I started a new blog under my first domain name, dponline.org. It’s actually not live yet outside of WordPress — weird, but I guess it will take time for the nameservers to update. I hope that’s all it is. I’ve already spent far too much time trying to figure it out.
The holidays were nice — great having Clare here. We celebrated a little late, but that’s okay. I wasn’t really ready for Christmas on Christmas Day anyway. It was nice having those extra days.
I spent yesterday and today de-christmasing. Nearly everything holiday-related is out of the main floor, but I have a lot to do in the attic in terms of putting everything away.
No resolutions this year — just a continued effort to keep the procrastinations at bay.
I’ve been blogging about some of my childhood books on Cedar Waxwing Reads. Many of these books have my name written on the inside and a book number.
My dad built bookshelves in my bedroom and they were mostly filled with books, including a set of encyclopedias.
This is what it looked like empty when the house was on the market in 2017.
Here is a bit of it when I was in middle school.
Since I went to the library a lot I guess I wanted my own little library when I was a kid so I wrote my name in each book and numbered the books — I don’t know how I ordered the books — maybe alphabetically. Tales from Hans Christen Anderson was book number 18 and So Small was book number 33. Birds Eat and Eat and Eat was book number 2, so I think it was alphabetically. And I have a very vague memory of being annoyed when I got a new book (probably early in the alphabet)and had to change all the other book numbers.
Note: I wrote the following a few days ago, before I made contact with his son, Jack, who confirmed that the letters were written by his father.
When I moved my blog from self-hosted to WordPress.com many of the photos were misplaced. I’ve been going through older posts and fixing any missing photos. That’s when I happened upon the Letters from Johnnie posts again. And again I wondered what ever happened to Johnnie Gannon.
I’d searched for him shortly after finding the letters and blogging about them, and again every so often when I remembered him. I was never near successful until recently.
If you recall, in the last letter I posted (I actually found more later but never got around to posting about them), Johnnie mentioned that his tour might be extended. I don’t know if that actually happened, but he ended up making a career in the Naval Medical Service Corps, retiring as a commander.
He did go back to Washington, DC where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from The George Washington University. He then earned a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University.
Then, believe it or not, he lived in Bethesda for a while until he retired to Beaufort, South Carolina.
He was married twice. In 1960 he married Margaret Odessa “Peggy” Pope who was born in Montgomery County, Maryland. She and Johnnie had two sons. I’m thinking he probably met her when he was working in at Bethesda Naval Hospital. (Jack confirmed that Margaret worked at the Naval hospital too, as a business analyst). Margaret died in 2001.
John then married Joyce Anna Nestle but lost her in 2003.
I searched Facebook and think I found one of his sons’ Facebook page. I just now looked again and he’s posted his parents’ graves. And they are the same graves as on Johnnie’s Find a Grave page.
John Gannon died in 2014, two years before my mom died. But he was still alive when I found and posted about the letters. I wish I could have put them in touch before they both died.
Clutch Cargo Lips 