Drinking in Lompoc, 1942

It was a staged photo with props and a backdrop, not a genuine Lompoc bar, but it was taken in the area...Ocean Park, it says. My father was stationed at nearby Camp Cooke, so of course he would have ventured into Lompoc.

In fact, in 1942 a USO (United Service Organization) building was constructed on Walnut Avenue with $98,000 in federal funds, and I know he was among the many soldiers who went there for entertainment.

He made a recording at that USO center, and any time I want to I can listen to him singing "My Old Kentucky Home" (an odd choice for a guy from Brooklyn) and joking with a buddy and admiring a pretty girl.

“I'm in Lompoc,” he says at one point, and who would have ever imagined his future daughter would one day know the place so well? (The building on Walnut still stands; I've been inside.)

Anyway, I love to think of my dad young and hopeful and clowning around. In later life, he tended to be serious.

And I never saw him drink at all, not even wine, but there he is, the dark, handsome soldier in the middle, holding a cigarette and "trying to forget it all with a few drinks".

I don't care if it's bogus; this will always be my favorite bar photo.