Back to My Roots

This Easter I travelled up the Norfolk & Suffolk coasts approximately 3 hours from London/Reading where I currently reside. Upon our return trip of Norfolk I wanted to see RAF Lakenheath Base upon which I was born to see my old stompin' grounds.

Let me interrupt the story to tell you this. Every one I meet in England asks me where I'm from when they hear my accent. It really throws them when I tell them I was born in England but have an American accent (which is diluted now to and confused most often with a Canadian accent). Upon finding out I'm American their next question is, “Do you have a gun?”

Like all Americans are suppose to own one. Oh don't cha knOw we Americans like 'er guns, whatever. However, the American soldiers on RAF Lakenheath, well.... they DO own guns.

Now my birth certificate reads I was born in Mildenhall which is probably the closest town to the Air Force base or that's what the military told my folks anyway.

Back to the story...My English friend decided it would be nice for us to go an hour and half out of our way to show me the Base on which I was born. Very nice of him. I thought we'll head that way, stop near the base, I'll jump out and quickly take a selfie of me standing in front of the big sign reading Lakenheath RAF. Proof that I was once again there after many years. We begin our trip to Mildenhall from Norfolk and 30 minutes into the drive I ask why on Earth are we going to Mildenhall- it's 15 miles away from Lakenheath? My mate does a face palm, “I thought you wanted to see where you were born?” he asks.

“I do”, I reply. “But I wasn't born in Mildenhall- I was born in Lakenheath!”

My mate just shakes his head and resets the GPS. It was decided then that this was NOT the best way ever but also decided that I have rockin' navigational skills. So we've switched routes to Lakenheath which we decided was named that because it was surrounded by lakes and heaths. *shrugs* We come upon the base well before you see any signs for it- because a base like this is massive and I tell the driver to slow down so I can see. We pass one sign for Lakenheath and then another and then another. I begin to wonder if he's going to pull over and stop so I can take my photo. Once we come upon the second entrance gate, I ask him to pull over-it's clear he was going to drive right past. He slows down but refuses to pull over for fear of being shot. Really? So we just drove an hour and a half out-of-the-way for this and my picture taking has now been demoted to a quick snap as I'm stretched over the driver and hanging out of the right side of the car window. Because this drive -by “shooting” looks less suspicious than actually pulling over into the side of the road, hopping out and taking an actual non-blurry photo? Sometimes I really wonder about the English. Well A for effort mate. Thanks for taking the four hour scenic route home.