Returning to the Ruins of Patrick AFB's South Housing

Ever been nudged to go somewhere? Not even knowing why you were exactly supposed to go? It was like that for me a couple of weeks ago. For several days I kept getting this nudge to go to Patrick Air Force Base's South Housing area in Satellite Beach, FL. It just kept popping up in my consciousness. I found myself having these silent kinds of God conversations. What? Go there? Am I really hearing from you, God?

I kept dismissing it all as a superfluous thought. After all, why would I want to return to Patrick Air Force Bases' South Housing? The location of my childhood home? I already knew that this area had been decimated with the mighty bulldozer, with the slow crawl of new condos sprouting up throughout the area. What was there to see? It was practically all gone.

Or was it?

I finally decided to act. Maybe I was supposed to chronicle the last remaining of the 50-year old plus base houses of the area. Maybe I'd be able to take some cool photos of whatever was left. Yeah. That's got to be it. Make a slideshow for Yahoo. (You can see those homes here: Slideshow of PAFB's remaining houses)

So with camera in hand, I set out on a Tuesday afternoon after work, wondering where this adventure to Satellite Beach would take me.

Patrick Air Force Base's South Housing

Last year I used photographs I took from a 2003 visit to create a video showing what my street -- South Magnolia Drive -- used to look like. (You can watch the video here). This was my home for four years while I was around 7-years old. Today, as I drove through the last remaining area that held the south base housing, I still kept sensing that I was here for another purpose. I kept driving, stopping at Adam's Field (See pictures), and recalled the time my Dad - Captain Harry R. Masters - had joined the softball team. I could still remember buying Cokes and candy from the concession stand from long ago, the bugs flying around the lights illuminating a night game. Today there were no softball games. The benches sat empty. The sound of cheering nowhere to be heard. I looked out past right field. That's where my home used to be, out there. Just beyond the fence. Now, because the area was being converted/renovated into private condominiums, the once thriving military housing was absent. The bulldozers and dump trucks had done their work, leaving only acre upon acre of barren land.

A more specific thought entered my mind then: Go find the place where my house used to be.

I didn't think that would be too hard. My street was one of the few that still had trees standing (Click photo #2 to see it enlarged), so I used them as guideposts to help guide my way as I ventured out onto the sandy Florida soil intermingled with weeds and brownish, dying grass. As the only soul out here another question began to bounce around inside my head. What was I looking for out here? I stopped and listened, the afternoon sun hot. Further to the east, beyond the main road known as A1A, I thought I could hear the Atlantic's surf. Mostly, though, there was only the sound of the wind.

I must have been daydreaming, listening to the wind when I realized I'd actually walked past where my home used to be and was further up the "street". The first thing other than sand and weeds jumped out at me then: a strange aluminum object rested half buried in the sandy soil. I picked it up, wondering what it was and if it had been on one of the houses, stuck it in my pocket and kept moving. A few more feet, and my foot struck something solid. I kicked at it, and then kicked again. It was the first solid thing I'd encountered throughout the whole trek. Slowly the buried item gave way, revealing the corner of a concrete foundation. It was a little larger than a grapefruit. I looked around, feeling like I was in the spot where my best friend Michael had lived. He had been directly across the street from me. I had a true piece of the past. I wiggled it up and out of the ground, and with my two new found treasures, walked back to the main road where I deposited them in my car's trunk. I stopped again. Was that it? Was that why I'd come? I had to admit, it was pretty cool to have found these two items.

I stepped away from the car and rested under the shade of a nearby tree (Photo #3). The same tree that had watched over this corner for fifty plus years. I had walked and rode my bike past this gnarled tree for four years on my way to Holland elementary school. If I thought hard enough, I could remember playing "combat" or cowboys and indians here too. I touched the wood, suddenly wanting a tangible reminder of the happy memories I'd had in this place as a 7 to 12-year-old.

I sensed a question inwardly being asked of me: If I could have one thing from my old home, what would it be?

My answer was quick, yet I immediately doubted that it would even be possible. The item that I'd love to have was a piece of terrazzo flooring. All the military homes from this area (at least all that I'd ever been in) shared the same, cold, rock-solid, great-for-racing-hot-wheels-cars terrazzo floors. I could still remember, 40 years back, as my brother and I and our friends would put on multiple layers of socks, then run and slide down the hallways that my mom had freshly waxed and polished. And if you were hot, there was nothing like just laying down flat on those floors and letting the heat get sucked from your body. Talk about natural cooling!

A piece of terrazzo -- wouldn't that be nice?

I was about to leave, when I realized that I still hadn't really gone to where my home exactly used to be, so I started out again, this time walking down the area where I knew that the home sites used to be. Within one hundred feet, I'd found an ancient thin board with old, rusty concrete nails in it. I picked it up and realized that it made for a great walking stick. I kept going, crossing over another sandy foundation. And then, several hundred feet ahead, I saw something gleam off the sand. I didn't get my hopes up though. The small object looked to be where my home had once stood. Curious, I walked forward scarcely believing my eyes. There amid the weeds -- a piece of terrazzo the size of a saltine cracker. (Yep, that's it in photo #1)

Could this really have been from my childhood home? Could I have slid across this with doubled up socks? Lain down on it after playing in the summer sun? Raced my Hot Wheels, setup my army men, marched my GiJoe collection on?

I felt the tears come then, and I didn't even attempt to stop them. My memories were good ones. The four years that my Dad had been stationed at Patrick AFB (working with AFTAC) had been good years for me. Why, I'd even had the opportunity to see a rare Florida snow on this street so long ago. (it lasted an amazing 30 minutes and then quickly melted)

I realized something then: God had been speaking to me throughout my nudged journey.

I had found the cornerstone of a home's foundation. That's true of my spiritual life as well. I do have a cornerstone, a Chief Cornerstone. The anchor of my faith. In my hand, a walking stick made from some part of an old Air Force home. Moses had been given one of those staff things -- now I, in a certain strange way, had one too. The terrazzo piece '" pure whimsy. I never would have guessed I'd find something like that '" something that only minutes earlier I'd had a desire to own. And the strange aluminum thing, well, that was just plain mystery. Sometimes things in life are like that. Mysterious things that just pop up and make you go, "huh?"

Though I thought the land of my old childhood home would reveal no treasures, I found out I was wrong. Sure, the objects are nice to have, reminding me of an earlier history. But the Someone who led me there, and walked with me, who leads me still, His peace and presence are priceless.


Thank you for your care, God -- Your love, your guidance. And thought you didn't have to -- for that really cool terrazzo piece. A piece of history. Yet a reminder of you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

More Air Force Related Stories by this author:

Slideshow of the Last of Patrick AFB's South Housing

Slideshow of Patrick AFB's Adams Softball Field

Patrick AFB South Housing - a Lost Era

A Lost American Teenager in Karamursel, Turkey

When Your Father Dies