Memories

  Reality My plane landed at Lambert field at 6:42 am after an overnight flight from Los Angeles. That was the last leg of a very long flight originating in Honolulu the previous morning. My three-year stint in the US Army ended with little fanfare. On day I was an olive drab soldier at the end of the Viet Nam era and the next day I was back in civvies. I had avoided serving in Viet Nam. Thank God for that. I knew lots of guys who went to “the Nam” and came back different. It was like they were shell-shocked some of the time. There was a distant look in their eyes some of the time only to be brought back to awareness of their surroundings by interaction with their Army buddies. To a man, they found refuge in either booze or marijuana. Sometimes both. I found that same refuge but not from war. My demons weren’t nearly as traumatic, but they were still there. The girl at the end of the rainbow in Pago Pago had rejected me. I was home now. Back to the womb. Back to a little suburb j

During this pandemic-induced quiet time I have been viewing old photos and digital images, reminiscing about the roads I have travelled both literally and figuratively.  While the vehicles a person drives isn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things, especially if you aren’t really a “go faster grease monkey” as we used to say, the perspective during ownership can have an impact on your personality. In a previous blog entry, I mentioned that I got a job when I was 15 years old as a broiler cook at Buckaroo Steak Ranch which was about 5 miles from my house.  Without a driver’s license or transportation, I was relegated to hitchhiking to work either from home or from High School each day that I worked.  While not a full-time job, I still worked 4 or 5 nights a week, usually from 4 to 10 pm.  I never participated in school activities.  I didn’t go to football games or prom, and I didn’t date a pom- pom girl. I changed jobs after about a year, moving on to

The title of my story is “White Bread in a Whole Wheat World” and I have brought back memories of the places I went, the things I did, and the people I met along the way.   Hindsight is here in 2022 and todays’ vision is so much clearer to me than it was when it was happening.   Ain’t that the way it always is.   Certainly, it is for me. I can look back on it and see with some clarity that some of who I am today is a result of situations both within and beyond my control, decisions I made and how I reacted to both.   Some decisions were spur of the moment.   Some were simple rebellion.   Some were because of my insecurities.   Some were for immediate gratification.   Some were affected by alcohol and drug abuse.   Some were for my future.   Some were for love, or sex or just a need to be close to a woman. There were some good decisions too, though they don’t counterbalance the bad ones.   I had the basic morals that were taught by family and a Catholic education, so I

I know the Army was having trouble keeping people as the war wound down. They had a Lieutenant in the company who asked me twice if I wanted to re-enlist and offered me bonuses to stay.   This was ludicrous because I was not a good soldier and they should have known that by now.   I had a terrible attitude even though in my own mind I was fairly intelligent compared to my comrades in arms. Every draftee and many of the regular Army guys like myself had a “short calendar.”   My enlistment was 3 years and I had one that covered 1972, 1973 and 1974.   I started mine about 6 months into the enlistment, knowing even then that the military life was not for me and I just needed to mark my time until I was discharged and could get on with my life.   In looking at my calendar you could see the gradual angst that developed by how my daily hash marks were marked off in pen.   It was unlucky to start counting the days until you were into your last year. My Short Calendar

The job at Liberty House was a lot of fun and very easy.   We designed and put displays of merchandise together in a way that encouraged the customer to buy.   We dressed mannequins, hung signs, smoked dope and made bongs in the back room workshop. Chuck liked to do the high fashion displays but he made me do the women’s lingerie displays because he didn’t really care for girls’ underwear and I had limited experience but was an apt learner. He was such a prude. While working in the different departments I got to know a slightly older married woman named Dorothy Litara Yokomoto who was the manager of the women’s clothing department.   Everyone called her Doty.   She was 27 years old and very petite and quite pretty.   There was a little spark between us and I asked her to go out into the mall for lunch.   Soon thereafter it was nearly every day.   After lunch we would take a walk and spend time talking.   Talking let to kissing. Over time I learned that she was very unhappy in

With my new hours as CQ I had so much more free time that I decided to get a civilian job and make some extra money. The Army pay for a Spec 4 wasn’t gonna cut it.   Jobs were advertised in the classifieds of the newspaper back in the day and I found one in a restaurant.   I applied and was hired as a Busboy on the spot.   It was a high volume coffee shop that featured fresh baked pies adjacent to a shopping mall.   With my cooking experience I thought for sure I’d be a cook in no time but it was not to be.   They needed full time cooks and I had to have a special schedule, and they didn’t serve much steak so there wasn’t a demand for a broiler cook.   After about a month I went back to the classifieds and applied for a job at a Liberty House Department Store in the mall as an Assistant Display Artist.   I was always good at art and drawing in school and convinced them that I could learn on the job and again, they hired me on the spot.   Interestingly that display experience c