Talk:When Duty Calls/@comment-24669562-20191019033214

I remembered to watch Arthur Season 23 and saw the episode "When Duty Calls," also on PBS Kids website just like Arthur Read Fan, expect I watched it on my computer. But I'm going to be a bit of a copy cat and do some of what he did, including this.



This was a sad episode to me too.

Note, this comment will have some spoilers so you may want to wait till after you've watched the episode yourself before reading this!

It was emotional in this episode, the reaction by the characters, and all the tears from some of them! And it was touchy too, but I didn't cry, I didn't want to, but I still feel a little sad at what I just saw so I might just cry! Cannot believe Muffy made Brain cry, using an onion! In fact she dramatized the video she and the others made!

I understand how Ladona felt about Tony Arnoni. I will reveal  I'm a military child myself. My stepfather was in the military, so we constantly moved, including overseas (I lived in Germany and twice, the first time in April 1988 when I was over two and a half years old and stayed there until April 1990, the second time from like May or June 1993 to March 1999. The second time we were supposed to move to England but they didn't have a school for me so that's how we ended up back in Germany.) I also lived in Arizona, (April to August 1990, and then February 1991) then to upstate New York (March 1991 to February or March 1993) and then briefly stayed in Florida until we moved to back to Germany later that year, and then moved back to Arizona. I also lived in Minnesota but this had nothing to do with the military, my parents divorced after that. I'm back in Arizona now, hopefully this time permanently! I'm also from Gary, Indiana but didn't get to stay there very long although that's where my relatives were! (some were in Chicago, some Columbus Ohio, some in Mississippi, etc.)

So I know what it's like having to leave the things you know and love, although when I lived somewhere as a kid, I didn't appreciate where I lived until I was taken from there. I didn't think I'd miss Arizona until sometime after I left, same with New York, and until we moved back, I kind of longed for Arizona, and some things like The Simpsons, made me think of and miss Arizona. And not only having to leave a place but having to adjust to a new place! Having to meet new people and everything. And although I do like that I lived in Germany, I didn't always feel that way, I hated living in Germany, especially the first time, one reason, I was thousands of miles away from my family in Gary, and I missed and would ask about my grandmother, my great grandmother, my great uncle, and more. And I saw things in Germany were different than in the United States. I also didn't like we were not only moving back to Germany but leaving Florida, I loved Florida! Some more of my relatives were there, but after we left, I never saw them in person again!

And that's the same with lots of other people, after I left I never saw a lot of people again and lost complete contact with them. I can still remember the names and faces of some people and the names of my teachers, most of them. Although I am back in contact with some of them, thank goodness, I'll probably never ever see a lot of these people again! I'm sure that's how those other kids I met feel too. Sometimes I still have dreams about those people and places. It even feels like we haven't gotten older although I still know deep in my mind I did! Does anyone ever feel that way or ever have that experience? You dream of people and places from your past, distant past, and although it's not that time anymore, it feels like that and it even feels like you never got older although you know you are. But the people you knew back then are still the same age they were when you first or last saw them!

I also tried to write a letter back to my old school in Germany in 1999, I wanted to keep in contact with them, but my parents never mailed my letter back to them (probably because they had issues but I won't get into that.) So after I left Germany, I never spoke to my old friends again even after I said I would! How sad! At least I have pictures of them! But I did manage to stay in contact with my previous high school thanks to having email after I left Sierra Vista, Arizona, where I've been living before ever moving to Tucson, which I did in 2002. And I moved to Tucson because I WANTED to, and thankfully so did my mother! I didn't like Sierra Vista, I mean I did like it at first when we went back but then it started to get old to me and I didn't want to live there anymore and I don't want to move back there now! But I stayed in contact with some people in Sierra Vista, well, teachers namely!

So yes, I know what it's like. I never had a friend to grow up with and sometimes I wish I did, although I still have or went back into contact with some people from more than 30 years ago! And I know what it's like to constantly have to move.

Being in a military family has its pros and cons. You get to travel and see new places even see different cultures and try different foods you might not have if you didn't move there or stayed where you were, I also visited France twice, and you meet a lot of new friends and get to see things differently than how you saw them before. But the cons are, you cannot get too attached to what you have because after a year, two, or three years, you have to go again (or your friends have to leave you! And when your friends leave, things are not the same!) And you may start off not liking something or someone, that's a problem I had, and then you get used them and they grow on you, but then when you leave them or they leave you... I cannot describe it right now. I was a very shy person and I had trouble with change and I wasn't always so appreciative.

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone?" Ain't that a true statement. And whether you're autistic or not, and I am autistic, it's hard, although sometimes you don't mind or don't care all that much. Well whether you do or not, it's still going to happen whether you want it to or not and you don't have a say in it!

I better wrap this up. So I know how Ladonna feels, I've been in her shoes. Although it was nice living in other places, I don't miss the military life and it's nice to live somewhere for more than three years, provided you like it!

Getting back to Ladonna, I hoped she and her family wouldn't move, that it would change by the last minute, but seems like it was going to happen and it did! And it's weird too, how Ladonna's classmates saw her off before she went away, I thought of the same thing happening with Demetre, my O.C. Arthur character. He too leaves Elwood City and Arthur and others are there to send him off or see him off. I'll tell you more about Demetre another time!

So to all you military families out there, I know what it's like. That is all, thanks for reading, and I got carried away as usual!