First of all, let me introduce myself - my name is Dale Day and I'm a Master Sergeant retired from the US Army. I'm also aka [a long time ago and an even longer story] Dale King Ketcham.
Well, I grew up in The Valley of Smokes where, in 1781, the Spanish founded El Pueblo de la Reyna de los Angeles de Porciuncula. While my youth was some time after that, it had not yet grown to the huge sprawl of today. We had a reasonably good public transportation system with yellow street cars and the PE red cars that took you from El Monte to Venice Beach and Pasadena to Newport Beach. The Freeways were still a dream of the gas companies.
Right after WW Deuce, I spent 2 weeks in a summer camp run by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Really neat, down-to-earth people and very religious. [Yeah, I got to see the Triggers] One thing I remember is how many goats they had around. We had goat milk, goat cheese and even goat.
I spent 4 years living on a ranch where I slopped the hogs, milked the cows and gathered eggs. Even mowed hay and moved irrigation pipes.
After graduating from High School as a less than sterling student, a kindly judge “suggested” I might find the right path in life by enlisting in the military. I signed up to be a veterinary assistant, got sent to school to repair steam shovels and bulldozers, then went to romantic [ugh] southern France where my boss learned I knew how to type. No matter how hard I tried, that meant my ending up behind a desk for the next 20 years plus. One was spent in ‘Nam and 9 more in Germany and Austria. {Yeah, the army even taught me how to speak German - just before sending me to ‘Nam}
So, now that you know I’m an old geezer, let’s get down to why this WebLog thing is here - I want you to buy the books I’ve written! [Hummm]
But, before you spend you hard-earned, you wanna know if [1] I can write and [2] if I know what I’m writing about. I certainly hope I can and do!
