Category: Stories by Leo Lawton

Written by: Leo Lawton I hadn’t been home for a couple of months. Home being where my folks lived way up in northern New York I mean, as I was in the Navy at the time and stationed in this little out-of-the-way place called Chincoteague, Virginia. I was thinkin about putting enough cash together for a trip up there, but […]

Written by: Leo Lawton As a neophyte Senior Chief I had been the Airframes Division Chief for about four months in April 1967. Senior Chief McLean who had been in the Navy much longer and a Senior Chief much longer also, was the Maintenance Control Division Chief. One day he asked me to come to the Maintenance Control Office to […]

Written by: Leo Lawton Right after Thanksgiving 1966 my brother Dell and I and our families left Northern New York for our new duty stations. Dell and his family were headed to Pensacola, Florida, while my family and I were going to Meridian, Mississippi. We traveled together in separate vehicles. We spent a night in Covington, Kentucky. We then proceeded […]

Written by: Leo Lawton During 1889 the keel was laid for a ship named the Yumuri. It was acquired by the United States Navy April 19, 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Fitted as a Cruiser she was renamed the Badger April 28, 1898. She was decommissioned October 31, 1899, and stricken from the records on March 23, 1900. She was […]

We Called it Gitmo Leo Lawton Of course, I had heard of a country called Cuba. Did I know anything about it? Not much! Then came the Missile Crisis of 1962 and all the world became aware of Cuba. I was attached to VF-174, the Hell Razors, a Navy Fighter Squadron located at Jacksonville, Florida at that time. The crisis […]

Written by: Leo Lawton It had to be in 1960, ’61, or’62 because I bought the 1953 Ford in Norfolk, Virginia in 1959, and took it to Florida in the first part of 1960. Then I traded it off before our first child was born in late 1962. It was a hard-luck trip from the get-go. Our journey from Jacksonville […]

Written by: Leo Lawton It was a bright and sunshiny afternoon. World War II was ongoing, but that had little effect on four young lads on a dairy farm in northern New York. Bob was about 11 years of age, while Ron was around 9, Dell was 8, and I was about 6. The hay had been removed from our […]

Written By: Leo Lawton My Grandfather William had 10 siblings, one of which was a twin sister Wealthy, and another was a younger sister Annis. Annis married a man named Fred Healy. Fred and Annis are buried in Cavalry Cemetery in Watertown, New York. Their graves are well marked, and easy to locate. However, Grandfather and his twin Wealthy, didn’t […]

Written By: Leo Lawton Meandering through the tombstones trying to connect with those I knew. There rests my mother, There lies my father too. Ever side by side as they were in life. Lingering memories here among the bones. Seven brothers, like peas there in a pod, and three sisters lie beneath the sod. No brothers, two sisters yet remain. […]

Written by: Leo Lawton Uncle Fred, who wasn’t really my uncle, was born July 10, 1868. His full name was Fred Eugene Lawton, and he was the next youngest child born into the family after my grandfather Will Benjamin and Will’s twin sister Wealtha Betsy Lawton. This, of course, makes him my father’s uncle, not exactly mine, but he was […]