An Optimistic Sky | The Story of Bryan William Stewart
WHERE WE’VE BEEN
This is the story of Bryan’s life but I cannot tell his story without telling the story of our family, as our family is, as it should be, inextricably tied to each other. Bryan was born in 29 Palms, CA, which I always called “The Stumps.”
I never could figure why, but Susie liked 29 Palms a great deal. Perhaps it
was the 110 degree heat (in the shade) or the sand as far as the eye could
see. In reality, it was quite scenic and had a rugged allure to it.
Bryan was born at the naval hospital in Twentynine Palms, California. <<< INSERT HYPERLINK>>>
Several days before his birth, Susie, Jennifer, and I had agreed on a girl’s name. We chose not to know the gender prior to birth. Susie went into labor
on Tuesday morning, April 16th, 1991. At about 7:30, we were sending
Jennifer to the neighbor’s house so that she could go to school. On her way
out the door, she looked back and said “If it’s a boy, name him Bryan!”
...Of course, the rest is HIStory.
Virtually every story spawns another story, at some point in this book, I’ll
interject the story of Angela’s birth. It’s both pertinent and funny.
Shortly after his birth, Bryan was Med evac’d to Desert Hospital for a couple
of birth related issues. By the grace of God, he was completely delivered!
I recall the day that Bryan walked onto the playground at Santa Margarita
Elementary school on Camp Pendleton, CA. He walked to the far end of the
playground and sort of hung out along the fence. He was very shy and
reserved. It’s funny to look back and see that the same relatively shy,
reclusive demure individual that he was at five years old, he would be,
relatively speaking, the rest of his life.
As a child, Bryan wanted to be a monster truck driver, his favorite truck
was Grave Digger and his favorite driver was Dennis Anderson. I regret that
I never took the opportunity, while we were in North Carolina, at Camp
Lejeune to visit Kill Devil Hills, the home of Dennis Anderson. That’s one
of things that I kept saying that we would go but never did.
We did go to quite a few Monster Truck shows over the years. I have some
video of one or two of the shows.
Perhaps Bryan’s second favorite was Tom Meents. One of the teaching moments I shared with Bryan was from an interview that Tom Meents had where he answered the question, how did you win the monster truck championship of that year. His answer was “I had a plan and I stuck with it”…
This gives me the opportunity to digress (you’ll find that I’ll do that a
lot as we move throughout this story). I moved from Camp Lejeune to 29 Palms
before Susie and Jennifer because Susie was not in a condition to drive. She
was VERY pregnant with Bryan at the time. So we shipped the car to 29 Palms
and she flew with Jennifer out to California. When I picked them up from
LAX, I remember seeing Susie on the escalator and I thought to myself, “boy,
are we having twins?” I’ll go on the record and say that I know that I’ll
pay for that one later.
We moved from 29 Palms to Hawaii where we were stationed at Kaneohe Bay Air Station. That was the most beautiful duty station from a natural beauty
standpoint in my time in the Marine Corps. We lived in Hawaii from
1991-1995. Doodle (aka Angela) was born there in 1993.
Another side-bar, quick story (as I previously promised)… By design, we did
not know the gender of either Bryan or Angela when they were born. Susie
and I both had a sense that Bryan was a boy and of course we were right.
Well… I had in my head that Angela was going to be a boy. So much so that I
was certain that while in the delivery room, I overheard the nurses say, one
to another that the baby (Angela) was going to be a boy.
When Angela was delivered, I recall looking at Dr. Aaron Pryor (FACT CHECK NAME) after he said that it’s a girl’ and asking him if he was ‘sure’… Cooley
and without flinching, he said to me, the delirious dad, “Unless they’ve
changed the plumbing, it’s a girl”. My guess is that I’m not the first
delirious dad that asked a very ‘off the wall’ question.
Check out this cool picture of my reenlistment in 1992 (?) yep, that little
guy in my arms in Bryan!!
I recall Ms. Haynes visiting us while we were stationed in Hawaii. We were there at Marine Corps Base, Hawaii from 1991 to 1995. The visit was late 1992 or 1993. Bryan was not yet walking at about two year’s old because someone would
carry him everywhere that they went. We owe Bryan’s finally learning to
walk at close to two years old to Ms. Haynes. Thanks Ms. Haynes.
PIX MS HAYNES IN HI
From Hawaii, we moved back to 29 Palms (YEARS) and subsequently the place
where Susie and I had met years earlier, Camp Lejeune (2000-2004). From Camp
Lejeune, we moved to Okinawa (2004-2007). Bryan was very proud of his time
in Okinawa, we’ll share a lot of stories about each location as we go along
but I can say that Bryan was particularly fond and proud of Okinawa. We
moved from Okinawa to New Orleans in 2007 and have been here ever since.
ADD A LOT MORE CONTENT AND PIX OF OKI
One story that stands out to me that I pointed out to Bryan and Angela was during a typhoon, I specifically recall one of the construction workers outside the barracks and Camp Schwab very meticulously securing tarp and making sure everything was in place even though, super typhoon Bart which as I recall had about 150 mile an hour winds was just minutes away from hitting the island.
Bryan loved to tell stories about his time in Japan to his friends at BCHS. He
was very proud of the time that he spent in Japan. To his credit and to
Angel’s credit, they both embraced the culture while in Japan. The one thing
I really tried to get them to appreciate was the order, discipline and
character of the Japanese. They were very structured, very disciplined and very specific about everything that they did.
Again, that construction workers meticulous attention to detail just spoke
for how the culture in Japan was and I presume still is. Again I think that
Bryan and Angela both appreciated and respected the culture.
HYPERLINKS?
Add background image
Add vector art
