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 just north of the
city of St. Louis where I grew up. Where my parents live with my brothers and
sisters. Where I kissed my first girl, lost my virginity, drank my first
six-pack and where I had held five jobs in restaurants as a broiler cook.
The Army was supposed to provide me with new
opportunities. I thought, at the time, that I wanted to be a cop. But then the
Army made me a cop and I realized that I might have a testosterone deficiency.
Cops are generally tough guys with hard and fast rules about right and wrong
based on the law. I guess I was tough enough, but I didn’t have the black and
white mentality that was required to be a good cop. I didn’t mind bending the
law a little bit now and again myself, so I certainly wasn’t the best candidate
to enforce it.
Upon my return to the ‘real’ world I swore that I was done with restaurants. I could broil a
mean steak to the perfect temperature, bake a Russet potato, grill up some
Texas Toast and sauté a batch of mushrooms and onions, but those skills would
not propel me to the fabulous career that I knew I was destined for.
I hadn’t stayed in touch with my buddies from high
school and had only seen them on two leaves that I’d taken over the three years
in the service. My first night back I called Mort, a guy who always had
something going on. He said “Come by the house. We are having a party tonight.
Everybody would love to see you.”
It was like I’d never left. I could pick right up
where I left off. Sure, a lot had happened to me outside of the bubble but not
much had changed on the home front. Mort had gotten married to a nice girl. He
had worked at a dry cleaner but now he was selling furniture at Crossroads. His
older brother Mike had dated my sister Sue and now worked at a hospital as an
attendant. He got to wear a white uniform and push patients from room to room
for tests and surgical procedures. George, found his calling as a union
electrician’s apprentice, making really good money and another buddy, Jerry was
a member of the Teamsters Union driving a truck.
My Dad let me stay at the family home but told me I’d
need to find a place of my own in a couple of weeks. The house was still full
of six kids and two adults, so I didn’t mind the nudge. I had $600.00 to my
name; not much savings after three years crunching crime. I found a 1963 Ford
Galaxy in fair condition for half of my money, so I needed to find a job soon.
The source for all gainful employment at the time was
the St. Louis Post Dispatch want-ads. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be a
cook or a cop, so what else was there?
How about “Flight Attendant?” Why not. It was sexy,
and so was I. I still had short hair and a very light beard that I shaved
almost every day. I was amiable, friendly, but not chatty. I was perfect, I
thought. They were holding a hiring fair at the Ramada Inn on the Rock Road,
and I put on my best print shirt and tie with my wide-wail corduroy pants and a
light blue jacket with stitched wide lapels. I followed the signs from the
lobby and sat in a room with about fifty other airline wannabees for several
hours. Finally, I made it to the interview which lasted about five minutes.
They would call me.
That same week I applied for three other positions.
Porter. I didn’t really know what a porter did, but I needed a job. Grocery
bagger at Mr. J’s IGA. The manager said I was older than most of their baggers
who were still in high school. Vacuum cleaner salesman? Once I got there, I knew
sales wasn’t for me, but I stayed for the interview. The phone didn’t ring.
My Dad had always had this thing about people who were
“on the dole.” He was quite vocal about it throughout my wonder years stating
many times that people must work for what they get in life. Nothing is free.
Maybe that was why he found me a job as a broiler cook at Buckaroo Steak House
at age fifteen.
Now at almost twenty-two years old, recently separated
from Uncle Sam’s fighting force, I was unemployed with no skills to speak of
and needed to find the nearest unemployment office so I could cash in on all
that free money the ‘Guv Ment’ was givin’ out. But Dad didn’t have to know.
Well, it wasn’t like a windfall or nothin’. One
hundred and ten dollars a week was barely beer money, but I got my first check
and continued the job search. Security guard looked promising, but it only paid
$3.50 an hour and you had to work over-nights and weekends. They loved ex-military,
and the uniforms were slick, but it was too close to what I’d just escaped from
as an MP.
The Wednesday edition of the Post-Dispatch had an ad
for a new restaurant that was opening on Graham Road. It was a new concept
shaking up the not-so-fine dining experience called Steak & Ale. I hated
the idea of going back into restaurants, but I applied. Of course, they wanted
me to be a broiler cook but I said I was tired of getting off work late at
night and smelling like a steak and having “hat-head.” The interviewer asked me
about “hat head” and I told her it was the way your hair was pressed against
your head after a long shift sweating it out in a hot kitchen. I said I wanted
to work in the front and asked if they would train me to be a bartender.
Instead, I was offered a position as a waiter, and I took it. Only one more
unemployment check was cashed, and I was back in the restaurant business.
The uniforms we were required to wear sucked. It was
an ‘Old English” look with fluffy sleeved white shirts, Black knickers, and white
knee socks. We had our own black shoes, and they gave us buckles with elastic
straps that attached. We were quite fetching.
They had great training and ran a tight ship. I met
some great people and some that were not so great. In our off hours there was a
lot of drinking and smoking dope. That was life in 1975.
I started Junior College again in the fall, taking
courses to get an Associates Degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism. Unfortunately,
my study skills, such as they were in high school, were left somewhere on the
rocky road I had travelled, and I floundered.
I did, eventually, get trained as a bartender at Steak
& Ale but lasted only a few months, leaving their employ after being
overheard saying something critical about management. Life lesson learned. Keep
your big mouth shut.
Then it was on to Stag & Hound, another similar
establishment, but that was short-lived because, according to my favorite newspaper,
Disco was coming to Florissant, Missouri.
Before I left Hawaii, I spent many a night hanging out
at bars in Honolulu. Disco, with its high energy dance vibe, bright flashing
lights and scantily clad members of the opposite sex was new, hot and alluring.
It was also considerably more expensive for GIs to drink at a Disco, especially
after having to pay a cover charge. But we would get our buzz on earlier at the
Sandcastle Bar where the Primo Beer was only $6.00 a pitcher, then slide on
down to the Waikiki Majestic to scope the beautiful babes and dance, if we
could actually get anyone to give a GI a second look. So, I knew about Disco.
Truth be told though, I was a Rock n ’Roller, not that
fond of Donna Summer, KC & the Sunshine Band or Chaka Khan. And I hated the
damn Village People. My bands were Black Sabbath and R.E.O. Speedwagon. But
what the hell…
I thought that the name “Something Else” was strange.
But what did I know?
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