Kirtland: People are Strange

No one here gets out alive

I finally got around to watching the 1991 Oliver Stone pic The Doors over the weekend, and wanted to learn more about young Jim Morrison's time in New Mexico (where he had the transformational moment where he saw the Indian dying on the side of the road between Albuquerque and Santa Fe).

Much to my surprise, it turns out that Jim Morrison's dad, George, was Admiral George Morrison, who was one of the fastest movers in the history of the Navy to flag rank. And get this--Morrison was STATIONED AT KIRTLAND. I knew we should have had kids while we were stationed there.

George Morrison, the Times obituary tells us, was an instructor for secret nuclear-weapons projects in Albuquerque following World War II.

And that's how Albuquerque came to be the fleeting home of our own poete maudit -- not once, but twice.

Nearly 21 years ago, the Albuquerque Journal's own Toby Smith visited the Morrison's home at 8912 Candelaria NE (in an article titled "Jim Morrison Slept Here" in the Journal's now-defunct Impact magazine).

Jim Morrison lived in Albuquerque for two years, 1955 to 1957, when he was 12 to 14 years old, and he attended Monroe and Wilson middle schools, while his father was executive officer of the Naval Special Weapons Facility at Kirtland Air Force Base, according to Smith's sleuthing.

It was George Morrison's second stop in Albuquerque, the first time in the late `40s, and according to online biographical material, Jim Morrison was 4 or 5 years old when the family was here -- and it was here that his sister, Anne Robin, was born in 1947.
(More here, courtesy ABQ Journal)

Love cannot save you from your own fate

How freaking cool is that? I'm not even a Doors fan, but the cache tied to living mere blocks from one of the Lizard King's childhood homes is certainly not lost on me.

Unfortunately, it also turns out that Admiral Morrison past away last month, marking the passing of yet another member of the Greatest Generation and conquering heroes of World War II.

After taking part in operations in the Aleutians and the central Pacific, Mr. Morrison took flight training in Pensacola, Fla., and flew combat missions over Wake Island and Honshu, Japan, in the last year of World War II. After the war, he was an instructor for secret nuclear-weapons projects in Albuquerque. During the Korean War, he was assigned to the joint operations center in Seoul, earning a Bronze Star for his part in combat operations against North Korean and Chinese forces.

Mr. Morrison took command of the Bon Homme Richard in 1963 and in 1967 was promoted to the rank of rear admiral. In 1972 he became commander in chief of naval forces in the Marianas, which included some of the same islands he had bombed as a pilot during World War II, and where he organized relief efforts for nearly 100,000 Vietnamese refugees sent to Guam in 1975. It was an assignment he called the most satisfying of his career.

Rest in peace, Admiral.


Father of the Lizard King