. Clifton Sprague and the ships in that battle. My uncle's ship has the most battle stars. He was the fire control officer on the ship. He suffered a lot of emotional trauma from that battle and does not like to talk about it. He has told me a few things but I respect him enough not to ask questions. I respect you too and I don't ask you to share more that you can handle. Stories like you have told us here on Naznet are what I have in mind.

[Judy Hamilton]

HI Joel

The time my dad was in the Virgin Islands was good and some not so good. John and I were able to do a lot of exploring on the coral reefs of these Islands. My dad would take us scuba diving. Then when Daddy had a massive coronary, I took Shannon (then 11 months old) to St Thomas, when the electricity on dad's boat went defunct (he lived on a boat in a harbor on St Thomas). My sister and I had to make do trying to get water. The water pump was hooked to electric. And then my dads car threw a rod when we were on the other side of the Island. We hitchhiked with baby Shannon, umbrella stroller and portable playpen from Megan's Bay to Charlotte Amalie.Not many people even have room to accommodate such persons on the road. Daddy, in the hospital and was very ill so we were not about to tell him our woes.


There are so many holes in my memory, seems it would be simple to recall the military time frame in my life. I have many funnies that happen and a lot of ugly. I need to be around some of the guys and gals I served with as their stories trigger memories.
For example, I had totally forgotten how I flew from Vietnam to Hong Kong...until an e-mail with a friend stimulated recalled. After the e-letter I did remember hoping on a plane at Tuy Hoa, on a C-47 "Air America" just like the one Mel Gibson flew in a movie he made covering Air America in SouthEast Asia. I do not remember the plane landing, actually do not even know where it landed in China and do not remember how I traveled from Hong Kong back to Vietnam.

While in Hong Kong I did visit the Island of Macau, an Island very near Hong Kong and dinned in a ritzy hotel at a table next to a North Vietnamese Army General. He was in uniform, I was incognito as this was disallowed for military personnel to do. Cannot remember how I got to and from the island. I know my girlfriend Carol was there. She was so frightened she had NO appetite (remember this was real food we were eating) and I was in my exhilarated foolish element. I would not have done this alone.
OH the paths I drug this poor friend on!!

She lives here in OKC and we have but a superficial friendship...i think Vietnam created pain for her that has in no way near healed

Judy

[Joel Merrill]

When I was growing up my dad talked about the war and being in the Army a lot. He said very little about the really ugly stuff but everything was just burned into his memory. 35 years after the war he could still remember the dates he landed on each of the islands. I got him a large map of the South Pacific and asked him to dictate some of his memories to Mom or on a cassette tape. He drew a line on the map showing where he had been and wrote one page. Now he is 83 years old and in very poor health. His memory of those times now are very fuzzy.

While he was over there, he wrote home every week. Because of logistics and secrecy, the letters didn't get through for many months. My grandparents lived in Saint Paul MN at the time. Grandma watched for news about the Americal Division in the news paper and cut out any articles about it. Then one day when the paper came, there was a picture of Dad and 2 other Saint Paul solders with their war relics. And a headline that they had won an important battle. That same day all of Dad's letters arrived at once. Grandma put the in a scrap book. When Dad came home, he added some other things. I remember that scrap book but I was too young to appreciate it. Dad had a Japanese carbine and a Samari Sword that he sold after the war. That scrap book and everything else he had from the war was stolen years ago. Who ever stole the scrap book probably through it in the trash. :gen11

Joel