Barron M Broomfield
Bio
After attending Carnegie-Mellon for three semesters, I served in the USAF, worked in Vegas casinos, graduated college at fifty, on my fourth marriage, in the process of authoring two novels in a series. Favorite author John Grisham.
Stories (10/0)
Hadji 1974
1st court appearance Hadji 1974 Chapter 12 Nearly everyone in the jail gathered in the courtyard for the volleyball match after lunch. The lines previously just drawn in the dirt were now amplified with white lime. A small step ladder was in place next to the net, and a referee stood atop it. A couple of line judges, recruited from other teams, were in place to make out of bounds calls on the side and back lines. It was decided that the match would be decided in a best of five format, instead of a single game, and a coin flip was used to see which side of the net each team would begin from. The teams would switch sides after one reached thirteen points, so that each would be subject to the same sun and wind conditions. In addition to the normal guards patrolling the catwalks, the warden and several of his aides were watching from his balcony. The referee climbed onto his perch, motioned the ready sign to each team, and brought his arm forward while blowing his whistle, to start the match. After a short volley to win serve, Joe racked off ten straight points with a variety of spinning serves, strategically placed near the out-of-bounds lines. It was the beginning of a volleyball clinic that we put on for them, including crisp passes to set up our big men for thunderous dunks and well-placed dinks. When it was my turn to serve, I sent the ball a mile in the air and watched as the Turks fought with each other for the return. On the front line, I would time my leap to intercept the ball as it crossed the net and slam it to the ground on the other side for a quick turnover. With the games well in hand, we allowed the Turks to get into double digits in all three games. We practiced plays and went for the spectacular slam or diving save to the roars of the crowd. The referee was experienced and very animated with his calls and play by play descriptions. With five points remaining in the third game, Joe unleashed his jump serve and ended the match without another return serve. We crossed the net and hugged and shook hands with our opponents, thanking them for a good game. As we headed back to retrieve our towels and other belongings, you could see money and goods exchange hands in traditional Turkish custom, for the end of a sporting event. The volleyball games became a fixture of the morning routine at the jail. Being gracious winners, we allowed the Turks to pick and choose from other teams to form super teams to “Beat the Americans”.
By Barron M Broomfield10 months ago in Chapters
Fathers in the Family
06/16/2002 Barron M Broomfield 70 Years of Fathers As near as I can figure, I was conceived around February 14 in 1952. The nine months in the womb were uneventful. There were three little girls that made noise all day and night and took turns rubbing my Mommy’s belly and trying to eat her food. “Wait a minute. That’s my food too!”, I screamed. I kicked with all my strength, but they crawled over me and reached for whatever Mom was trying to put in her mouth, causing it to spill on the bed covers. The girls squealed and Mom shooed them away and called out to the Big Guy to get his girls. I could sense his presence before his smell and deep voice announced his arrival. He scooped up my three sisters and effortlessly carried them out of the room. Everyone called him dada or something close to that and he was gone most of the time. Nine months later, on November 12, 1952, I met him for the first time as he held me in his huge hands and made cooing noises. I tried to open my eyes but they refused to cooperate so I just grabbed his cheeks and squeezed as hard as I could, and that is how I met my dad. I was the first male child after three straight girls but as the baby of the family, it did not mean much. We lived next door to my mom’s parents, and they would often watch me when needed. My dad was always working, either at the steel mill, where he operated a large crane, or after work and on the weekends he and a friend worked together plastering new homes or repairing damaged ones. I remember sitting on his lap a few times and an occasional hug, but Dad was the strong silent type, and Mom was the yeller and disciplinarian. We moved to Oak Hill Ave when I was in elementary school and my parents added two more boys, but I was closer to my sisters’ ages, and they were my constant companions. They taught me all about dolls, jacks, and other girl games, but they were tom boys at heart and the four of us roamed the neighborhood from dawn to dusk during summers and holidays. In addition to us kids and mom and dad, my mother’s great Aunt Dorothy lived with us and her younger brother, my Uncle Carl, also stayed with us for lengthy periods, in between his girlfriends and wives. He was closer in age to us, but he also served as a father figure to me. He had kids but they lived with their mothers when the parents split, and Uncle Carl would return home. As I grew older, I split time working with my dad in plastering and working with Uncle Carl at his job as the custodian at Youngstown’s Main Library and a part time job cleaning a General Food’s warehouse in nearby Boardman. My dad would take me with him on early morning fishing trips and there were family outings we all went on, but his special time with me was during work and waiting on the fish to bite. I know we did not have a lot of deep discussions because Dad was not into politics, or religion, and had only gone as far as sixth grade, before leaving home to find work, first in the fields, and then working in various menial labor jobs until he met his wife and started a family. He insisted that his young wife remain at home and take care of their kids and have dinner ready when he got home from work. He worked hard to ensure that his family lacked nothing. Both he and my mother taught us that we were not going to receive anything from anyone unless we worked hard at home and school. They insisted that we speak properly at home or any other place we went. They raised us to know right from wrong and expected us to choose right. My Uncle Carl, who lived with us, was a little easier on us but had the authority to punish us when needed. He had perfected a flick to the naked ear lobe, that quickly got our attention and kept us in line. He was a left hander and excelled on the baseball diamond with a live arm. My dad was the catcher and used brute strength where he lacked game knowledge, to get the job done. The two of them were also exceptionally good bowlers and I learned how to throw a hook after watching them. Uncle Carl was an avid baseball and football fan at the professional level and in 1964 he introduced me to the two teams that I have followed to this day. The New York Yankees and the Cleveland Browns. I remember Sunday nights when I helped him at his custodian job in the library, listening to the Browns football games, and learning how to spin an electric buffer with one hand without slamming it into the rows of shelves holding books. I was twelve years old, and the Browns beat the Colts in the NFL championship game after the Yankees won the World Series the same year. Little did I know the Browns would never play in another NFL title game (may happen soon), and the Yankees are perennial favorites to win the baseball title (will happen again next season). In 1970 I left home to begin my college studies. By this time, my oldest sister had married and had her first son. Charles Bufford was the older brother I always wanted to have, and he was another role model for fatherhood. He was outgoing and lived life to the fullest. He was a great man, who left us too soon. Fortunately, his son Chuck has continued in his absence and my nephew is quite a family-oriented person. I count my brothers and brothers-in-law, nephews, and nephews -in-law, as outstanding young men who have influenced me through their lives, and I hope I have been a good influence on them also. I became an adopted father through an act of love, and it is a journey that has come full circle. I met my first born when he was six months in the womb, and he recently blessed me with my first grandson and the two kids his wife brought into the marriage. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and I know he is going to be awesome as a father, because he has been awesome as a son. Choosing him to be my son was one of the smartest moves I made in life. I went on a blind date with his mother when he was three months old and adopted him in time for him to be best man at our wedding. He must have enjoyed the experience, having been in at least ten weddings as best man. After my daughter was born four years later, our family was set. When she was a senior in high school, her mom and I began working as foster parents to help a friend, after he was jailed out of state for delinquent child support from a previous marriage. His current wife left him with their two children and at the time of his arrest, we were babysitting for him. What was supposed to be a weekend event lasted six months, and that led to us becoming foster parents. We continued to take in kids after our friend was released from jail and reunited with his children. Eventually we agreed to foster three siblings aged 4,6, and 7. We had them eighteen months when they were placed for adoption. We asked our children if they would be okay with our adopting them and they were both all in. They already thought of them as their little brothers and now our family numbered five. My kids birth mom was Spanish, and light -skinned, Adam’s father was from Lebanon and his complexion was Middle Eastern. My daughter is biracial and has her mom’s good hair, while our new sons are all dark skinned. You can imagine the looks we got when we arrived at a function as a family. It created a lot of weird first impressions. My wife passed away suddenly, after a battle with skin cancer and four years later I took my younger sons’ mom on a date. We were married in 2018 and our multiracial, multicultural family is edging closer to what will one day be the norm. In addition to my natural and adopted family, I have had the pleasure of being the father figure to young students, through my jobs working in a high school and the Job Corps program. Many have grown to extended family status, Stephanie, Gogo, Laz, and Nestor are as much a part of our family as anyone else. I am honored to have been a part of your lives and I look forward to the day when we can all be together. As Father's Day approaches every year make it a point to acknowledge those who have taken on that role in your life and help them enjoy the day. I hope to hear from all of you.
By Barron M Broomfield10 months ago in Families
Play That Funky Music
The door to the Situation Room in the White House opened and two Secret Servant agents escorted the President to his seat at the conference table. Already seated were the Cabinet Secretaries and their underlings. All eyes were on the leader of the free world as he settled into his chair and gathered his notes.
By Barron M Broomfield11 months ago in Writers
Hadji Goes to Vegas Pt2
After a wonderful tour of duty in Okinawa for eighteen months including not one, but two extended temporary duty tours to the Philippines, and enjoying fifteen months living off-base with a lovely Japanese girl named Kiyoko, I was headed back to the mainland. For the first time in three tries, I was going to one of the bases I had requested. Nellis Air Force base is located north of Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. I was aware of the town’s history and how the Mob control of many Vegas properties came through their association with the Teamsters Union. Youngstown, Ohio was home to 3 different steel mills, all unionized. Youngstown and the surrounding communities were full of connected guys and a lot of the guys in Northeast Ohio were moving to the desert to escape the heat of the feds back home. I had three years left on a six-year reenlistment and I intended to continue until I reached twenty years, and then become a civilian tech rep. The position includes all the benefits of military service combined with a much higher pay scale and housing in the quarters reserved for officers. So, as I left the plane and headed to grab my luggage, my thoughts were on something a couple of guys who had just come to Okinawa from Nellis told me a couple of days before I left. “Whatever you do, do not get mixed up with Cheryl. “I asked for more info, but they just laughed and waved goodbye. I had not publicized my engagement to Kiyoko as it was a late decision, and our plans were still a work in progress. I had given her a ring and ordered tickets for her to join me in a month.
By Barron M Broomfield11 months ago in Serve
Hadji 1974
Prologue It was November 12, 1952. Steel mills were dominant in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Northeastern Ohio and the pure white blanket of snow which had descended on the area earlier in the day had now morphed into a grayish slush because of the billowing clouds of soot that regularly filled the skies. As the temperature dipped, the slush changed to black ice which combined with the ever-present potholes to make driving a chore. As Doyle Broomfield maneuvered his vehicle through the streets of Warren, Ohio his thoughts were focused on getting his young wife to Trumball Memorial Hospital. He quickly pulled up to the emergency room entrance and helped the orderlies place his wife on a stretcher and wheel her into the hospital. Inside the maternity ward doctors and nurses exchanged sly looks and grins as they prepared their patient to give birth. This would be the fourth consecutive year Mrs. Geneva Broomfield would be having a baby in November. In 1949, 1950, and 1951 they had delivered three beautiful girls but this year the couple were expecting their first male child. As Geneva began experiencing the now familiar pains of labor, she focused her attention on the television which was showing a popular wrestling show. Tonight’s show featured an Italian wrestler who had recently set a record with a live gate of $1000,000. He apparently made quite an impression on the young mother. His name was Baron Michele Leone and shortly after the show’s conclusion, Barron Michael Broomfield was introduced to the world.
By Barron M Broomfield12 months ago in Serve
The Mystery of History
The Mystery of History History, the stories of mankind presented in barely digestive bits and pieces. Names, dates, and other irrelevant facts for consumption by hungry students. That was the tried and true, but untested method used for teaching the subject during my formative years. Textbooks were full of facts, faces, and cute stories about our Founding Fathers, cherry trees, and stovepipe hats. An avid reader, I usually finished my textbook a month into the school year and spent the rest of the semester trying to stay awake, bored with discussing events which happened hundreds of years ago.
By Barron M Broomfield12 months ago in Education
Family Vacation
National Lampoon’s (NOT)Happy Fourth of July My wife and her sister are close and talk almost daily. An uncle in Phoenix was recovering from a hospital stay and wanted to see them. We agreed on traveling together and decided on the 4th of July holiday week as the dates. Her sister lives in Albuquerque so we were to meet them there, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from where we live, and ride with them in a rental. It would cut costs and more drivers equals better driving, doesn’t it? Our Dodge Journey had been giving us some problems, though it seemed to be running great after the last fix. I still did not want to trust it for a six-hundred-mile trip. Things were going our way; we got a tax rebate that was unexpected and sold an old truck, for more expense money. An old friend I worked for in Las Vegas, had answered an email request, and we reconnected. I was hoping to have time to see him, since it was close. That ignited the gambling fever in everyone, and we looked at the logistics of fitting a day trip into the schedule.
By Barron M Broomfield12 months ago in Families
Red Flags
In the spring of 1976, I was assigned to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was a 316 Missile Maintenance Mechanic. I had joined the Air Force in hopes of learning electronics and getting a civilian job in the field once I left the service. The issue was that missile electronics were being phased out at the base level, and we no longer did repairs on the guidance systems, my specialty. I was looking at transferring to the Loadmaster program when the Missile Shop Supervisor asked if I would be interested in transferring to the bomb dump for a new program that was just getting underway. The position was to be a shift commander in the Munitions Control Room. I would be responsible for coordinating deliveries of munitions to the flight line and returning the empty trailers back to the Bomb Dump for new loads.
By Barron M Broomfieldabout a year ago in Journal
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