Saturday Night Genealogy Fun--Memories

Randy Seaver of Geneamusings posted this Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge today:
Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) Have you written your memoirs yet? If so, please share with us one story from your childhood. If not, then start your memoirs! The story could be a memory of your family life, your schoolwork, your neighborhood, etc. It doesn't have to be a certain length - just something you recall.
2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook or Google Plus.
So....for some reason I've been thinking a lot lately about Vint Hill Farms, an Army base where I spent some of my early years. We left there in June 1957 when my father retired from the US Army. I believe we lived there two different times--first right after we returned from Japan in about 1952 and then again from about 1955-57. Unfortunately, my Dad's Army records aren't very forthcoming about where he was assigned when, since he was in intelligence.
I remember we had to ride the big yellow schoolbus to school in Warrenton, VA, and it seemed like a looong ride. I'm guessing it might have been about 30 minutes. One time we got caught by a hurricane while heading home on the bus and it flipped. Not a pretty sight. The bus came around to all the different housing areas on post and drove out through the MP-guarded main gate, then past the field of totem poles and out the long lane to the highway.
Totem poles?
Yes, in my memory there was a field full of totem poles just past the main gates of the base, enclosed by the post fence.
Many years later (ca 1970-71), friends and I visited Vint Hill on our spring break from Ohio State. Amazingly, the MP on duty allowed us to drive around the base as long as we didn't get out of the car. Amazing what a carful of young ladies can talk MPs into, isn't it?
Much to my amazement, there were no totem poles.
There was only a huge cluster of communication towers, which is not surprising when you know that Vint Hill was one of the first "listening posts" established by the Army during World War II.
I couldn't find any photos of the communication towers, but here's a photo of the main gate from the 1960s:

Thanks to "Mithrandir" for posting this photo at http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/showthread.php?p=146017