I was 3 years old when my father was transferred here between his tours of duty in Vietnam. He was in charge of main-taining jets and we lived here until I was 8. Then we moved to Santa Ana for a year and then to the Lighter Than Air base in Tustin. But the exchange and commissary were at this base and many events took place at El Toro, so even when I wasn’t living on the Tustin base, we were here at El Toro quite a bit.

After high school, I worked at the exchange, in electronics at the one-hour photo booth. We attended movies here because the theater only charged a dol-lar. We also attended church here. Our gym was here. We’d wash our cars here. And of course, we’d never miss the Blue Angels air shows. We were always over here.

Everything looked familiar. Obviously, things had changed but there was still so much that looked similar. Last year, when we had our first anniversary celebration, I invited my dad down and he really got a kick out of seeing our new campus. The building that Cal State Fullerton leases used to be the officers’ headquarters.

My daughters also get a kick out of visiting. They’re 8 and 10. I show them the area where my childhood home used to be. I tell them, “This area used to be a play-ground when Mommy was a little girl.” They think it’s pretty neat.

This is going to sound funny, but I remember that all the Marines were given a week off every year for spring cleaning. Seriously. Because the houses, yards and barracks belonged to the Marines, they wanted to make sure everything was in good shape so they’d give everybody a week off to clean and make repairs, if necessary. You’d see whole families cleaning up their houses and yards.

Well, I did go to school upon my dis-charge. I earned a bachelor’s degree in communications with an emphasis in radio-TV-film and started working at the Mission Viejo Campus when I was a student. From there, I became a staff member and just moved over to El Toro when it opened.