1974

Fuel efficiency 1974 style

  In January 1974 with Rhonda just a few months old, we loaded up the buggy and headed north, not very far north.  I received my last set of orders, for transfer, to the Naval Air Station Oceana at Virginia Beach Virginia, the Navy's east coast master jet base for the F-14 Tomcat (they were new then).
  We lived in brand new base housing, our first time in base housing, but now we had children of opposite sexes and could qualify.  600 brand new apartments, townhouse style, all with 3, 4, or 5 bedrooms, that means kids, and every one of them had white asphalt tile floors!  A moms nightmare right there.
  Initially I worked in the base Supply Department, my job was to take over the Rapid Response delivery pool.  8 milk truck type of trucks, 2 larger flattop trucks and drivers on temporary duty from the squadrons.  The performance of this unit had been "not so good"; delivery times were up to 1 hour and 23 minutes.  The man who had been in charge didn't treat his troops very well - you might say he was mean spirited.  I started to treat the crew as the valuable human resource they were and low and behold the delivery times were just over twenty minutes. 
  The senior enlisted man in the department was a Master Chief Petty Officer a native of New Hampshire, so when it snowed, just a little, he kept all of the people from New England and sent the rest home; no accidents and in all honesty not much driving.
  That job didn't last too long, a surprise job for me and a subject for tomorrow.

Some of the "important' residents (these are F-18's I think)

The base and the housing was on the Amphibious Base about where the "e" is in the word "Base", right near the beach.

The housing - click to enlarge - we lived on the second drive on the left, from the top.
That's a whole lot of families.