Memories

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 tha...

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. ...

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...

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.   ...

I remember getting off the plane in Honolulu and being immersed into the scene from the Hawaii Five-0 TV show.   It was warm but not hot.   Men and women wore bright flowered shirts and dresses and palm trees swayed gently in the breeze.   I got into a cab that would take me to the base which was located northwest of Honolulu near the little town of Wahiawa.   I hadn’t done any research on where I was going. I only knew it was Hawaii...surfer dudes and hula girls!   I had no conception of multiple islands with different names, what the culture was like or how far it was out across the Pacific Ocean except what I saw on TV.  In the cab I remember seeing a sign that read King Kamehameha Highway.   I thought to myself “how the hell do you pronounce that?”   In my mind it was Commy Hommy Hah.   What did I know. Schofield Barracks was at the base of a range of mountains that ran along the west coast of the island.   For history buffs y...