Things change – enjoy it

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Timothy Boyer
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  I had a strange feeling riding my bicycle to work this morning. Memories flooded my mind of 18 years ago when I first rode my bike down Cannon Drive in Travis base housing. Of course, back then I was 14 years old and was riding my bike to a friend's house, not to work. Things change.

My family moved to Travis when my dad was a master sergeant in a precision measurement equipment laboratory and I was just about to begin my freshman year at Vanden High School. Returning to Travis years later as an active-duty member, I see many changes at the base, but none quite so prominent as the quality of living.

In the ʼ90s, the houses were small, rectangular structures that strongly resembled trailers. There was a lot of room to play in yards and between houses. My friends and I made the most of that. Other than the yards, there was not a whole lot to keep children occupied within housing unless you lived in what we called "Patriot Village."

Patriot Village were the newest, most modern and spacious homes at the time. They stood and still stand above the Duck Pond. There were playgrounds and basketball courts within every section of housing up there.

Patriot Village has since been closed down and is no longer accessible from base. The rest of the housing has been demolished and replaced with modern spacious homes.

I recently moved into a new house on base that stands no more than a couple of hundred feet from where my high school house once stood. The changes in the area stunned me.

Not only is my new house spacious, but I am within a five-minute walk to a playground, dog park, skate park, basketball court and the newly remodeled Travisville Park, featuring a volleyball court and a large AstroTurf lawn.

The houses are no longer rectangular, but they look like regular, modern homes. When I was in high school, I had to mow our lawn each week. If you failed to mow the lawn, you could get ticketed and eventually kicked out of base housing. Now, contractors mow and weed eat the front yards of the housing on base as part of the housing package.

These changes in housing came as the Air Force determined it was more fiscally responsible to have privatize housing, meaning a private company - Balfour Beatty at Travis - would run base housing.

Benefits that came along with that decision were beautification projects and a new community center available to residents for rental. In addition, a water park was added for tenants to play in.

People will always find something to complain about, but the truth is the Airmen at Travis have an amazing environment to raise their families if they choose to live on base.

The quality of living on Travis has grown leaps and bounds throughout the past 18 years. Rather than feeling like you are living in a box, base housing, along with the nearby amenities, now has the feel of an upscale off-base community. Things change.