Family stories (insert adoring awww here) are essential to understanding who we are. My eccentric grandmother that favors clapon/clapoff lamps and puts an enormous plush hot pink Easter bunny on her doorstep every spring, told me of her life as wife of a career military officer. Quite the Renaissance woman, she boasted Paris, New Jersey, California, and Indiana as her posh residences of the 60s and 70s. Army bases can be posh, right? Here is one of her anecdotes that I put on paper.... and now, on SitD. It was 1968, the war in Vietnam was reaching unsurpassed violence, unsurpassed protest. A man in a cockpit flipped a switch and prepared for landing in a make shift airfield of banana plants. Wake Island had seen the worst during typhoon season and tonight would be no different. He landed the jet, taking note of a tourist plane landing nearby. Lagged from piloting San Fran to Saigon he bee-lined to the nearest bar-café to stay dry and make some conversation. A bombshell blonde was sitting at the bar when he walked in. He sat down beside she and her girlfriend, thinking he had seen them on television somewhere, sometime. She started with a hello, asked him where he had been, told him she admired what the military was doing for the poor South Vietnamese, meanwhile it hit him. He was talking to Loretta Young, the bright-eyed actress his wife had dubbed the “next Debbie Reynolds”. She asked him where he and his crew were destined for then took his rank and name. She was headed for Tokyo to meet with Japanese filmmakers. When they arrived in Tokyo, she called him and invited him to dine with she and the filmmakers at a downtown pagoda. Her television trademark was entering the set through French doors, whirling the arms of her butterfly sleeve dress. Tonight she wore a similar dress. He complimented what she was wearing. She said a seamstress from Hong Kong custom made it for her and that all the movie stars were wearing them these days. She asked him to write down his wife's measurements on a cocktail napkin; she would send off for one next week. So, he took the napkin from under his drink and scribbled his estimate. His wife didn't believe him. It was impossible. Actresses were consumed with their careers and had no time. Then, it arrived, a box addressed to New Jersey all the way from Hollywood, California. The Air force wives begged Marge to wear the sequin-studded turquoise gown to Tupperware shows, teas, and fondue parties. And she did, she waltzed through the base housing as graceful as Loretta Young* herself. *Google her, ask a cinematography student or phone a grandparent; they'll know who she is.