Mary (Betty) Auvil:  

I am blessed with three grown sons, four grandsons and three granddaughters. I have been single for quite a few years and have a home in Arkansas and one in Texas. I spend most of my time in Arkansas because of my grandchildren and other family. I started my life at Ft. Sam Houston TX and from there since my dad was an Air Policeman in the USAF we travelled all over. After my brother Jamey was born in Alabama we moved to Germany. My sister Jane was born at Landstuhl in 1954. We moved back to the states and were stationed at Bossier AFB in Shreveport LA. Elvis Presley dated Dicey Nettles who lived with her parents in the other half of the duplex where we lived. She was the one that was with him when he wrecked his pink Cadillac. He and Dicey took her little sister and me out with them to a hamburger joint and he danced with me in his arms (I was about four). My mom said he was the nicest person and he gave her a bunch of black and white autographed photos and she gave them all away. My dad had to go TDY to Loring Maine, while there he met Jimmy Stewart who was a reservist there. So Mom and us three kids went to Brookhaven MS to be near her parents and that was where I started first grade.(my boyfriend was Max) Then we had to go to my dad's mom's house in Cloverleaf TX (Houston) and I transferred again in the first grade. My dad got orders to cross train to Aircraft Mechanic at Chanute AFB, so I had to transfer to another first grade in Champaign IL. When my dad finished technical school my teacher felt so sorry for me that she passed me on to the second grade even though the semester was not over (I was an exceptional reader and student). So I had a very long summer vacation before starting school in Clovis NM where my dad was stationed at Cannon AFB. The kids there might remember me because I got very ill and passed out in class and had to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital where I stayed for quite a while all through Halloween. My neighbors were Terry&Sherry Grimes, their dad owned the skating rink across the alley from where we lived. My first kiss was Richard Jones (in a homemade bunker (their newly being built storm shelter)(?)while playing army and throwing dirt clods. He lived down the street. I was a tomboy and played baseball and army with the neighbor boys. My dad got his hand almost cut off when a jet engine hoist broke so after his surgery to sew it back on (17 hours). General Zoeller transferred him to Special Services and we moved to Conchas Dam Lake so dad could run the recreation area there for Cannon AFB NM. I attended a one room school (grades 1-12), my teacher was Mrs. Warrick from Tucumcari NM. My youngest brother, Johnny was born in Clovis, NM. Then we moved to Smyrna TN for a few years and I attended school there. My best friend was Mary Elizabeth Lewis. Daddy ran the Skyliner Service Club and had Buddy Holly perform there. Patsy Cline died while we were living there. Then dad got orders for Saigon Vietnam, he was Special Services and was the one to escort Bob Hope while in the area. He was with Bob Hope when one of the buildings that they had just left had gotten bombed. When dad left for Vietnam the rest of us went back to Clovis NM to wait for Dad to come home. When he got back from Vietnam we were going to make a road trip to California to meet dad, but we only got as far as Mountainairre NM when we had an almost tragic automobile accident. So when my dad was notified he and my uncle were escorted by State Police from Sacramento CA to New Mexico (there was another State Policeman at the state borders to continue the escort. My mom had her back broken in two places and her pelvis crushed and many other injuries, my brothers both had whiplashes and abrasions, my sister's left hip was broken in two places her left arm dislocated and a hole in the back of her skull, I was not injured. Dad took us back to Clovis and when he was able to bring mom home she was told she would not ever walk again, but did she prove that doctor wrong. One day my dad cam...Expand for more