Page 40 - Self Talk

In Navy lingo, they were married men's living quarters, or “LQ” for short. But to us, it was just another place we lived with a banana tree next to the back door.
The Navy put a lot of stock in keeping up your —
the Navy's — yard. So much stock that every month “Yard of the Month” was awarded to the family that did the best job of keeping their lawn very green and very close cropped. Accomplishing both at the same time was a challenge because green grass usually isn't closely cropped, but grass and hair were never too short for the Navy.
All the families in our court competed intensely for
the honor, but in our family, my mother was obsessed. For the two years we lived there, she was determined to break the record for the number of awards given to