Operator

Everyone has a picture of what they believe their life will be like.  Some are so sure that they have this movie script complete with technicolor.  But that time between teenage adolescent and adulthood is a slipper slope and some find to going difficult.  to say there is often confusion in the minds of these young individuals is to issue a broad understatement.  When I was in the service my speciality was communications and I had my fingers in a lot of pies.  I dealt in a black market, but I took payment only in favors, never money.  Money is too easy to trace and I was no fool.  an article fifteen is not the same as a military court marshal conviction and ten years in Leavenworth.  Besides, favors are a lot harder to trace and easier to cover.  The service is a harsh teacher of life and successful attitudes.  Either one performs or one doesn’t and in Vietnam that difference could prove deadly.  So I traded favors.  I also formed a network of favor traders.  I mean, maybe someone wants a 45 caliber sidearm he normally wouldn’t be issued.  Well, what do you have to trade for it?  Maybe you can’t directly trade but maybe you know one or two others who can assist you in this trading business.  You know, this is how economics works, the whole present value thing reduced to what do you have to trade and what is it worth?  Bartter operates on the idea that everyone has something to trade and wants something in return.

 

Now this kid came to me because he had heard that I could arrange things.  He seemed to be a good kid, unassuming and somewhat truthful.  Well, you’d be surprised how truthful people can get when they want something and you press them hard enough.  I deal in black market favors, you know, I don’t have time for clowns and idiots nor do I want to spend ten years in Leavenworth.  And true enough, given a little time I could usually find a way to satisfy all parties.  I didn’t deal with officers for the simple reason that they couldn’t be trusted.  They were two faced sons of bitches and I did them no favors.  An officer and a gentleman my ass.  But sergeants were different.  I knew how to get around inspectors when it came to imports and exports.  You just had to have something to trade.  Back to the kid.  He was a driver in transportation, a PFC driving a two and a half ton straight truck between the big bases.  He was in a jam because, as he put it, he wanted to make sure that his girl knew he wanted to marry her when he got back.  You know how that goes, you’re gone and the girl thinks you have access to harems and somehow you are going to forget all about her.  Hey, it’s a legitimate concern and this kid wants to make sure that she is tying the yellow ribbon around his tree and not some other guy’s.  So he wants a phone call or as many as he can get, back to the states.  He didn’t know it, but he had something to sell.   The only guys who had direct line back to the states were the SAC people.  One didn’t believe that the SAC people were on any of our bases, but they were.  sure, the B-52s were out of Japan, Okinawa, and guam, but the older B-47s were SAC and the Australian Air Force.  They called them Canberra bombers but these were the older Boeing made bombers.  The question was, what did the SAC telephone operators want?  Well, maybe a few cases of beer would do the trick, so I sent the kid to enquire since he wanted the telephone calls.  Well, he came back crest fallen.  They wanted a couple of quarts of Jack Daniels.  Not that hard to come by if one knew where to look.  What did a supply sergeant for the officers club need?  He wanted to send a bunch of souvenirs back to his brother in the states.  But all shipments were to be searched for drugs and AK-47, while not exactly drugs were automatic weapons.  Okay, the MATS guys had the C-140s, what would they take to slip a couple of crates aboard their aircraft?  They flew out of Cam Ram Bay and they wanted better quarters.  Would they settle for their own clubhouse?  Yes they would.  Wow, this is getting very complicated.  Let’s see, who would build the clubhouse?  Ah. Seabees, of course.  What would they want in return?  a couple of cases of Jim Beam.  where do we get the supplies for the building.  Ah, Army Corp of Engineers.  What did they want?  They wanted a walk-in cooler and quite a number of cases of beer.  Uh, no can do.  But how about a couple of refrigerators and say twenty cases of beer?  Done deal.  You see, barter is about locating the various wants and needs so that they can be exchanged.

 

Now one of the advantages of being in communications is that quite a bit of “intelligence” moved through our hands.  I knew where to locate a couple of refrigerators that had been destined for officers clubs.  Those brass hats would never miss them, just send more next time.  Besides, it was easy to duplicate request and get extra in country.  And as I suggested to my boy in transportation, why not use that five fingered discount to supply the SAC operators?  It was easy enough to sent some messages to the right people to have him assigned to pick up goods at certain warehouses.  I mean, I was developing a license to steel here.  Eventually the favors get done because people have the ability to fudge one way or the other.  You see, it is really just a matter of keeping track of the favors owed and delivered.  As for the kid who just had to talk to his girlfriend back home, that went on for several months.  He kept that spark of romance alive while he served his time.  In the meantime he became one of my trusted transport workers.  You know, with a little bit of ingenuity one can transport a B-52 under the nose of any MP, or officer, for that matter.  The MPs are a little smarter in my book.  He was a hard worker and I do believe that we own him more favors than he collected.  But he was a gracious individual and declined more than he needed for his own use.  I mean, that is the meaning of teamwork, seeing that people feel they have a stake in the system and that the systems gives them their due.  Why generals find that so hard to understand is beyond me.  So this kid, name was Eddie, by the way.  Kind of figures it should be Eddie, you know.  He was a good guy, a stand up kind of guy.  Put one of his buddies into the program.  That is enough to renew your faith in human nature.  Yes, many of our deals came to pass and those that didn’t, no hard feelings.  But as I said, the minute you turn it into a cash operation you leave a trail and hard feelings.  So when it came my turn to rotate to the states I left my operations to a couple of gentlemen who promptly went to a cash and carry system.  Last I heard, they were doing ten years in Kansas.  Yeah, they tried to implicate me but there was only their word.  No Office of special Investigations would bother me when there was no evidence to tie me to anything.  A favor is quid pro quo, but greed knows no such bounds.  It’s your word of honor the way cash never can be.  A man’s honor determines his character, cash has no honor or character.

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One Toke Over The Line

When Colorado passed the Marijuana Initiative  I couldn’t help thinking about the “old days”.  By that I mean the mid to late sixties of my impressionable years of youth.  The Baby Boomers were the last generation to have to face a military draft.  So many of us were shuffled through the military as callow youths and two or three years later we emerge, on average, no worse for wear.  True a few died, many more were wounded to some degree, and then there were the walking wounded.  Those are the ones who came back with the problematic conditions of being unable to adjust to the realities of life.  I am not sure has this comes about.  For every middle class kid who goes off to serve his country there are several working class kids who do the same.  Some of us, like myself, come back with a lot of built up anger inside.  Call it the accumulation of mistreatments we collect every day for two or three years.  Or perhaps it’s just the fact that we don’t deal with stupidity well.  Others see things that cause them to retreat from life.  One way to deal with that harsh reality of war, severe wounds, mangled dead bodies, and the loss of your buddies to escape into that blurred world of drugs.  I must admit that I had a serious problem in tech school.  I go addicted to tranquilizers, pain killers, and muscle relaxants.  For a couple of months drugs own my mind before a doctor made me go cold turkey.  For others, things like boredom, pressure from superiors, the general treatment received in service life, all these were excuse enough to try a little pot.  You see, beer wasn’t that easy to get as an enlisted man and hard alcohol damn near impossible unless you new an NCO who would buy it for you.  Besides, the beer was a joke, all the government would sell was 3.2 and you’ll piss it away long before you get enough of a buzz to make much difference.  On the other hand, there were half a dozen dealers in your company and the supply of pot seemed almost endless.  They tell me it was good stuff, too, like Hanoi Red, and Thai stick (combined with opium), and some good Cambodian weed.  the names were colorful and I have forgotten most of them.  But drugs weren’t to my liking.

 

On the other hand, some of the grunts I worked with thought nothing of toking once, twice, maybe three times a day.  I was not in a combat unit.  My group was communications and we laid the telephone cables, placed the poles, strung the wire, did the repair, all that stuff that rarely gets you killed.  Yeah, we had a casualty at least once a month because someone got careless or was in the wrong place when the rocket landed, but we were not the hero types.  Some of us, when our hitch was done went to work for the phone company.  That is where I met Bob Day.  He was hired a year before me because he was a draftee, two years active and one reserve.  I was a full three year man, regular Army.  There was a guy from combat engineers working on the crew, another who had seen all his service in Germany, lucky dog, Louis Diaz, ex door gunner, Gene, three year Navy man on a submarine, and an ex marine, saw action in the DMZ.  The other members were older and may have had their draft time and may have not, didn’t really matter.  I think there were two guys our age whose draft numbers were high and never got called.  Out of all of these guys, Bob was the most personable, that popular type in high school.  I would bet he never really had much in the way of any real achievements in life but he was popular.  Good with the jokes, seemingly even tempered, you know the type.  He probably would have made foreman in three to five years if he had had any ambition.  From what I could tell, you made foreman for one of three reasons: you were popular with men on the crew, you had some arcane technical knowledge, or at least they thought you did (one of the foremen was suppose to be a wiz at using a piece of equipment in trouble shooting but I never saw him use that equipment effectively, always some reason why the machine failed), or you were good buddies wit the second line manager.  On occasion the company would screw up and actually promote on real merit.  Yeah, I though Bob was on the track for promotion.  Now me, well, I’ve never been popular, can’t play the kiss kiss game, and don’t have some great and glorious technical knowledge.  If I got any special favors they would be few and far in between.

 

I talked with Bob on occasion, he seemed to be a nice guy.  He never saw combat, had been a desk jockey in supply.  I suppose that is where he acquired his pot habit.  I mean, this was not the recreational use stuff promoted by pot smokers in Colorado.  He had no war wounds for which he needed pot as his painkiller of choice.  He just had a habit that he indulged several times a day.  For him it was at least one a day while at work and if Red was around, Dave Mueller, then why not another hit?  Dave was another one of those popular types and eventually they were both put on the same crew doing important but minimum work.  About a year later I remember chancing upon Bob near the end of the day.  He needed help with a particular operation and since I was the closest one I was elected.  As we worked together he started telling about his marriage and how hi wife was leaving him.  He was a bit depressed over the fact that she was moving about two hundred miles to a different city and taking their little girl with her.   Well, one of my rolls is father confessor and since I was more stranger than friend he chose to confide in me.  It is almost a fact that we will tell strangers far more of our troubles than our friends since we don’t care what strangers think of us.  I could tell Bob was having his problems.  I don’t care what potheads tell you, it affects their work, I’ve seen it too many times to farr that that nonsense.  Bob had been making mistakes and finally I just shooed him on back to the garage while I finished up.  The next morning he came up to me and was thanking me for helping him.  He seemed to be a little worried that I might tell the rest of the crew.  So I reassured him that, hey, no problem, we all have one of those days.  but a couple of months later it was obvious that he was having one, then two, then three of those days too many.  And one day he had an accident, broke his arm.  I didn’t see Bob for about six weeks.  Then one day he showed back up for work.  I don’t think the time off had done much for him as he looked a little haggard.

 

A month after that I chanced to work with Bob on a job.  We got along okay, I’ve had better partners and I’ve had worse.  “My wife obtained a restraint order against me, said I was a bad influence on my daughter.”  “Really, why is that?”  “She thinks I smoke too much pot.  She says it’s not good for ‘her’ daughter to seen me smoking pot.  Like the kid can really tell the difference between my joint and the cigarettes I smoke.”  “You’d be surprised, Bob, kids notice far more than we think.  They may not be sophisticated but they ain’t dumb.  Know what i mean?”  He thought about that for a couple of minutes as we worked side by side.  “Maybe you’re right.  Yeah, maybe yo’re right.”  We stopped for lunch an hour later and I could tell that Bob still had a lot on his mind.  It was as if he was trying to come to some understanding, some decision.  Just before we buttoned the work up for the day he told me.  “I think I’m going to change, at least cut down on my pot.  You know?  Got to see my little girl again.”  I didn’t work with Bob or even speak with him again for another two months.  I had to stop by his job site to let him know I would be working in the same cable, a sort of courtesy call.  We passed the time of day for a few minutes, then he told me, “It’s really hard to stop.  I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t do it.  I just can’t….you understand, don’t you?”  “Yeah, I understand.  Like trying to quite smoking.  You know, I quit smoking before I went in the Army but every think the drill sergeant said ,’smoke em if you got em.’ well, I just had to start up again.  You know?”  “Yeah, thanks, I know, yeah, ah…, yeah, you’re right.”

 

I wish I had a better something better to offer Bob right then.  He needed more than I could give him, he needed what he could give himself and yet wouldn’t.  I never saw Bob after that.  He had gotten a transfer to some remote corner of the state.  I heard indirectly that he had acquires one girl friend after another and had almost lost his job.  I lost contact with most of those guys I worked with when I went inside, started working in the electronics side of the phone company.  That was a whole nother world, as they say.  Most of the linemen and cable splicers as well as the installers were laid off and went to work for contract companies.  No union so you had to hustle if you wanted work.  I doubt Bob would have made the transition, he was always one toke over the line.

She’s Gone

I’ve never been a catholic priest or minister or any type of clergy, but I must have one of those faces to whom so many individuals seek to confess their “sins” or problems. Almost without fail if I am sitting in a bar or pub someone will come up to me and start talking. The next thing I know is I am their father confessor and they are pouring out their hearts to me and almost asking for absolution. If there was good money to be made I swear I would put a confessional in several bars around this town and make a very good living listening to people and taking donations for the poor box, namely my own.  Needless to say I do not spent much time in bars or pubs as the price of refreshment is about four times what I would like to pay.  There are times when I do seek a bit of human companionship, or at least the close contact of a crowd of people.  Usually I prefer a couple slices of pizza and one or two half price beers on a Friday or Saturday night before heading home for the weekend.

 

About two months ago I had worked that Saturday, over ten hours extra of overtime, so I came home and changed my clothes.  Then a short walk to the sports bar for a few slices of pizza and a pitcher of beer.  I had barely made it in time from happy hour, not that I couldn’t had afforded to pay full price but it’s the principle that counts.  Lucky for me there were no games scheduled that night so the usually loud mouth crowd was elsewhere.  The waitress came over with my pizza just as I finished my first mug.  Just as I was about to take a bite of my first slice a man I judged to be about thirty sat down in the chair on the opposite side of my table.  His mug was half full an his eyes looked a bit watery and bloodshot.  I suspect he had been drinking earlier in the day and was still at it.  It was obvious what he was going to say, they all have that lost little lamb face, baa, baa, baa.  At first I ignored him, which is means they take that as a challenge.  I took a couple of bites from my first slice, I was hungry and was thinking about ordering another couple of slices if these didn’t do the trick.  The day had been cold and rain soaked so I looked forward to clearing my mind.  there was an old movie on the big screen and I would have liked to watch it.

 

He looked at me for a few minutes and then hung his head as if to give me time to finish that first slice before he launched into his story.  True to his look, as soon as that first piece had be eaten he began.  I really didn’t want to be bothered but I knew it was impossible to ignore him or get rid of him with out creating a scene.  So I took a couple of sips of beer and looked into his eyes.  “She’s gone, man.  My baby’s gone.  You know?”  “That’s really tough, sorry to hear that.”  I started to pick up the other slice and he continued.  “I just came home one day and she was gone.  She’s gone, gone.”  Hey, damn it, I’m hungry, so I took a couple more bites with out looking at him.  But he was not to be discouraged.  They never are.  “I mean, I don’t know why.  She’s just gone.”  A couple more sips of beer and then another bite of pizza.  “Hey man, can you tell me why?”  “I wouldn’t know why.  I don’t know who she is and she is to you.”  Well, not the most tactful thing to say but in his state tact has no currency.  I knew he was now going to tell me the love story of his life.  Hell, I might have to order another pitcher just to get through this story.  “Oh, but it’s not like that, you know?  I mean she and I were madly in love, you know?”  No, I don’t know.  She’s gone for two hundred, Alex.  The clue is anything.  I’d pay the devil to replace her, Alex.

 

Yeah, the man is hurting inside and the alcohol isn’t killing the pain of rejection.  So he continued this story of love and happiness.  It’s always the same, you know.  Life is beautiful and then suddenly, without a clue, life is shit.  I mean, this guy had it bad.  I mean the torch he was carrying was far larger than a blow torch.  Man, this was statue of liberty size.  “I worked so damn hard to give her everything, man.  I put in the extra overtime, you know?”  Now I am not going to tell this guy that perhaps his absence was a possible contributing factor, not in his condition.  Might as well as throw a match on a pile of oil soaked rags.  “You know, we used to come here every Saturday night just to have some pizza and a pitcher of beer,  Every Saturday, you know?  You don’t think she got tired of that, do you?”  Well, yes, there is a strong possibility that she might have wanted some seafood and a glass of white wine.  what do I know, I never met your girlfriend.  Okay, so I am feeling a little hostile and I need to collect myself.  I get up and excuse myself, “Got to piss, you know.” and head for the men’s room.  some cold water splashed upon my face and I am ready for another hour of his miserable life.

I sat back down and notice that his glass is full and my pitcher is lighter.  so I fill my mug up and now the pitcher is empty.  The waitress takes both the empty plate and the empty pitcher away.  The beer is starting to mellow me and I am feeling a bit more disposed to my guest or my jailer, I’m not sure which.  So I listen to this litany of perfect love and companionship.  Yes, he sacrificed for her and where was she now, now that he needed her?  I know the color of her hair, the color of her eyes, the softness of her lips.  Hell, I even know the brand of tampon she uses.  I think I need more beer, so I signal to the waitress for another pitcher.  she brings on in a few minutes as I listen to what their favorite sang was.  “We’ve only just begun by the Carpenters.  That was our song.  OH, Oh, and she loved Bon Jovi.  Yeah, and that Boston thing, eh … oh yes, More Than A Feeling.”  The waitress returns with a full pitcher and I start to pay.  “Later, later.” is all she says and walks back to the bar.  Now he is starting to describe their love life in detail, so much more than I want to know.  I really don’t do pornographic confessions well.  So I must put my hand up in front of his face.  “Stop, I don’t really want to hear about your love making.  Okay, that is inappropriate.  If you need to tel someone, tell your doctor.”  That stuns him for a moment.  “Oh, yeah, right, sorry, er I guess I should do that.”

 

It must be going on eleven pm and his speech is a little slurred.  So I start in, “You are going to learn how to live without her, you know?  You can’t go on this way.  She’s gone for good and is never coming back.  You got to pull yourself together and find another woman.  Man, the world is full of them.  Just look on any corner.  So forget her, learn to live without her.  But another toothbrush and put it tin the holder if you must, but forget her.”  Well, he is in agreement and he isn’t, you know what I mean.  Unrequited love is the pits and innocent bystanders suffer because of it.  By this time I’m trying to give him absolution.  It’s okay to forget about her, god is surely please when you do, almano dominae, all you drunks get off my lawn.  Meanwhile he’s drunk most of my beer and has his head on the table, starting to snore.  So I get up and head over to the bar to pay my bill.  The owner is a good man, he runs a clean place.  “what do I owe you?”  “Forget it, I owe you.  Next time you come in it’s on the house.”  “What about what’s his name over there?”  “I called his brother, he’ll be here soon enough and take care of him.  thank you for listening to him, you did me a service.”  “I guess, it’s not easy listening to these guys.”  “By the way, my wife and I have a bet on you.”  “Yeah, what’s the bet?”  “She says you’re some kind of therapist.”  “She loses.  I work outside construction for the phone company. ”  “But there’s more to you, the way you talked to that man.  I think you have training.”  “Well, if you must know, I also have a degree in psychology.”  “Ah, I thought there was something else.  good night and come back soon.  Remember, we owe you one.”

 

I’d Really Love To See You Tonight

Some call it unrequited love while others unfinished business and still others claim it’s about closure, I’m sure these three assertions are correct, but then I wonder.  What we share so closely with another seldom fits so neatly in a pigeonhole.  There is a sloppiness about life that makes its summation difficult, defies that final analysis so many authorities speak of as being so final.  If life has taught me one thing it is that love may die but feelings remain.  The attraction that brings us together can also tear us apart, as strange as that may seem.  Yet, that final analysis never explains the attraction that remains.  I think that what we see in others is what we can see in ourselves and this mirror of our desires becomes a talisman in our lives.  We are drawn to it even if we disbelieve.  So was the case on my friend Connor, so named not of the author, McCauley Conner, but for the baseball player and actor, Chuck Connors.  True, no one names a child Connors, the plural is just not done.  But his mother loved Chuck Connors, the actor.  Of course if it weren’t for an injury, Mr Connors would have remained a baseball player of average standing.  As an actor he had the broad shoulders and chiseled good looks that make a few women swoon.  As an actor, his range was a bit limited.  Chuck Connors and Academy Award were exclusive entities.

 

A boy named Connor would not have your average John or Bill or Tom’s life.  We would sooner see a Connor as class valedictorian than someone named Harry.  With this in mind, Connor pursed the nubile Dakota.  Any woman named Dakota must be special as an ordinary Jane or Mary or Linda just won’t do.  This need for uncommon given names seems to me to be superfluous, a waste of expectations on the part of those without such theatractical names.  But all names have destinies and most certainly did Connor.  And if that destiny is to go a little farther than the average is have a family name to match.  Alas, Connor was doomed on that score since his family name was James.  True, there was a sort of ring to it but nothing exciting or forceful.  It was an ambivalent name and his personality seemed to grow into that mold.  Connor was hesitant towards risk though when he did risk he tended to go all in.  Often this risk resulted in loss.  But rather than learn to moderate his behavior and build upon his successes he would lead with his heart and suffer the disappointments.

 

Connor had gotten through school and finally university, his successful classes outweighing those less than successful ones.  And he found his niche in life after a couple of fitful starts writing copy for the marketing department in a medium sized advertising agency.  And true to form, occasionally he has a successful idea but mostly failures.  Perhaps his saving grace was that when his ideas were good, they were very good and made the agency a lot of money.  If one were playing the percentages, on average, Connor was a winner.  One of his winning ideas was used by the Navy for recruiting.  One of his failures was for a Japanese electronics company: “From those wonderful people who gave you Pearl Harbor.”  Even few baseball sluggers ever come close to a 400 bating average.  This time, he had a really brilliant idea for the advertising campaign for a woman’s hand and body lotion.  This would set an industry standard for hand and body lotions for some time to come.  So to celebrate the brilliant idea a good number of the people who worked on that particular campaign headed to the usual club to party away in the glory of their supreme success and come in late the next morning.

 

Connor called to invite me to this display of Caesar accepting the laurel crown and the spot chosen was apt.  It was the 52 Club, so named after that joke of a card game called 52 pickup.  I am not against such places as this but I have little use of them.  The idea that one may find true love in these meat markets is a bit far fetched, even by Hollywood standards.  I’m a Bill, a John, a Tom, an ordinary solid everyday guy with a job as a consulting engineer.  All very drab and boring for most people as a life goes, and I have a steady girlfriend whom I suppose I will marry in a couple of years, assuming we don’t fall out.  But loyalty compels and I have know connor through these many years.  Besides, I am happy that he has had a great success for he has a habit of wallowing in his failures and when he does he makes for rather morose company.  So when I arrive and give my name, for it is “invitation only” that this place exists and makes it appear exclusive as does the “entry fee”, the party is underway.  Connor is holding court as he is a very funny man at times like these, particularly when he has been hoisting a few rounds.  He might have made a good stand up comedian if he had the right temperament.  Of course the women here are all very pretty, plain and ugly need not apply.  their reason for attendance is simple, about a quarter of the men who pay the dues have six figure incomes.

 

I have always been amazed by the first names oby which so many of these women have been christen.  There are no Janes, no Marys, no Bettys.  There are Jasmines, Veronicas, Martinas, Elkies, and the occasional Svetlana.  And yes, tonight there is a Dakota.  A femme fatal in training.  So far I have been “felt up” by five women and one man.  As I said, I really don’t enjoy these places.  the music is too loud and too modern, the ambient noise level makes shouting normal conversation, and the booze makes inhibitions drop like lead balloons.  I suppose I would be enjoying myself more if I were in the market of bringing home a filet mignon for the evening.  So by the time that midnight is approaching I am ready to head out the door and crawl into my own bed, alone.  I have to work tomorrow on a large building project.  But I notice that Connor has grown a little quiet.  A raven haired woman has his attention and the two of them are engaged in intimate discussion, comparing the differences between the male and female iguana, perhaps.  I siddle and wrythe my way over to Connor to wish him well on his big project and thank him for the evening.  “Matt, meet Dakota!  She is an amazing woman! (Hell, here everyone is amazing, even me.)  She’s a stage actress in the theater over on Market.  I can’t believe we have so much in common.  (I’ll be polite and not say what I’m thinking.)  Hey, call me tomorrow, maybe we can get together for lunch.”  “Okay connon, I will.  Nice to meet you, Dakota.”  She nods to me in a non committal way, I have been acknowledged and may now move away.

 

Their courtship was not overly quick, I think it took about three months for them to get around to tying the knot.  I was there at the wedding, a lavish but spartan affair.  By that I mean the accoutrements were lavish but the guests were sparse.  The few, the proud, the single.  Not one married couple was invited.  Then off to the Bahamas for a week or two.  During the couple’s courtship I was made aware of the extent of Dakota’s personality and career prospects.  She was a stunning looking woman, about five eight or nine to connor’s five ten.  In heels she always looked taller.  I had never seen her in a conservative outfit, almost every thing she wore was either arty or provocative, even to “grubby” wear.  Dakota was an aspiring actress of sorts and the best that she could manage was as understudy for a few supporting character roles in mediocre plays.  She was also ten years younger that Connor, something that delighted him and like a fools, made mention too often.  The both tried too hard.  She wanted the fame of being an actress almost desperately and didn’t seem to understand that few are gifted with enough natural talent to walk into instant stardom.  She was pretty, she had that slender body most men adore and most women hate.  But her personality had not the maturity to make success by habit, by regular hard work and by determination.  In many ways she was like Connor.  Initially hesitant to risk but once she made her decision she was all in.  Frankly, I was of the opinion, unsupported as that was. that she was tired of hustling to pay the rent and that this marriage was for convenience, not true love.  Connor’s part was not too far off that mark.  I knew he was tired of living alone and his past failures with women weighed heavily in his decision to marry an all too willing partner.  They were fools on the same ship.  I kept my feeling to myself but I gave them a year, two as a generous outset.

 

They surprised me, for they kept the marriage going for nearly three years before it sunk on the rocks of disharmony.  During this period the economic conditions for my work had changed and I was compelled to spend more time working on consulting work in other states and even a few foreign countries.  the original company I worked for had been acquired and then that one was acquired until I was working for a large consulting concern.  My old apartment felt more like a hotel room during a vacation.  Of course my romance had suffered to the point of extinction.  But I had kept in touch with Connor, his wife tended to avoid me, and a few of his old friends.  It was through them I heard of the arguments, sometimes violent, but usually no decision.  Connor had complained that he had no good ideas, the well was dry and he might lose his job.  Dakota complained that getting acting parts, even walk ons was getting harder.  Both were unhappy in their careers and in their marriage.  So they parted, not on the harshest of terms but not exactly friends, either.  For as much as they had grown out of love, they had also grown up.  Connor did lose his position at the ad agency while Dakota managed to finally obtain a character roll in a decent play that would run two years.  I think that gave her the confidence in herself and life in general.  She even helped Connor get back on his feet.  This time Connor took his first measured risk.  I heard he had studied and planned the opportunity to open his own agency, he specialized in theatrical advertising.  It was no longer a hit or miss employment of his talent, he had learned to value patience and planning.  True to form, some of his advertising attempts were very strong, very well received, but he has far fewer failures.

 

Meanwhile, I had tired of living out of a suitcase and came back to start my own business.  I was a professional engineer now, complete with seal.  So I started selling my services to remodeling contractors, small businesses, apartment and home owners.  It’s not a six figured salary but I have enough.  And I have a good relationship, we shall be married in June.  Yesterday I received an invitation from Dakota.  Just out of the blue and complete unexpected.  I was invited to the premier opening of a new play in the best theater in the city.  So I went with Mary, my intended, to the reception after the play.  I must say that Dakota had put on a very good performance, she being the lead.  I think both the script and the director made a great difference in opening her formally hidden talents to the public.  But back stage where the celebrations were happening I was stunned to find Connor standing very close to Dakota and she smiling at him, introducing him to the cast members, the director, and the playwright.  They had become friends, close friends.  I pulled him aside for a minute and had to ask if they were back together, perhaps about to be married.  Connor looked at me for a few seconds.  “No, we aren’t stupid.  We can’t go back to that state again.  We have learned the value of our friendship and living together would just get in the way.”  I was stunned.

Sweet Blindness

Her father called her Prudence but friends knew her as Pru. She was the daughter of a Pentecostal Baptist minister and was know for the very conservative clothing she wore in school. But looks are deceiving and Pru was not to be judged by her cover nor by her “official” behavior. I had a few classes with Pru and I must confess, she seldom looked my way. Tall, thin, with high cheekbones that gave her face a definite heart shape, and a mane of black hair held back with a broad white ribbon, that is the image she portrayed. Most of us would guess she was meant to be a minister’s wife by age twenty one. the man would be of her father’s choosing, of course.  The Reverend Mr Black was well deserving of his name, for the man was tall and wiry with the same full head of black hair and very piercing gray eyes.  I never saw him in any suit but black, as if life was a continuous funeral.  Pru had her mother’s eyes, a kind of light blue like the early morning sky, still pale and just waking up.  Mrs Black, I never knew her given name as Pru always called her Momma and her father always referred to her as Mother, was of middling height and a little more full in both body and face yet she had not succumb to that middle age expanse of skin and weight most mothers of teenage girls acquire as their submission to retirement from child rearing.

 

Fate, or chance, depending on whether one is religious, took part in my affairs during my senior year.  Pru was failing geometry and she needed a math class for graduation.  I was a wiz at it and was not adverse to being her tutor.  So the math teacher introduced us and made out a schedule for our tutor sessions in the last hour of classes for the day.  You might remember, the one devoted to clubs or study hall.  It took me a couple of weeks but I helped her understand not only geometry but how to learn it, how to think through the problems.  Now at first Pru was quiet and reserved, but I, being as I like to think, a natural clown, had caused her to let down some of those defenses and she became quite charming in manner.  She too, had a sense of outrageous humor that had been suppressed by her father’s religious view of the world.  I can still remember to this day the grin on her face as she cracked her first pun, oh what a shameful expression.  Oh, there was no thought of romance, not that I wasn’t willing, but because she never regarded me as anything other than a casual friend.

 

I was invited one night, a Tuesday because that was the one night that Pru’s father wasn’t at the church with some committee or bible study group or other such work.  The Rev Black wanted to meet the boy who had guided his daughter through the educational sea to safe harbor, as he put it.  I did not make a good impression, to say the least.  Oh, I looked clean cut, my parents wouldn’t let me do the long hair (at least I didn’t have to get those horrid crew cuts), and my dress was not the most preppy by any means.  No, there were three things that happened that night.  First, I knew little about the bible.  My parents were Methodists and the new Methodist church didn’t go in for bible study as a rule.  Rev Black saw that as a sin against god and told me as much.  The second event is that I cracked a few jokes and Rev Black though such levity was frivolous to good living and belief in god.  And the third event was that Pru forgot herself and actually made a pun, most unintentional, but its presence did not please her father.  After diner there was the formal dismissal of thank you for your help and nice to meet you, but no please come and see us again sometime.  I got the hint, not that I am all that socially adept.

 

The next time I saw Pru, it was Friday.  Her mother had called the school to report, not excuse, mind you, that Prudence was ill and would return that Friday.  All that Friday she avoided my glances and didn’t wish to acknowledge my presence, I was a stranger.  So when study hall came I cornered her in the hall just outside the door.  “Pru, what’s wrong?  Did I do something wrong, something to hurt you?”  “No, nothing.  You did nothing.” And then Pru turned and went to her assigned seat.  She kept up the pretence for two weeks and then finally came to me during the lunch period.  “Let’s go outside an talk for a few minutes.”  Pru led the way and I followed meekly, I mean she seemed so serious.  We sat on one of the bleacher seats and she began by putting her finger to her lips when I attempted to speak.  “You’ve opened up a world to me, not a very big world, but big enough to make me think.  My father was furious with my behavior that night at dinner.  It was the first time we ever had humor in the house.  By the way, He thinks you are possessed by the devil.”  I laughed at that thought.  I am not very religious and was in my own rebellion against the religious authority my parents sometimes tried to exercise on me.  Pru continues in that quiet voice of hers: “Father spent a lot of time trying to exercise that “devil inspired” humor from me and it took two days.  I eventually had to go along with him and go through all the confessing and acts of atonement and believing and, well, it was a “Come to Jesus” moment.  Not that I have changed or accepted what he wills for me.”  I was kind of stunned that a father would do that.  I mean I knew some girls whose fathers were strict and some whose fathers really didn’t give a shit.  Bu I never knew one who would stoop to that depth of dominance.  I mean, from early childhood on I had been beaten by my father a few times and really didn’t like being around him.  But to me her house was like a prison.

 

We sat and talked about other things for a few minutes and then she stood up.  “Mike, maybe we can talk a little over the next few months until graduation.  I’d like that.”  “Pru, just tell me where and when, I’ll be there.”  I felt a slight bond between us.  I found out later that children who are beaten by either the hand or the brow seem to be attracted to others of similar circumstance.  Others may not understand but I always though of it as our own red badge of courage.  The next few months until summer arrived and signaled the end of innocent childhood Pru and I did talk a dozen times or so.  Mostly for the reassurance, I think, but also for some new perspectives on the world.  That fall I left for college, a small liberal arts school that my parents could afford and that would accept my poor grades.  I occasionally wrote to Pru by way of a mutual friend or she would never have received my letters.  Back then, legal age was twenty one and colleges exercised parental control over the undergrads.  Most underage drinking went on in the fraternities and I was never considered for membership.  I had to sneak my beer and alcohol by other means and make sure it was kept well hidden in my dorm room.  We had our monthly inspections for clean bodies and clean minds.  Even Playboy was forbidden lest we forget the reason for marriage and especially sex under the sanctity of holy wedlock.

 

By my third year my mutual friend began to report those chances in Pru that were causing concern not only in her family but in my friends minds.  Not soon into my first year of college pru had found the taste of cheap wine intoxicating.  And that taste kept growing as long as she was kept in her prison.  By the middle of the third year her father had arranged her marriage to a young minister a year out of seminary.  There was to be a June wedding.  I use the past tense because there would be no wedding, not then and not to him.  Pru was becoming an alcoholic and in that May had run away with a man who drank heavily as well.  They eloped and spent half a dozen unhappy years together.  Maybe it was the need to take that bad tasting medicine for a long time that made the difference.  I caught up with her ten year later.  she was sober, clean as AA says.  Pru worked in a Goodwill store in the very town I had settled seven years before.  My first job and I was still single, still living a bachelor’s life.  The booze has changed her, given her added age to her face.  But her thinness persisted, still very trim in her late thirties.  Pru’s voice had gained a little of the gravel that sometimes afflicts alcoholics, but her eyes were clear and for the first time I saw them dance.  She was another woman, no longer the old Pru I knew.  I took her out to dinner and we sat and talked for a few hours.  She was now full of laughter with that sense of irony that only strong conflict can bring out.  “I never knew what life could be, never knew there was anything more to life that total devotion to some god.”  “Did you lose your faith” I enquired?  “No, I gained it back, I took it back from my father.  It now belongs to me.”  I saw a bit of defiance in her eyes and that telltale firmness in her chin.  “How are your parents?”  “I don’t know.  We’ve never spoken and I’ve never been back.  I am dead to my father and that’s enough for me.”  “Do you have a love interest these days?”  “There is one man, a good man, a kind man.  We see each other and talk over lunch.  Sometimes we go to the movies.  I think he want’s to ask me but he’s not sure yet.  We both need time.  You know, love take time and I can wait.”  “Sounds like sweet blindness.”  Pru just laughed at the reference.

Wedding Bell Blues

A friend of mine has been so close to marriage with the same woman I fear it may never happen and yet it seems probable. I can’t say why or how or when, but my gut feeling is that they will one day tie the knot if only in old age and about to die and be buried. Did you ever have a pair of friends like that?  Now I knew Bill from my time in the service, we had survive Vietnam together and he was an engaging fellow.  You know, the type, quick wit, mannered and polite, not your ordinary six pack beer drinking good old boy.  Not that I have anything against good old boys.  Corporal Treadaway was certainly one of Georgia’s finest examples and a hell of a good friend in a fire fight, lord has mercy.  But Bill was a bit different from the norm.  He never made rank beyond private first class, not for lack of leadership ability but it spite of it, if you know what I mean.  He was never deemed worthy in military terms and yet the squad, perhaps the entire company would have followed him into the jaws of hell itself.  Well, just saying.

 

Marilyn was bill’s girlfriend, his fiancee, if you like.  Not that there was ever a formal pledge of troth between them, just an understanding, much like a gentleman’s agreement, to use an old outdated term.  If anything, Bill was a man of honor, it set a standard among the platoon.  but all good things must come to an end, if one can call time spent in the years of compulsory service to one’s country.  And the assumption was that when Bill went home it would be the start of a new life with wife and children and some suitable job that paid the bills (no pun intended).  My own life plans when I returned, home form the hill, was a stint in college and then that promised middle class life on saw in Look and Life magazines.  But he who travels on the GI Bill travels best alone.  I put aside all thought of hearth and family and kin gathered round the yule tide table with figgy pudding and roast goose.  I thought that bill would make that transition to local job and family but I was surprised to hear that such was not the case.  The marriage was to be put off momentarily.  Bill, had of all things, become a rough neck in the oil patch and that meant long periods away from home.  Well, I can understand, what right does a man have to tie a woman down to the life of a nomad.  He said that he needed a nest egg for their happiness, or at least his.  Men like some sense of independence and being tied to a skirt was demeaning.

 

I had graduated with a degree in English and Literature, the thinking was that I would become the next great American novelist.  Such lofty goals and apparently so little talent, what can I say, I over estimated my abilities.  So I took a job as a technical writer for an Oil company, of all things.  Good thing I have a good sense of mechanical application, something I credit to my father and brothers.  Bill was working steadily in Texas, Oklahoma, and several other states.  He wrote and said he was saving quite a bit of money and he might be ready to go into business for himself.  What kind of business, I asked?  Oil field supply replied he.  Two years later he was broke and Marilyn was assuming the role of old maid.  I told him, “Damn it, marry the woman, come hell or high water.  She deserves better than to be kept waiting.”  “no”, was his answer, “I want it all to be right.”  Well, it seemed that Smokey and the Bandit was sweeping the country and Bill became a truck driver.  He was home so little that one wondered if he was still alive.  Yet he had a plan.  He would become an owner operator and then turn independent trucker, maybe start his one specialized transportation company.  There was money to be made hauling windmill blades cross country.  Well, next thing you know is that he now has five trucks and four drivers working for him and he is back to making some money.

 

Then came the raging inflation and the very high fuel prices and that put him right out of business again.  I was beginning to think his run of bad luck might be perpetual.  Mean while Marilyn was remaining true to him.  Not like she didn’t have the sharks circling round her hose every night.  Let me tell you, Marilyn was one of those women one dreams of having as a wife.  she is self sacrificing, loyal, loving, devoted, well I could go on with her virtues.  Lets just say that she was a good hearted woman in love with a good timing man.  Oh, not that Bill was on the make or involved with other women.  His virtue was that he was just as loyal to Marilyn as she to him.  Now it was a year after his last bankruptcy and Bill was down on his luck, so to speak.  Hell, let’s not mince words, he hadn’t a penny to his name and Marilyn provide him with a new stake.  At times I could have wept for them.  But I could have wept for myself as well.  the oil company didn’t need my services any longer and I was cast adrift.  Well, from technical writing I went into the machine shop business.  I had some savings, a partner, and a bank loan.  We made good on the investment and the work load keeps us busy.  I was now officially middle class with the income to show for it.  A least I put away a goodly portion for my old age.  I guess the third times a charm for Bill had finally stumbles upon something that was needed, was profitable, and would give him security for the next twenty or forty years,  Without benefit of university classes, Bill had become a fiction writer.  He found that secret to story telling that is so elusive to those of us who would write.

 

I talked with him at length one night and he told me that once he understood how to tell a story the rest was a breeze.  He said the stories just flowed, as if by magic.  One day you didn’t have a clue as to write a story and the next stories came pouring out.  So now it is almost twenty years later and he is a well know author making a decent living.  Seems he is reaching that middle class status we all longed for but had difficulty reaching.  I received a letter in the mail last week from Bill, he wanted to know if I would do the honors of being best man.  Seems he was determined to make an “honest” woman of Marilyn.  He was going to put an end, as he put it, to her “wedding bells blues.”

Born To Be Wild

The problem with being in the service when you are posted overseas is that you are a stranger in a strange land. The military service is an extraordinary experience in itself. First of all, one can’t simply quite and and find something else to do, these is no choice. One will service time one way or another. Of course there is the ultimate authority issue. One either has rank and authority or one doesn’t. Most of us had little of the authority of rank that comes from being at lease a non commissioned officer. Corporal or airman first class or whatever the Navy rates as an E-4 has little value. Your authority comes from the sergeant and not your rank. Not too many ever make E-5, non commissioned officer in their first hitch. Of course that is one of the proffered benefits or re-enlistment, that promise of becoming a non com. But promises are easily broken unless one has the foresight to “get it in writing”.  And when one is stationed overseas, one rarely speaks the local language and the locals don’t particularly like you.  They like your money well enough, but you, they can do with out.  Of course back when I was shanghaied we would receive a booklet about the country we were posted and I remember that one little phrase.  “Remember, when you go downtown looking for the action, you are the action for all the locals.”

 

Now the base usually had the various recreation facilities such as gyms and movies theaters.  There were pool tables and ping pong tables and swimming pools.  And every major base has at least one very good golf course.  The biggest obstacles on the golf course were the officers.  Usually every base had a library and the larger ones might have several.  There were bowling alleys and even skeet shooting.  The reason for all these facilities was that boredom set in after awhile.  The minimum tour for a single man, enlisted or officer was eighteen months and some were as long as three years.  Anything shorter was a war zone.  War zones were special because the amenities were very limited.  True, there might be clubs for the officers, non coms and enlisted, but don’t count of floor shows and fine dining.  So one had to find some release according to one’s tastes.  For a few of us, it was motorcycles.  Now once could try and depend on the base bus system or walk, which is good for you, but having your own personal transportation was preferred.

 

I bought an old Lambretta motorscooter.  As an E-3 I couldn’t afford anything better.  It had three gears and a two stroke motor.  Of course the acceleration and top speed were pitiful.   It was slow, couldn’t do more than 35 mph on a good day.  One of the guys has  Norton 500, a single cylinder bike that was loud.  Loud is good.  You may not travel any faster but at least it gives the illusion of doing so.  In our barracks we had about twenty cyclists.  some had Honda 90s, some had larger motorcycles.  But we all shared that comradery of two wheel transportation.  I found that I could improve the performance of a tired old engine but reducing back pressure.  The exhaust pipe from a Honda 305 Dream fit on my lambretta and boosted by sped by ten miles per hours.  It was also considerably louder.  I could not ride with the big boys.  And we would take trips on the weekends, get out on the roads for a couple of hours.  Okinawa was a unique place.  It had enough automobiles and trucks to cover the roads three vehicles deep and an island wide speed limit of 35 mph.  We weren’t going to go anywhere fast.

 

On one morning we had gathered and started our rid on the west side highway of the island, headed north.  Traffic was a bit thick and the only way to make any speed was to constantly pass the slower four wheeled vehicles.  Hell, I think we might have been averaging a little over 40 mph when the Military police stopped us as a group.  They were going to give us all tickets for speeding.  that meant a big fine and suspension of our driving privileges.  Now on of the guys had bought one of the first Honda trail bikes.  This was a sort of mini motorcycle.  The wheels were slightly smaller than my Lambretta and the frame was shorter.  I think it had a 60 cc engine but it was a quick little thing.  Well, the owner, I have forgotten his name, said, “Look, we couldn’t have been speeding,  my speedometer only goes to 30 mph.”  the Mp took a long look at that and said,”My error, I guess our speedometers need to be recalculated.”  They let us go, no tickets.  The military police aren’t chosen for their brains.  that bike could easily do 45 mph.

 

Our first sergeant hated motorcycles, said they were too loud and caused lax discipline.  We were always having run ins with him.  Now we had gotten a new squadron commander, a Colonel McIlroy.  Our last commander was an old timer out of touch with the world.  An idiot, if you like, all brass and no brain.  This new guy was different and made a point to visit with his men.  So one day about noon we found him out in the parking lot looking at our bikes.  the man could take shop about the cycles and was curious about my modified Lambretta.  But what caught his attention was that Honda mini trailbike.  the airman who owned it was there with a few of us and when the Colonel was admiring the bike, the E-4 said, “You want to ride it?’  Well, of course he did.  so the E-4 handed him the keys and said, “Take it for a spin.”  With that, McIlroy hopped on the bike, started it up and commenced to ride it around the parking lot.  After a few minutes, the First Sergeant came out yelling, “You airmen, I told you next time I caught you making all that noise”…and then he saw the Colonel ride up to him.  He saluted and said, “Sir, good to see you here.  Anything I can do, Sir?”  McIlroy just said, “Carry on, sergeant.” and drove off.  We never had any more problems with our First Sergeant about our bikes after that.

 

 

Moma Told Me Not To Come

For those of us who weren’t fortunate sons, as Dan Foggerty sang, we have our various war stories. Now some are the stories about the horrors of war and others confined to the horrors of simply being in the service and at it’s mercy.  It’s all part of having been in, usually against one’s will.  How many of us have suffered at the hands of the friendly sergeants and the all too charming lieutenants.  In the three or four years that you serve you run into your share of characters.  Now for the average fellow, life is bearable.  I mean, you have your moments of degradation but you kiss and make up and life goes on until your enlistment runs out.  Then the lieutenants and sergeants try kissing your hand and foot to make you re-enlist, for the bennies, of course.  It’s always for the bennies.  Why if they had no benifits no one, even the generals would re-enlist.  You’ve got to admire that logic.  But most of us are captive civilians, if you know what I mean.  The introduction never really takes hold, we are never quite convinced that Uncle Sam’s way is the best.

 

So we fight our battles where we can.  Mostly it’s a guerilla warfare thing, hit and run, hide in the day and strike at night routine.  For those of us who have a little more intelligence that the average friend sergeant and charming lieutenant, sanity is a highly prised state of mind.  Thinking for oneself it the ultimate revenge on all the idiocy the institution of a formalized army or navy or air force can impose.  The irony is that adaptation to changing circumstances is highly prised by the  services and yet is rarely done.  But we, the dedicated trouble makers know how to adapt.  In a sense, we write the rules for those lifers to follow.  I mean, it’s really a matter of not just beating the system but using it against itself without it knowing that is exactly what is happening.  As an example, a friend of mine from a previous assignment had three months left before his enlistment ended.  He had no intentions of re-enlisting, he was going back to university to finish his degree and get a real job.  But in 1970 the Air Force decreed that all E-4s had to take the 5-level test.  that is the qualifying test one takes in one’s speciality if one wants to advance to E-5 or sergeant, non commissioned officer.  Williams didn’t want to take the test.  He had to work graveyard, since he was on an E-4 and rank has it privilege, and that meant staying up during the day to take a needless test.  Funny thing about all these smart officers, college grads to the man, is that they rarely understand what they are doing.  So the test is multiple choice.  But there are added features.  Some officer thought there should be a column “F” so that it would be marked if a question was to be eliminated from the test.  Hey, that’s a license to steal.  Mark the ones you know to be correct and then mark everything else void.  Well, surely the computer scoring these test would know which test questions were suppose to be eliminated and show that a “fraud” had been committed.  Nope, not on your tintype.  He “aced” the test with three questions marked correct.  Well the colonel was impressed and gave him a three day pass.  When he got back, having less than a month to serve, he told them how he got that perfect score.  The shit hit the fan, as it always does, and the worst they could do was not to recommend him for re-enlistment.  Do you detect a bit or irony?

 

As for myself, I pulled two great feats when I was overseas.  The first started out innocent enough.  The Squadron had crammed four men into two man rooms.  Compared to the other services, that might have been considered a luxury.  Basic training had been the standard open bay barracks and training school had been eight man to a room.  Three men to our room was tolerable and the last one in, or two, in this case had their lockers out in the hallway.  Quite inconvenient not to mention the lack of privacy we thought our due.  So as we lost one roommate I decided to replace the door tag with a new name.  I gave the man a serial number (the first four numbers determine where a man enlisted), gave him a rank, and gave him a duty station.  I really didn’t expect to fool anyone, just a little prank.  As luck would have it, I lost the other two roommates about two months later.  Hey, we hadn’t been burdened with a replacement for the fourth man, why not try it again for two more fake airmen?  So I make up two more door tags and placed them in the slots.  Well, a month went by and no new roommate.  I was enjoying my streak of luck and it was nice to have a room all to myself.  Since my shift was graveyard I had a sign to that effect on the door to forestall any inspection, not that one of the friendly sergeants wouldn’t have come in anyway, but at least if they did they came in quietly.  Now the other thing I did was to get extra sheets and blankets and kept the beds made.  Lhe lockers all had locks on them.  And nothing like a few personal affects like pictures of girlfriends.  I mean, if you want the prank to work you need to take care of the details.  You know, I got away with that charade for a little more than four months.  Then one day the first sergeant caught up with outside my door.  The poor man had been lying in wait.  He came up to the door and asked about one name.  Who is this guy and what do you know about him?  I said I work graveyard and never saw him.  Then he asked about the other two.  Well, I said, I really don’t pal around with them at all.  He then asked me a direct question.  These airmen, they don’t exist, do they?  Ah sarge, you got me.  You’ll have two new roommates this afternoon was all he said and left.  I found out that there had been quite a few queries back to the various departments searching for these people.  the name were in the file and so were the serial numbers, but nothing matched.  At least he earned his pay for a few months.

 

I worked in communications as what we termed “Titless WAF”, that’s a teletype operator.  It also encompasses telephone operator as well.  Both of these specialities, such as one could expect, were hardly cutting edge technology.  But back in 1967 and 68 digital transmission was just starting it’s infancy.  We had a couple pieces of IBM equipment, things today’s techie has never seen or touched, but were new and exciting.  I learned how to program a 407 accounting machine using the wire straps.  I worked on the graveyard shift and message traffic was a bit slow.  So I read the manual and played with the machine.  The 026 keypunch was another piece of equipment and I learned how I could automate card cutting (punching out the holes in the IBM card),  and we had the 089 sorter.  But the piece of equipment that fascinated me was the 3654 Duplex/Simplex Transmission unit.  That was the machine that one either sent digital transmissions by using IBM cards or received digital transmission by it cutting IBM cards.  After about six months I had my own little duty station all to myself.  The fact was, the sergeant who taught me rotated back to the states and I was the only one who knew how to operate the machines.  Every once in a while I got dragged in during the day or evening to take care of something important, but this was my “command”, as it were.  Here, I was king, I was “sarge” to everyone else.  That went on for some eight months.  Then one day I was called in and told I had stateside orders.  I had to hurry up and get all the red tape paperwork done and don’t bother to come back to the comm center.  I had only three days to get out of Dodge.  You can guess what happened?  There was no one to replace me and I hadn’t trained anyone.  It never occurred the the master sergeant to see that another airman knew how to operate those machines.  Well, what do you want, he had been a tail gunner in a B-28 bomber in Korea.  SNAFU, if I remember correctly.

Another Crazy Day

Dream the night away and forget about everything, Yes, forget about everything.  Did you ever what to change your life, leave the rat race and go somewhere, anywhere.  Find some town where your soul meant something.  For me it was Mendicino, the town, the county, the ideal of living free.  I wanted out of he rat race, out of that crowded suburbia so many people call living.  I had a dream about buying some land, somewhere I could settle down in that simple way.  Chop wood, haul water, if I remember the book.  Sometimes I still dream about it, sometimes I listen in the night and create that sense of change I always wanted and never quite managed.  You know what I mean?  Sure you do.  We all had that dream, those of us who mattered in the late sixties.  But dreams take money and I had none.  What else is new?  The young never have the money for their dreams.  So we settle for what we can get.

 

I settled for working for the phone company as a lineman and cable splicer.  Craft work, union work, physical work.  I hired on at just above minimum wage, I could reach the exalted top wage of seven dollars in five years.  Think of it, seven dollars an hour.  My god, I remember when three dollars an hour was a decent wage.  But that was before I paid my dues to Uncle Sam, back when three dollars was a good wage and got you a decent apartment and a nice girlfriend and a good car, better than the 55 Buick Century I had at the time.  Hey, the thing was fast enough, could do Columbus to Cincinnati in an hour and ten minutes, about a hundred miles an hour.  Two years later I acquired a wife and nine months later we had a daughter.  We struggled financially before I got the job with the phone company.  Some part time work, then a real nasty minimum wage job.  difficult to make ends meet when you’re young and have so many wants.  We bought a house, really more than I could afford and the bills were starting to pile up.  Trying to be middle class is like a solid gold trap.  Your foot gets caught and you become afraid to chew it off to free yourself.  I picked up what overtime was given me, that helped out financially but she complained when I worked a few hours late or a Saturday.  Said I didn’t love her enough.  After four years of marriage we called it quits.  Broke even on the sale of the house and moved her into an apartment in another city.

 

So that solid gold trap got a little tarnish and bent up but the teeth bit into my ankle harder.  Child support, Montessori summer school for my daughter to help out on child care, some clothes shopping here and there.  Playing weekend father, man, that was the worst.  It gets to you after awhile.  Then she finds another man and he’s playing real daddy.  Bastard!  Later I find out he was a real bastard, would sometime become physically abusive.  Bastard!  No, man, got to keep my head down, got to work what overtime I can get.  She got the car, so I walk to work, just a couple of blocks from my apartment, a dive, bad neighborhood.  It’s a lonely time,  a very lonely time.  Take the bus to community college at night, got to advance in the company, need to make foreman if a position ever opens up.  At least it occupies my time, gets me out of the apartment.  A couple more raises where the Union COLA kicks in, inflation just eats that up.  You know, you’re making more and consuming less.  I feel like I’m running as fast as I can but I don’t get anywhere.  The VA college payments help, keeps me even for now.

 

Mother Earth News is like an escapist Disneyland.  Yeah, go back to living off the land but I still need a day job and I work in the city.  Besides, it takes money to buy raw land.  Oh, I know all about this new way of living.  got to pay cash for the land because the bank won’t lend money against raw land.  and if you want to build that log cabin you need some timberland with trees, big trees.  You know how many trees it takes to build a simple 500 square foot cabin?  so I put in for a transfer to the country areas.  ain’t no openings and the company has frozen everyone in place for the next two to five years.  So I’m still stuck in my trap, the rent keeps getting higher every year, and the ex has moved to Utah.  Lucky if I can see my daughter a couple times a year, fly her out at my expense.  Just as long as it’s not on holidays.  Big deal that, family comes first.  I’m just a single dad pretending he has a child and paying for the pretense.

 

My dream won’t go away.  I took a couple of trips to where I want to be, but every time I’m there and see the happy people living my dream I feel that knife plunge deeper in my heart.  I’ve got a little money saved, maybe a couple thousand but land prices keep rising.  My dream keeps slipping into the future.  Gone through a couple of girl friends but that’s about all.  None seem to stick and only one ever thought much about my dream.  They all talked about careers and family and I talk about dreams.  Yeah, I’m a rolling stone in a sea of romance.  Every year I get a little older and every year Mendicino gets a little further, must be close to a million miles by now.  These old dreams never die a natural death.  And Mother Earth News changed, I stopped reading it years ago as it became quite the commercial success, becoming the very thing it was against.  We’ve all changed, even the land has gotten yuppified.  Think of it, wineries, bed and breakfast places, commercial retreats for the novice artists and writers.  And me?  I’ve been priced out of my dream.  Oh, it’s still there, like all our old dreams, it lingers alike a long and slow death, haunting our memories.  At least I’m out of the city, sort of.  Found a small community that is rural like enough for my childhood memories and distant enough from city life.  Even got me a wife that likes much of what I like.  Anyway, this reality is nice, I like it.  We’re happy enough.  I might even settle down and forget about everything.

Long Time Gone

It”s been a long time coming and it’s going to be a long time gone. Youth never knows where it’s headed until some outside action points to the direction one is suppose to take, required to take. At least that is what my invitation to join Uncle Sam’s merry band of pranksters said. It had taken the selective Service board to find, me, catch up to my lack or wherewithal.  I looked at Jeanne, those tears were over the loss of puppy more than the loss of a love affair.  I was being rescued and I knew that things would never be the same.  If not the draft, then the problem of a pregnancy and years of low wage unskilled labor would be our reward.  No, Uncle sam was doing us both a favor and we both knew it.  You know haw that goes, you gotta put on the show that somehow you cared because it is required and makes both your lives seem noble.  It’s the mid sixties, for god’s sake, we’re supposed to have these noble dreams.  Still, three years is a long time gone, a long time for a young man and a young woman.

 

So there I stood, suitcase at my feet, packed with what few portable luxuries I could afford to bring.  She was worried that I would be sent to Viet Man to die in some rice paddy.  I told her it would take six months before they would even consider sending me.  Well, at least I meant that much to her.  But I knew it wasn’t me, I wasn’t the one she saw herself settled down to for thirty or forty years of marriage.  I couldn’t conceive of twenty years of marriage, let alone ten.  Hell, I couldn’t conceive of marriage right now in the next six months.  No, I knew this breakup was a long time coming, it had no where else to go.  I mean, what was the point?  No, we both deserved better.  she with her mother’s influence, call it the reality of being dominated, manipulated.  I instinctively knew the pattern, my mother tried her best to manipulate me.  I was a hard sell, a tough customer to close.  So here I was at the Greyhound station waiting for the bus that would take me to the airport, would take me out of my adolescent years and put me on the road to manhood.  Yeah, I had some idea what was in store.  Shaved heads, marching all day, sergeants yelling at you all the time.  Yeah, that premonition of something worse than football summer camp and three or four practices a day.  Marriage wasn’t as easy to figure and I didn’t want to try.

 

The bus pulled in, the driver took my suitcase and placed it in the belly.  I gave her a quick kiss, nothing longer, nothing prolonged like the movies show you’re suppose to do.  I knew it would be a long time before I came back.  I didn’t want to come back.  I was breaking my ties for something unknown and I knew it.  I just didn’t know what.  Yes, I’ll write.  Everybody writes, it’s a fact of loneliness.  But what would I write?  Did I miss you?  You were handy, comfortable to have around.  Yeah, you can spend all your love making time and wasn’t that what we had done for the past year?  So she waves, sheds a tear or two, draws back from the platform, waiting for the final curtain.  The other passengers are now aboard and the driver has closed the door.  As we pull out, I see her turn around and head for her mother’s car, the canary yellow Buick coupe.  She always called it the Yellow Bird, as if it had some soul of it’s own.  I think it was a projection of her own wish, to be her own person.  Momma wouldn’t permit that.  Momma had control over the family fortune and that meant no matter what Jeanne wanted momma would decide what was best.  Yeah, I bet she could kick some friendly sargeant ass any day of the week.

 

An hour later the bus pulled into the airport unloading zone.  Inside I met the recruiting sergeant with his sharp pressed uniform.  He handed me a vanilla envelope with the paperwork for the six of us traveling on to the next city.  My name is low on the alphabet so I am appointed in charge of the other five.  So make me an officier.  It wouldn’t be the first time that the alphabet gave me a “command”, for what it’s worth.  Half an hour later we are on board the aircraft headed for basic training.  No brass band, just a welcome from the stewardess.  Yes, that is what they were called back then.  Bought myself a whiskey sour for the ride, it’d be a long time before I would ever have another.  Another two hours and we would land near the basic training base.  Another bus ride, late night assembly and official swearing in, barricks assignment.  In the morning we would find our assignments and be marched by one of the friendly sergeants to that company headquarters where a disinterested captain or lieutenant would tell us what a great adventure awaited us in his company and by the way, don’t fuck up.  Yes, we are ushered into the world of hurry up and wait.  Later I find it’s just like marriage, but that’s another story.  Right now we have to go through the various buildings to get our shots, our clothes, and some chow between the buildings.  then it’s to the barracks where we will spend twelve weeks learning how to spit shine boots and march in formation.  Time enough to learn how to fire a rifle, qualify as markman, and learn how to break it down and clean it.  Yeah, lots of busy work and maybe a sunday to write someone.

 

Mail call and you stand in formation at ease, smoke em if you got em.  God, I quit that habit just to take it back up again, what a waste.  She got the address from my mother, helpful woman.  Some get mail, most don’t.  In another week more mail will show up.  We got all kinds in our company, even one we have to give a shower party, a special invite, so to speak.  Yeah, this is democracy and we are all the same, except for the friendly sergeants who are god, just ask them.  A few more letters and a fem more exchanges of lies.  We graduate from boot camp, as if we had a choice in the matter.  Now it is off to whatever school, from AIT to electronics to Mp or cook school.  One has to be real low IQ to be assigned as a cook or MP.  the cooks are always the little guys while the MPs are always the big guys, go figure.  Then six months later and it’s off to Hell, her fears came true.  I don’t mind, I know she is ready to find Mr Right, or at least the approved individual her mother selects.  so I head for southeast asia and she heads for the approved man in her life.  Life has a way of being perverse in an almost unintelligible way.  He would be no where near Mr Right.  He would beat her, beat the children, go on alcoholic binges, and then when he saw the light, would be dead from a heart attack six months later.  I never got so much as a scratch in my year of hell.  Go figure.