Good books for a scary ride

Just when the excitement of one PCS dies down, it’s about time to do it all over again.

Perhaps this repetition produces a certain amount of immunity. When you’ve relocated a time or two, it’s not as earth shattering the third time around. It can still be frightening, though, like riding a quadruple-loop monster roller coaster for the fourth or fifth time. You’re fairly certain your feet will find solid ground once again when the ride is over, but you scream anyway.

To get us through those times when the world feels upside down and sideways, we need good friends, a good laugh and a good way to share our story.

I found all of these in “PCSing ... It’s a Spouse Thing.” Available on Lulu.com, in paperback and e-book formats, the book compiles the first three years of  “Jenny the Military Spouse” comic strips by Julie Negron.

The book starts from the beginning of Jenny’s life as a military wife, from her first move and introduction to military housing to helping her friends with their moving woes. Julie presents these sticky situations with a twist of laughter.

Spouses will relate to her depictions of  “Flintstone” military housing and movers who pack full coffee pots and trash cans.

“It changes everything about you if you look at something with humor rather than looking at it like it’s the worst thing that can happen,” said Julie.

I asked her why she chose PSCing as the theme of her first “Jenny” book.

“That’s the theme of all our lives,” said Julie, who has experience as a military child and spouse.

She said “PCSing ... It’s a Spouse Thing” has been the battle cry of her comic strip since she began drawing it for Stars and Stripes in 2005.

Since then, “Jenny” and Julie’s artwork has appeared in several books about military life, military newspapers and even on the TV series “Army Wives.”

Julie’s new book includes some of her sketches and ideas for the comic strip, showing how her cartoons take shape. The forward includes comments from readers who relate to Jenny’s predicaments.

“I think they can see themselves in the pages there when things get a little bit crazy … and realize they are not alone,” Julie said.

“Jenny” tells our stories and helps us laugh at them.

Another difficult thing about moving is watching as our children say good-bye to good friends, adjust to a new home and new school. I was recently introduced to a book that helps children through this process by helping them tell their own stories.

“Remember When: My Life as a Military Child,” available at AuthorHouse.com, was created by Army mom Tanya Hair. It all started when her sons were in grade school, and their family was moving from Germany.

“As we were walking down the stairs of our military stairwell housing, my oldest son had tears in his eyes, a shoe box with scrap pieces of paper with email addresses, phone numbers and promises to stay in touch,” she recalled.

“I wondered how he was going to keep this all together. I thought, ‘This is really hard.’”
Tanya, now living in Colorado, wanted to develop a way for her children to keep their mementos of places and friends from various assignments in one place. So she created the keepsake book.

Part scrapbook and part journal, “Remember When” has fill-in-the-blank pages for information about friends, teachers, clubs and points of interest at each assignment. Each section has enough room for a child to document experiences gathered during a three-year tour.

There are also pages for mementos, photos and autographs, Tanya said, so that children can preserve memories of favorite people, places and events.

“When they get older they will not only be able to tell their story. They will be able to show their story,” she said.

And when this wild ride is over, we will all have some stories to tell.
 

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