Love and High School

It was a time of '55 Chevy's, and dances in the old wooden gym. Rock and Roll top 40 on the AM dial. Deep and lasting friendships. First love.
Had I not failed chemistry the year before, I wouldn't have known much of this drama, but fail I did and in need of a science unit to get into college, I took Physical Science my senior year, usually a freshman or sophomore class. Easy A, easy credit. I didn't want to ruin my senior year with a lot of effort.
My old textbook had  been used  by Carrie two years before.She was a good friend. I wouldn't have minded if she were more than that, but she was very popular.
She had penciled notes in the page margins of the old text, a kind of diary of the year she had physical science, the year she fell in love with Ben.
Ben was not a jock or a brain. He was a ladies' man. He loved the girls and for the most part, they loved him. His love notes were the stuff of legend and his romances included flowers and "our song."
At the beginning of the year, the margin notes were pensive questions, whether he would call again or take her to a movie. After a chapter or two she was asking herself if she loved him, then if he loved her.And I was hooked.
Somewhere around chapter 5, the relationship was in full swing. They sat together at lunch. He gave her rides home, even waiting for her while she was at cheerleader practice. They talked almost every night. At the dances in the old gym, they always slow danced to "Stranger on the Shore."All of this was duly recorded.
She wore his jacket during the school day. One day she carried a single rose all day. He gave her his ring, packed with paraffin to make it fit.
Spring at high school was a tumultuous time when the romances of fall and winter seemed to fall apart. It was a time when guys like me could sometimes get a date with prom queens and cheerleaders. I loved spring.
Carrie's notes became fearful. Ben hadn't called. He  was talking to other girls. He asked for his ring. The final dreaded straw; he told her they could just be friends. Her heart was broken.
I was so taken with the story that I was actually quiet and thoughtful for an entire day. My friends were almost worried.
I had asked Carrie to the next school dance, and, of course, Ben was there with his new love. Carrie was very quiet the entire night. Eventually the band played "Stranger on the Shore," and Ben walked to our table. I had recently seen "Casa Blanca,", so I told Carrie to go ahead and dance, while I grabbed a smoke. The gym grew quiet and other couples drifted to the side to watch Carrie and Ben dance.
I saw Carrie a couple of years ago. She's still pretty and has four grown children.I doubt that she has time to think of the old days, those days of "55 Chevy's. Dances in an old wooden gym. Top 40 Rock and Roll on the AM dial. Deep and  lasting friendships. First love.
I'm glad even to have played a bit part.

She Smiled at Me

A few months before I met Gale, I was Eurailing through Europe. I was on a train, delayed in Innsbruck, when I saw a train beside us begin to head out in the opposite direction. I got a wild hair, grabbed my pack and caught it on the fly. Eurail passes were good for most trains, so ticket wise I was OK.
I ended up, late that night in Zurich, in a cold blowing rain, looking for a hotel. I finally stumbled into a very upscale place that had an annex for folks like me, that is to say tiny rooms and distant bathrooms. I pushed through the front door into a crowd of people, very formally dressed. I had on 10 day jeans, a five day beard,  a slouch hat pulled down over my head, and a backpack, all dripping wet. I was freezing, hungry, and miserable.
A lady was standing with her escort among the more fortunate clientele. She was tiny, with long honey blond hair, and she had violet colored eyes. Her dress was velvet, the color of red wine and she wore matching long gloves of that era. She was gorgeous!
Most of the crowd there had no reaction to me walking through them, other than stepping as far back as necessary. But she smiled. Not a small civil smile, but a real smile of greeting and understanding, and that was all that occurred between us.
I don't remember her in any romantic sense. I never believed in love at first sight, before I met my Gale, and even then it may have been love at first sound, since I think I first feel in love with her gentle voice. But sometimes, on cold rainy mornings when the thought of coffee and solitude call me awake, I watch the rain and remember that smile. I think about the lady, that I never envied her apparent wealth, status, and possible fame, But I hope that her life has been one of  peace and happiness, those things that have been so prevalent in my own life. I wish this for her in gratitude for that smile, for a lone wanderer, far from home.

Proper Attire

Early December, 1969, was a particularly rough time to be in a war. Back home the folks were getting over Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas.
Delta Co had a few firefights so we set up for a time to resupply and let our mail catch up with us. We named our camp LZ Fruitcake, due to the number of those we received. Helicopters dropped duffles of clean fatigues,almost as worn out as the ones we were wearing, but clean. No boots were delivered, so my buddy, Ceasario, had to tie his soles on with wire. Mostly we needed ammunition and thousands of rounds were dropped. Many of the cartridges were bent, dented, and rusty, so we cleaned and sorted and started a pile of stuff to be destroyed when we moved on.
Bags of mail, particularly Christmas packages, were brought in by the dozens. Mom sent me a box of Christmas ornaments. I don't know why. Despite the necessity of traveling as light as possible, I carried those ornaments until we reached our fire base where we used them to decorate a  latrine. Other guys received a variety of gifts, some actually useful, like survival knives.
One guy, Marlon, received a smoking jacket. It was of a shiny soft material, brown, paisley. We all tried it on. When we rotated for guard duty, the guy on watch got to wear the smoking jacket. Marlon wore it on patrol. He often walked point, and it was strange to see him, so nattily dressed, pass our observation post in the jungle, followed by about six grunts in ragged jungle fatigues.
Finally we were ready to walk out. We place all less useful things in to piles, stuff that would explode and stuff that wouldn't. We exploded the ordinance and set the other pile on fire. As the fire grew larger, we threw more useless stuff in. The last item to go on the pyre was Marlon's smoking jacket. A collective groan was heard in the Central Highlands on that day.

It Might Have Been

Several years ago, BC, (before children) Gale and I were traveling in the UK. We were touring the beautiful city of York and decided that since the streets were so crowded, for some reason unknown to us, that we would tour the ancient cathedral. We wandered that incredible edifice for quite a while, then noticed that we were the only people there. Very strange! We continued to look around for a while, then exited by the massive front door.
Thousands were lined up on each side of the street leading to the cathedral, waiting, as we later found out, for the Queen Mother. Apparently we had bypassed security and had no business in Yorkminster after it had been cleared by MI5 or whatever. I wonder how long we would have stayed in a British jail had we been caught.
At this point I had one of my brilliant ideas. I suggested to Gale that we walk the middle of the street, bowing and waving to all and sundry. Who the hell in York would know who we were anyway? Gale, being a bit more cautious about police and security threatened all sorts of retaliation if I took a step towards the cobbles. I bowed to discretion and fear of Gale, and stayed where I was.

The Naked Jungle

I spent most of my 20th year in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. I made a few close friends. Those were the guys that shared their last drop of water and their last packet of toilet paper with you.
One guy, of Polish decent, with a Polish name, became known, as was the military custom, as Alphabet. He was crazy as hell, and as our respective years rolled on, he became crazier.
Our commanders would send us into the jungle for various lengths of time to search out the NVA. When we were lucky, we didn't find them. These periods of time in the boondocks were about 30-45 days. After the first few days we were filthy. After a couple of weeks we could no longer smell ourselves and towards the end of the sweep we could not smell each other.
Once we set up close to a beautiful stream for a couple of days. Patrols were sent out, and a few of us at a time were allowed to bathe. Finally, Alph and I went to the river. He produced a small tube of shampoo. I rubbed some into my hair, but could only produce a light brown. scum instead of suds. With repeated rinsing and application of more shampoo, I finally got a respectable head full of suds. We then heard the guards yell that unknowns were coming toward the river. Alph and I got our boots, M-16s, and bandoliers, and found cover. The unknowns turned out to be Montagnards, aborigines who were, for the most part, allies to Americans. They looked at Alph and I and quickly went upstream to get water. Alphabet and I looked at each other; boots, rifles, bandoliers and heads full of shampoo suds. We laughed until tears rolled down our temporarily clean faces.
I wonder if there is a legend in the Central Highlands of naked white gods who grow bubbles from their heads.

A Yank in Edinburgh

After a couple of years in the army I tried college and a series of jobs. I ended up working in a bank for three years. At some point I took stock of my life and decided that I didn't have one. I made plans to see some of Europe. I was a bird out of a cage and the dollar was strong. I had "Europe on $5 a Day", a twenty one day Eurail pass, a ten day Britrail pass, a back pack, and a round trip ticket on Icelandic Air.
I loved it! It set me on fire and made me want to see the world. I went through a good bit of Western Europe, then I went to the UK. London was the most wonderful place. I stayed in Bloomsbury in a servant's room with no lock and no need for one. I discovered theatre and took the cheapest seats, somewhere above the balconies. The buildings themselves were works of art. The tube was marvelous, with wood and fabric escalators and musicians on every platform. I wandered the British Museum for a day.
I headed north and eventually found another city that I loved, Edinburgh. I wandered the city for days. In the evenings I looked for small theatres or music halls. I was attending one of these shows one night when it dawned on me that the songs were very anti British and somewhat anti American. I had mistakenly entered a Scot Separatist Socialist rally. I kept my Yank mouth shut, but I did join in a sort of Conga Line that formed in support of one of the young men who gave fiery speeches and made some wonderful jokes about American tourists and British royalty. They were a very friendly bunch. I just nodded and smiled a lot.
During that trip I got hooked on other places. I learned that this small town boy could love cities and feel quite at home in them. I learned that a country where fried potatoes were served with bad pizza was a country close to my heart. I learned that sweet Scottish ladies in a tea shop would heat soda bread,  for a stranger who could only afford a cup of tea.  I learned that socialists could really sing and dance.

The Arsonist

The summer of 1968, I was on the verge of leaving the University of Georgia, at the convenience of the University. I made an unsuccessful attempt to bolster my grade point average by taking some summer courses.
My finances and especially my parent's were at an all time low, so I got a job as a garbage man, working for the city of Athens. A number of SDSers and hippies also worked for the sanitation department.
I loved the job! I got to drive old rattle trap trucks all over that beautiful town, full of interesting people. My truck was a doorless flatbed, with dayglo blue peace signs, care of my hippy colleagues. I especially liked to make emergency garbage pick ups at the Baptist Student Union on campus. They felt sorry for me and always had sandwiches, pie, and sweet ice tea. I often played up the part of destitute student to get more goodies.
One part of my job was to haul ashes from the incinerator, on one side of town, to the land fill, across town, out of the city limits. I'd back under the chute of the incinerator and ashes and a spray of water flooded into the truck bed. The spray was meant to put out any left over sparks. I had to drive around the University.\ to get to the land fill.
My boss, Smiley, always complimented me on my driving and efficiency. Smiley was, to this day, the best of bosses. He took care of his people. He was legendary. On heavy garbage days, like water melon rind day, July 5, Smiley rolled up his sleeves on his dress shirt, tucked his tie into his belt and hauled cans with us.
One beautiful summer morning I began my first ash haul. A friend of mine saw me downtown and yelled that my truck was on fire. I looked back to see a huge wad of unburned papers smoldering, then bursting into flame. Apparently the safety features on the incinerator chute had malfunctioned.
Seeing myself as the heroic type, I figured out a way to save the city from conflagration. I cut across the university, to get to the land fill as quickly as possible. Somewhere around married housing I was stopped by three University Police cars, an Athens motorcycle cop, and a man who introduced himself as the University Safety Officer. With the exception of the Athens cop, they all began shouting. I caught a few words, like prison and arson. During the height of the yelling session I asked the Athens cop to radio Smiley. Smiley soon showed up and quietly informed the University folks to talk only to him, not to me. He looked at the truck bed, and the flames had died down some. I tried to tell him why I had chosen the route through the University, but he just told me it was OK. Smiley asked me if I'd be willing to drive to the landfill and dump the load., which is what I did. I never heard another word about the burning truck.
When I look back on my few months at the University, I actually learned little in class, but I learned a lot hauling garbage.

An Apology to My Father

Since or oldest daughter, London, was fourteen she had been very hard to get along with, especially for me. She was opinionated, stubborn, and self righteous; like me. She was also the baby we had in Okinawa, far away from family. Her first flight was on a C130. She lived in Asia and Europe before she was one. She made it easy to meet people. Many Japanese and Chinese were fascinated by her blonde hair and blue eyes. She smiled at everyone.Her first complete sentence told her Mom not to be mean to her sweet Daddy. She did the piggy face for me. She was a magic little elf in our apartment in Germany.The world revolved around the three of us.
The day came to take London to Georgia Southern. I did fine until it was time for us to go. London made it plain that our leaving meant little to her. She was now in college.
I cried so hard that Gale had to drive back. I continued to cry after we got home.
I thought of the day in 1969, when my Father took me to the airport for the first leg of my journey to Vietnam. He rarely put his foot down with Momma, but he told her in no uncertain terms that she would say goodbye at the house.
Dad and I had some problems getting along. I was opinionated, stubborn, and self righteous; like him.
He walked me to the gate, shook my hand, told me to be careful, and walked away. It didn't mean much to me. I was going to Asia! I was on an adventure! I was going to war.
In World War II, Dad was in North Africa. At some point he was in a port city, as were thousands of other Americans. By some chance, he ran into his brother Walter, who was shipping out for Italy. Walter was killed in that bloody campaign. Daddy mentioned him to me one time.
Where did he get the courage to shake my hand at the airport and walk away?