I cannot remember when I was first taken to a "bowling alley". I know it was in the 1950's, so I was younger than 10... I'll never forget the place, it was on Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in a building called the Rodman Center. It was small, maybe six lanes, and still had manual pin-setting, where a guy would crouch behind a wall a foot, or two, behind the machine, clear away the downed pins, put them back in the Machine, and return the ball. Guys would do it for five cents per line (ten frames), per bowler. It is worth noting that in the mid-1950's, you could buy a tract-house for under $10,000, a car for under $1,000, and gas was between 10 and 20 cents per gallon. Mom and Dad would bowl once a week in a league.
The Rodman Center was a pretty cool place, though. It had a movie theater (that my dad worked at part-time), a gym, swimming pool, snack bar, barber shop, library, and a bunch of offices that never seemed to be open. The bowling alley was on the second floor, and was actually above the swimming pool. I always wondered if that had any effect on the wooden lanes...
When we moved to Vacaville, and actually got into our house, it was a quarter-mile (through the orchards behind us) from our house to Vaca Bowl. I started to hang out at the Bowl, and started getting to know a whole lot of people. One was a kid whose Dad managed the Bowl, and I got hired to be a Porter/Pin Chaser for $1.65 an hour. I'd work 20 hours a week, make $33 bucks a week (before taxes), somewhere around $45 every two weeks after. I soon found an easier way to make at least $25 per week (more with tips) tax-free cash money, and quit.
In the Fall of 1966, I got into the AJBC (American Junior Bowling Congress), became part of a three-man team, and competed. I was no novice, we'd gone bowling as a family many times, but it was the first time that it ever counted for anything... To be honest, I wasn't very good. I couldn't throw the ball the same way twice, and I didn't know [Schmidt] about the science of the game. I did like the competition and the game itself, so I started keeping score for league play, and watching people bowl from 6:30 to 11 pm. Sundays through Thursdays (that's how I made the $25 a week). I began to really watch the better bowlers, and started to notice similarities and differences, and increased my vocabulary by hundreds of Anglo-Saxon expletives. When I'd remember to try new things when I practiced, I started to develop a pretty good bowling form, and my average went from 100 - 110 to 150+ in a couple of years. I was pretty happy, my dad averaged 150, so we were competitive, and would often challenge each other. That was 1966 through '70.
Despite any rumors, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers do NOT have bowling alleys aboard, period. Therefore, I didn't bowl much from 1971 to 1974 (my tour of duty aboard USS INDEPENDENCE (CVA-62), I was either at sea, or drunk most of the time, so some time went by.
In 1975, I joined a team called "The Thugs" on a league for the folks at Fleet Combat Directions Systems Training Center, Pacific, or FCDSTCP (later shortened to FCTCP, the joke being that we lost Direction). We were in the league for a couple of years, and I joined a group of Electronic Warfare weenies on a team named "HEWS Corp" (short for "Heavy Electronic Warfare Specialist Corporation). After I joined, it became "HEWS +1," and I raised my average to the mid-160's, which was pretty good for a once-a-week bowler.
In 1979, I was transferred to New Orleans, LA, and we set up housing in Slidell, across the Causeway. I worked Fridays from 4 pm. to midnight, Saturdays from Noon to Midnight, and Sunday from Noon until the Naval Personnel Center, in Washington, DC, shut down for maintenance (usually sometime about 10 pm.). I was responsible for the weekend updates, ensuring that the proper set of programs ran in a set order, and dealing with anything that prevented the program from running effectively. Sometimes that meant calling a programmer at home, and getting the OK to run certain patches to these huge data dumps. I would kick off a weekend by scheduling a certain program to run on the DC IBM-360 computer system, which would, as a part of the program, call up other programs, or series of programs. This linked series would run for most of a weekend, and once set in motion, the Scheduler had nothing to do but check the operating status of the programs, noting when each completed with a Status Code of "0000". I was off, Monday thru Thursday totally, and until 4 pm on Fridays.
No one gets rich as an Enlisted man, and all too often (particularly in the late-'70's/early-'80's) there would be too much month at the end of the money. Many of us took part-time jobs, and I was not yet 30, so I looked for a bowling alley, thinking my knowledge of pin-setting machines might come in handy.
There were two bowling alleys in town, actually, Pontchartrain Lanes was a 24-lane establishment built into a former car dealership. The bar was literally in the Showroom, and was, in fact, called "The Showroom Lounge". The lanes were put over the old service-bay, with the pin-setters accessible either by climbing through the masking units, or going around to a door in the back. The back-end, the mechanic's office, wasn't insulated, and the only cooling unit was a "swamp cooler" that didn't cool. New Orleans is sort of on the Gulf Coast. In the summer, it gets really hot, and a favorite pastime is to see which will hit 100 first, the temperature or the humidity. Make no mistake, I think swamp coolers are great, we had one in a house in Vacaville, and darned-near froze to death one summer when it was 90 - 108 degrees outside, but less than 20% humidity. In the Gulf Coast area, a swamp cooler is just plain stupid.
When I walked in, the owner and two of his nephews had a handful of parts on the counter, and five pin-setters that didn't work. When I had the chance, I asked the owner if he was hiring, to which he replied, "I've got five lanes down, and a league coming at six. If you can get those lanes up, I'll hire you." I wish I could tell you I got them all, but I did get 4 out of the 5 up and running, and got the job as a mechanic. I worked during the day, Monday through Friday, and made some pretty good money on the side, in addition to my exorbitant military salary.
After awhile, the owner hired a real Head mechanic, a guy named Dave Forewood. Dave was a nice guy, a very good mechanic, and an excellent bowler. After work one night, I decided to see if I could substitute, or pace bowl for someone who was absent. It turned out, Dave had a team in the Men's League, and needed someone to bowl. That night, I rolled a 175 and a 182, but missed the first game, so I had a 357 series for two games, (an average of 178). Dave and the other guys on the team asked me if I wanted to fill the empty spot on their roster, and I agreed. The next week, I rolled my first-ever 600 series, a 608, all three games over 200. The following week I rolled my second 600 series, a 646, a little over 210 per game. I'd never bowled three games over 200, and I was on a streak of six-in-a-row. It didn't last, I ended the league with a 185 average, and started to do some practice during my lunch. Dave would come up front, and give me some tips. He said my mechanics were good, I just needed to find a "mark" (a spot on the lane) that I could hit consistently, and would take the ball to the headpin. He had me lined up with my left foot on the center dot on the approach, and swinging the ball out to the 10th board in from the right gutter (it's the second "arrow" from the right gutter). First ball was an 8-count, second, third, and fourth were 9-counts, a 5-pin, and two 7-pins. Before the fifth ball, Dave moved me a fraction to the right, not even half of a board, and hit the same mark. Fifth ball, strike, six, seven, eight, nine, all strikes.
That summer, during a league, I averaged 228, and shot my first 700 series, a 715, or an average of 238 for 3 games. It seemed like I would alternate, a big 600 series one week, a 700 the next. I got good enough to be invited to the opening of Don Carter Lanes in New Orleans, and take part in a Pro-Am. I was paired with a guy from Memphis, TN by the name of Steve Martin. It was an accident (that's what the tournament director said), but we hit it off immediately, and came in 3rd. I don't remember the name of the Pro on the lanes next to us, but he whined and bitched the whole time, and said that "Amateurs had no place bowling with Professionals."
By the end of the tournament, I was so sick of his BS, I called him out. "You're too f-ing good to play alongside regular people?" To which he answered, "I can beat you anytime, any place."
I flipped out. "You mean to tell me that you can come into MY house and beat ME?"
"Anytime, any place."
"OK, big guy, the time is 11 tonight, and the place is Pontchartrain Lanes. Bring money, lots of money. Cash only."
Long story short, I took him for 5 straight games, at $20 a game, so he decided to try a "double or nothing on the hundred bucks..." I took him for $200, and then $400, he decided to back down to just $100 per game. All told, I took $2,000 from him, and totally humiliated him.
1981 comes, and I get transferred to a Pre-Commissioning crew for USS MCKEE (AS-41), and didn't bowl again until '83, when I started a league in San Diego, and brought a team into the Naval Training Center, San Diego Varsity League. In '84, I was transferred back to FCTCP, rejoined that league, and was always fighting for the High Average award for the League. In '87, we moved to Monterey, CA, and I never had time to bowl, working 12-hour shifts, and working part-time at the Ft. Ord Golf Course.
After I retired from the Navy in 1991, I worked in bowling alleys full-time to help finance my full-time college studies, and support my family. Every once in a while, I'd bowl, but I didn't join a league again until 2002, when I joined a school district league here in Vacaville, at the bowling alley I helped build, and did OK. Of course, this was after a stroke in 2002, so bowling was more like physical therapy.
In 2004, I bowled in my last league. Another teacher's league, where I really started to get back to bowling 200's regularly. On the last night of the league, they had us bowling "Moonlight No-Tap," in the dark, where knocking down 9 pins counts as a strike. I had a 250-something, and a 279, going into the last game. I rolled a Perfect Game, 300, without using the No-Tap. A total of 12 strikes, regulation strikes. Two days later, the bowling alley closed, and I had to have a note to get my equipment out of a locker. Needless to say, I never got my 300 ring, and only got an 800 Series money clip because they had one at the desk. Neither accomplishment shows anywhere in the ABC records.
That's been it for me, bowling-wise. Back problems have prohibited me from playing, and I've sold everything but my bowling shoes. Now that my back problems are better, maybe I'll try it again. Not just now, though...
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Monday, October 16, 2017
Life as a Professional Scorekeeper
My first job, the one where I was paid an hourly wage and got a regular check, was as a "Pinchaser" at the old Vaca Bowl, on Peabody, near the intersection of Elmira Road. I was paid a whopping $1.65 per hour, which was the minimum wage in 1966. I'd work 4-5 hours, 3-4 days per week, so taking the maximum, I would work 20 hours per week for a total of $33.00 per week, which was OK for a kid, back when gasoline was $.25 to $.40 per gallon, bread was $.17, and milk was considerably less than a buck per gallon. The government took a big bite out of it, and I'd get about $90 net. every month... I cleaned up the concourse, emptied trash cans, helped the night mechanic by running "calls" if he had to spend some time on a pinsetter, kicked "deadwood" back into the "pit," and anything else necessary to keep the place running clean.
It was, actually, a much better job than it sounds. First and foremost, I learned a skill (working on Brunswick A-2 pinsetters) that would become a means of making "part-time" money. Secondly, it introduced me to the world of bowling in which I made a little "extra" part-time money when we lived in Slidell, LA (I carried an "Average" of over 210, and, when primed with three beers, regularly broke 700 for a 3-game series. We'd have "Pot Games" after the lanes closed, and I frequently won).
I only worked the Porter-gig for a summer, but I still "worked" at the Bowl for the next three years, as a league scorekeeper. The scorekeeper was responsible for tracking the scores of from six to ten bowlers, writing them with a grease pencil, on a sheet of vinyl that had the bowling score sheet permanently printed on them. These eventually gave way to a sort of frosted paper that the lights of the telescore (essentially a table with a bright lamp underneath, and a mirror and lens housing that was about head-high when sitting, it projected league scores on the big screens above the lanes) could pass through, and scoring could be done with a regular pencil. Trust me, I had to clean the vinyl sheets, when I was a Porter, and it was always a mess, even scorekeepers griped about having yellow fingers at the end of the evening, so this was a big change. The technology stayed that way until the 1980's, when the first computerized bowling machines became available. By that time, I was in the Navy. The last Bowling Center I was in (one I had helped to build) had electronic scorekeeping which was done by a laser scanner, triggered by a ball passing an electric-eye.
Scorekeepers earned 10-cents per person, per game, and were paid by the League Secretary towards the end of the second game. Leagues had three to five people on each team, so I could make $1.20 to $2.00 for about two hours work, plus tips (if any). Most teams, as a general rule, would throw a quarter per-man in the cup holder in front of the scorekeeper, if they did an adequate job, an extra $2.00 to $2.50 each series. Most nights, Vaca Bowl was "double shifted," meaning one league (or set of leagues) would start at 6:30 pm, and second shift at 9. If you were a "good" scorekeeper, you'd have teams ask if you would keep score for them on a regular basis. That was a really good thing, because the team you "regular" for would usually leave big tips. If you were "REAL good," like me, you'd get big tips from both teams, have a "regular" spot every night, and have teams that fought for you. Yeah, I sound fairly conceited about it, but the fact is, I was "The Best Scorekeeper" ever to work at the Bowl, and here's why... 1). I was a avid bowler, and really enjoyed the sport. 2). Despite every grade I got in Math (after 6th grade), math was never really a problem for me. 3). I had taken two years of mechanical drawing, and had the best printing of anyone in the building, so my score sheets were ALWAYS very readable. 4). I was there, every night, Sunday through Thursday, both shifts. And 5). I was always neatly dressed, hair combed, clean smelling, and polite.
Any given week, I could have upwards of $35 to more than $50 of tax-free cash. At the time, I was the guy who always had cash, but no one knew how I got it. It wasn't easy. In addition to keeping the individual game scores, I had to total up the scores, fill out the "Recap Forms," ensure that everything was correct before giving it to the team captains to sign, and delivering the completed form to the League Secretary. I had one team claim that they didn't want a scorekeeper, just so they wouldn't have to pay... It was a ridiculous notion, as they paid it in their League Fees, and were not required to tip. I had done pretty well on the first shift, so I didn't score in the second shift, and watched them F#%& up the overhead, and the Recap. I had a chat with the Secretary for that league, and they went through the telescores and the Recap Sheet, and decided to void their scores for the night, and they'd have to do a make-up, with an "official" scorekeeper, and pay for the "lineage" (games), or both teams would have to forfeit all four league points.
Alas, the days of Scorekeepers is gone, otherwise I'd be at the new bowling center, making a few extra bucks...
It was, actually, a much better job than it sounds. First and foremost, I learned a skill (working on Brunswick A-2 pinsetters) that would become a means of making "part-time" money. Secondly, it introduced me to the world of bowling in which I made a little "extra" part-time money when we lived in Slidell, LA (I carried an "Average" of over 210, and, when primed with three beers, regularly broke 700 for a 3-game series. We'd have "Pot Games" after the lanes closed, and I frequently won).
I only worked the Porter-gig for a summer, but I still "worked" at the Bowl for the next three years, as a league scorekeeper. The scorekeeper was responsible for tracking the scores of from six to ten bowlers, writing them with a grease pencil, on a sheet of vinyl that had the bowling score sheet permanently printed on them. These eventually gave way to a sort of frosted paper that the lights of the telescore (essentially a table with a bright lamp underneath, and a mirror and lens housing that was about head-high when sitting, it projected league scores on the big screens above the lanes) could pass through, and scoring could be done with a regular pencil. Trust me, I had to clean the vinyl sheets, when I was a Porter, and it was always a mess, even scorekeepers griped about having yellow fingers at the end of the evening, so this was a big change. The technology stayed that way until the 1980's, when the first computerized bowling machines became available. By that time, I was in the Navy. The last Bowling Center I was in (one I had helped to build) had electronic scorekeeping which was done by a laser scanner, triggered by a ball passing an electric-eye.
Scorekeepers earned 10-cents per person, per game, and were paid by the League Secretary towards the end of the second game. Leagues had three to five people on each team, so I could make $1.20 to $2.00 for about two hours work, plus tips (if any). Most teams, as a general rule, would throw a quarter per-man in the cup holder in front of the scorekeeper, if they did an adequate job, an extra $2.00 to $2.50 each series. Most nights, Vaca Bowl was "double shifted," meaning one league (or set of leagues) would start at 6:30 pm, and second shift at 9. If you were a "good" scorekeeper, you'd have teams ask if you would keep score for them on a regular basis. That was a really good thing, because the team you "regular" for would usually leave big tips. If you were "REAL good," like me, you'd get big tips from both teams, have a "regular" spot every night, and have teams that fought for you. Yeah, I sound fairly conceited about it, but the fact is, I was "The Best Scorekeeper" ever to work at the Bowl, and here's why... 1). I was a avid bowler, and really enjoyed the sport. 2). Despite every grade I got in Math (after 6th grade), math was never really a problem for me. 3). I had taken two years of mechanical drawing, and had the best printing of anyone in the building, so my score sheets were ALWAYS very readable. 4). I was there, every night, Sunday through Thursday, both shifts. And 5). I was always neatly dressed, hair combed, clean smelling, and polite.
Any given week, I could have upwards of $35 to more than $50 of tax-free cash. At the time, I was the guy who always had cash, but no one knew how I got it. It wasn't easy. In addition to keeping the individual game scores, I had to total up the scores, fill out the "Recap Forms," ensure that everything was correct before giving it to the team captains to sign, and delivering the completed form to the League Secretary. I had one team claim that they didn't want a scorekeeper, just so they wouldn't have to pay... It was a ridiculous notion, as they paid it in their League Fees, and were not required to tip. I had done pretty well on the first shift, so I didn't score in the second shift, and watched them F#%& up the overhead, and the Recap. I had a chat with the Secretary for that league, and they went through the telescores and the Recap Sheet, and decided to void their scores for the night, and they'd have to do a make-up, with an "official" scorekeeper, and pay for the "lineage" (games), or both teams would have to forfeit all four league points.
Alas, the days of Scorekeepers is gone, otherwise I'd be at the new bowling center, making a few extra bucks...
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Marrying My Best Friend
Mary Gardner first caught my attention on the first day of classes my sophomore year at Vacaville High School. I've never been able to figure out how it was that I "keyed" on her that quickly. She was very modestly dressed for a warm September morning in 1966, she had a Page-boy hairstyle, and black rimmed, almost "granny glasses," but I thought that maybe I'd try to find out more about her, where she lived, etc. Our Homeroom teacher called out, "Mary Gardner?" She got up to get her class schedule, and I found out one of the most important things, her name...
We lived about a quarter-mile from the local bowling center, a place called Vaca Bowl. My dad liked to bowl, and so did my mom, for a while. I remember going to an upstairs bowling alley, 8 lanes, manually operated pinsetters (guys would sit behind a backboard, and after each ball would drop the sweep, manually press the pinsetter down, release a lever, raise the pinsetter -- along with any pins that were left, -- operate the sweep back and forward, press the pinsetter down, release the pins from the pinsetter, send the ball back, and raise the sweep. For this, "pin-boys," as they were called, relied on the customers to tip them, usually a fairly insignificant amount. If you remember this was in the 1950's a dime per person, per game, in a league could amount to as much as $2.40 for a couple of hours of sweat. Anyway, I used to go to "The Bowl" on school nights, to make money keeping score for leagues. That's how I met her dad, Jack Gardner, who bowled in a prison-employee league, on Monday nights. I was always more comfortable with adults than I was with kids my age, so I struck up a conversation, one night, and we became pretty friendly. He worked at the prison, as did my dad, and they knew each other. My dad used to joke about some of the things that Jack would try with prisoners, but he would also defend Jack with his co-workers, something Jack knew, but no one else did. Particularly Christine, Mary's mother, who had an old fashioned, southern grudge against my Yankee kin. This, I wouldn't find out until later, however.
Mary, on a very few occasions, come with her dad to The Bowl, to watch, and do homework. I made sure to smile and say "Hi" whenever she came. I discovered that the family was Mormon, and I didn't get that, because they didn't say, "thee, thy, or thou," and her dad didn't have a beard... I'd stopped going to church the year before, so I was confusing Mormon with some blend of Mennonite/Amish-ism, and what I knew wasn't matching up with my beliefs. Yes, I've said it more than once, and won't be offended by anyone remarking, "What a freaking idiot." I admit, I was.
At the end of my sophomore year, I knew her name, I knew she was Mormon, and I'd gotten to know her father, and he thought fairly highly of me, because I'd see him at The Bowl, every week, earning 20 cents per person, per three-game series, keeping score for anywhere between 8 to 10 bowlers per night, keeping track of "marks" (spares and strikes), adding up the team games after 10 frames, filling out the league sheet, getting them signed by the team captains, and take them to the league secretary. For mixed leagues, it was $1.60, plus any tips, for 2 hours work, during the Men's leagues, with 10 bowlers, I made a full $2, plus any tips. I could earn as much as $50 in a week, because I had taken 2 years of mechanical drawing, my printing was exceptional, as were my figures, my math, and I took care of the paperwork. Usually it was around $20 a week (tax-free cash), and in the late 1960's, it was as more than I could earn on a Work Permit (20 hrs. per week) at the minimum wage of $1.65 per hour, after taxes. I had a steady source of income, and was soon to have my driver's license.
Not everyone can claim that their first car was a sports car... Mine was a 1959 Triumph TR3.
The white thing, with low swept doors, and wire wheels... The people are a bunch of Mormon kids I got to singing folk songs with during my junior year. The young lady on the left is Mary, sometime in 1967 or 1968, I am on the far-right of the picture, sitting on the hood.
The group was called "A Small Cyrcle of Friends," and it was destined to failure from its inception. The group had seven people in it, the lady sitting in the middle of the picture, I don't remember, but that happens a lot, lately. Anyway, ever try to get seven teenagers to agree on anything? I'm convinced that it can't be done. Translation: We never rehearsed. We had three or four folk songs we could sing, Blowing in the Wind, Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore (Hallelujah), Puff, the Magic Dragon, campy stuff like that... Three of us, at least, wanted to learn some songs by the trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the other guitarist and I had been working on some of them, but we never got around to putting them in our repertoire. We only played two gigs, one at the school, and one at the Mormon Church, before the inevitable personality clashes started, and everyone started losing interest. Everyone except for the three who wanted to do more current folk arrangements.
The three were Mary, Nina, and myself (Nina is the one sitting in the car to the right of Mary). We didn't do anything, except talk about it at school, until the Mormon Stake (for those unfamiliar with LDS congregations, a Stake is made up of a minimum of five, or six Wards, which are the actual congregations) announced a Quartet Festival, in the Napa Stake (of which Vacaville was a part) Building. Nina was pretty excited by it, she got Mary going, and they both ask me if I knew someone, another guy, who could sing and play guitar. As a matter of fact... I did. George, the son of the town's Chief of Police, sang in choir, and had a C.F. Martin DB6. We'd get together, once in a while, and play together, so we were pretty familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses. George sang Tenor in the high school choir, Nina was an Soprano, Mary a resonant Alto, and I sang as a Bass/Baritone. Where as, with "Cyrcle," there was almost a cacophony of voices, this quartet was able to manage some tight harmonies, I spent a lot of time trying to find a "fourth-part" for a three-part song, and succeeded most of the time.
This new group was called "The Ecumenical Council," a reference to something tried by the current Pope, because George was a Catholic, I was still a member of the Lutheran Church, Nina and Mary were Mormons, so it seemed like a good fit. We went to the Quartet Festival planning to sing two songs, Bamboo and Michael, we didn't have long to rehearse, so we went with a couple of easy ones. Come to find out, half of the groups there sang one, or the other, and two groups sang the same two songs we had planned on singing.
Panic, naturally, ensued, and we talked about changing songs, until I heard what turned out to be a game-changer... all of the other groups, and I mean ALL of them, sang in unison. We had practiced four-part harmonies, so we got together and forged a plan. We would start with Michael, and sing the first verse in unison, breaking into four-part on verse two. I watched the judges, and they sat back like they were thinking, "Great, another group singing in unison..." during the first verse. We hit the four-parts hard on the second verse, did Bamboo in four-part, and won the Festival. Everyone stopped to congratulate us, and the judges were gushing with praises.
On the way home, we stopped in Vallejo to go to a concert at the Solano County Fairgrounds, that we weren't supposed to really go to, because Mary's mom said "No". We didn't stay long, and we almost got home in time (I wasn't driving, or we would have been), so I had earned "Strike One," as far a Christine Gardner was concerned. Being the son of Charlie Martin was enough for "Strike Two," so I was already on thin ice, before we really started dating.
We were, kind of, going "steady," for several Months during my junior year, up until her 16th Birthday. I threw a surprise Sweet Sixteen party for her, that everyone had a great time at. Because it was at my house, with my parents home, Mary was allowed to stay out until midnight, but the party had to quiet down after 10 pm, and it was pretty much over by 10:30, or 11pm. I moved all the stuff we used in the garage, and put a 6 ft. rattan couch in front of my car so I could pull it into the garage, and Mary and I could "make-out" (remember, this was 1968, so we were just kissing), and talk until I had to take her home.
It started innocently enough, we talked about plans for the future, how much I hated the thought of more school after high school, and the strangest thing happened... Mary said that that was good, because then I could get a job, and I could save up, so that we could get married after she graduated. I panicked.
I was 16, just shy (exactly five months) of 17, I didn't know "squat," and KNEW I didn't know squat... Hell, I didn't even know what I wanted to do after I graduated, ant that was still a year away. Things were a lot cheaper in the late '60's, but we weren't going to be able to live on the $20 per week I could make at The Bowl. While gas was anywhere from 25 to 35 cents per gallon, and bread was 40 cents, milk was a buck, minimum wage was a paltry $1.65 an hour, or $66 a week, $286 a month, or $3500 per year. In 1968, if not, it was around then, Giants future-Hall of Famer Willie Mays negotiated a $100,000 per season contract, and Arnold Palmer became the first man to make the same amount on the PGA Tour for a season.
We broke up. I happened to mention, to someone I had considered one of my few friends in high school, that I had been thinking of breaking up with Mary. It was first period, Shop class, but by the end of the following period, Mary knew it, and there was nothing I could do but to end it right there. It was hard. We had become very close while we were together, and she had become my Best Friend, the one person I could bare my soul to without judgment or criticism. It wasn't easy for me. I had wanted to stay friends, but the only way I could communicate with her was through her friend, Diane, and she didn't like me much, anyway. What really hurt was when Diane told me that Mary had been crying. I never intended to hurt her, it wasn't my idea to have some A-hole, whom I thought was a friend, blind-side her in the hallways. I wanted to talk it out first; tell her how frightened I was by the thought of getting married right after high school; most of all, I wanted to tell her that I still loved her, and wanted to stay friends, and just see where life took us from there. But, I never got another chance to talk to her. Over 45 years later, as I write this, I've learned that the break-up had been pretty devastating for her, as well.
Looking back, the break-up was a turning point in my life, and not in a good way, either. I dated a couple of other girls, but neither of them compared favorably to Mary. At 18, I was rapidly becoming an alcoholic, had no spiritual tether, and became morally ambiguous. Add in the drugs I was taking, marijuana, psilocybin, LSD, Benzedrine, Hashish, as well as small doses of opium and meth, and I was a train wreck looking for a place to happen.
I joined the Navy in February 1971, and by December of 1972, I was depressed, half-drunk, half-high, and extremely lonely. I was on the USS INDEPENDENCE (CV-62), had been aboard during the last four months of a deployment to the Mediterranean, and was trying to survive living on board a ship in the midst of an overhaul. Living conditions were noisy, dusty, and hot in all the berthing compartments. I tried living off the ship, had an apartment in Norfolk, then one in Portsmouth, VA, and finally moved in with a cook who was on a submarine (also in overhaul), but got in trouble for being late a couple of times, and decided to move back aboard.
One night in mid-December, I was on duty, and had a 20-2400 watch (8pm to midnight). It was a "Roving Patrol," meaning I had to cover everything from the 03 level and above (the "03 level" is the deck just below the flight deck, and above meant everything in the superstructure, including the Bridge, Admiral's Bridge, Flight Deck Operations Control, and the mast. I was up on the top deck of the ship, and actually crawled out to a radar sponsen (a platform for a radar unit). We were in dry-dock, meaning that the ship was in a sort of "bathtub," with all of the water drained. The flight deck was 100-150 feet to the bottom of the dry-dock, and I was 100 feet above that. Looking down, I was suddenly struck with the idea that I could end all of my troubles by jumping. I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't go away. I got as far as putting my legs over the side of the sponsen, when my relief (a guy from my Division) came out of the door below me and called my name. Had he been five minutes later, this would qualify as a tale from the crypt.
On the 22nd of December, 1972, I was called into the Division Officer's office, and met with my LPO (Leading Petty Officer), my LCPO (Leading Chief), and "The Boss," the Lieutenant Commander who oversaw the whole operation of the Ship's Intel Center. The Boss got right to the point, "What are you doing for Christmas?"
I explained that I was "in the hole" for leave (I'd taken more days than I had earned), and was pretty much broke, so I was staying on the ship. The LPO asked about how I was doing, and we talked for a little bit, the LCPO chiming in occasionally. The Boss interrupted, and said, "Look... we know you're having a hard time right now, so we're going to give you some time off. I don't care where you go (at the time, we needed to have approval to leave a 50-mile radius of the ship), I don't care how you get there (people still "hitched," although the Navy forbade it), but you are not to be on this ship for 10 days, beginning December 24th."
The Chief said he might be able to get me a small amount of cash from the Chief's Mess slush fund, and they set me up with the number to the Travis AFB operator on a military-only line called "Autovon," who would transfer me to talk to my parents without racking up the indecent long-distance charges (eg: a single call from Norfolk, VA to Vacaville, CA was $3 for the first three minutes, and 50-some-odd cents per minute, after the first three. A 15-minute call home would cost $10.00, or more). I called my dad, told him what was going on, and he told me to go to the airport, to the Piedmont Airlines desk, and there would be a ticket to SFO in my name (remember, this is the stone age of computers, so being able to buy a ticket in San Francisco, and have it picked up in Norfolk, VA was not an everyday request. The next best thing would have been to Western Union the money to me, but I had a "non-standard" address (meaning it wasn't a street address, or a regular Post Office box), so they wouldn't take it.
It was a grueling flight, from Norfolk to Atlanta, and I had an aisle seat across from a young child who coughed and sneezed the whole way. When I got to Atlanta, and down to the Delta terminal, I found the gate for the 747, and the seating was packed. I went up to the desk (I didn't have a "reservation," I was flying Military Standby, so I was in uniform) and the attendant had a line of stand-by tickets that ran the entire way across the desk. He started to put my ticket at the back of the line, and something caused him to pause and ask, "How long has it been since you've been home?"
"Two years." I replied. He looked at me, seeing my ship's patch on the shoulder of my dress blues, he counted down, and put me fifth from the top of the list. He looked at me and smiled, "See all of these? They belong to people who are just getting out of Boot Camp in Florida. They haven't been home in a couple of months, a few more hours won't hurt them. Merry Christmas, Sailor." I was the last person to board the plane.
It was pretty cool, the last seat on the plane was upstairs in the First Class Lounge. There were eight stewardesses assigned between the regular First Class, and the Lounge, four and four. The flight was routed through Dallas-Ft. Worth, and it was amazing, the plane pulled up to the gate, and so help me, almost everyone got off the plane. A few got on, headed for the Bay Area, but it was four stewardesses and me up in the Lounge from DFW to SFO. One went to help downstairs, but the others decided to go "deadheading" (not working, just another body on board), and we struck-up a game of Hearts. We played a few hands, one excused herself to the restroom, I stood up and stretched, and asked if they minded if I changed into civvies (civilian clothing), and the said it was OK, but I had to use the one restroom currently occupied by the stewardess. I agreed, and when she stepped out, I took my clothes and hopped in, locking the door.
The first thing was the familiar odor of marijuana (remember, people could smoke on planes back then, and pot was a felony). The second was somewhat embarrassing, as I almost got stuck in the aircraft restroom, trying to get out of my dress blue jumper. Somehow I managed, and came out of the restroom to see a stewardess who was blushing rather profusely. All I could say was, "What?" They all laughed. The guilty party had told her co-workers what she had done, and they were a little concerned about how I would react. It turned out that one of the other stews had a pilot friend who used to go to Thailand a lot, and she had a "Thai Stick" in her bag. During the rest of the flight, we took turns taking "hits" off a one-hit pipe, and taking shots of Tequila. We got pretty wrecked, and had a great time.
I have no idea what my dad thought when I came staggering off the plane, but I was pretty "fuh-up" when we got to SFO. I got in on Christmas Eve, and spent the next three days on my parents couch, suffering from the flu I got from the kid on the plane to Atlanta, coupled with the hangover from too much Thai, and way too much Tequila.
When I finally got to where I had no fever, and felt like I wanted to get out, I picked up the phone, and dialed a number from memory. Usually, when I'd get to Vacaville, I'd call my buddy Bill, but it wasn't his number I had dialed. During my flu-sickness, I had a lot of time to think about the direction my life was taking, since I had seriously considered taking my life, I knew that something was missing. I wasn't happy, and it wasn't because I was stationed 3,000 miles from home, and would be going another 7,000 miles on deployment... It wasn't being in the shipyard, with all the heat and noise... Those were superficial things. The biggest thing was that I had no one in my life. I was alone in a crew of 6,000. I had friends, lots of friends, but no one to love, or to love me.
Recuperating on my folk's couch, I tried thinking of when I had been truly happy, and what it was that was different in my current situation. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were a couple of things missing. The first was, perhaps, the most important, I realized that I no longer had God in my life, and that there was a side of me that was starving for spiritual nutrition. I thought of my old Lutheran Pastor, John Zeltin, who helped awaken me to my spiritual side, and how I used to hang on his every word during sermons (I kind of had to, he was born in Russia, and had a thick Russian accent). Pastor Z would actually talk to me, and listen patiently, while I questioned some of the dichotomies in the Lutheran doctrine.
I hadn't been in a Church from 1965, when we moved to Vacaville, on any steady basis, the closest I'd come to church was attending something the Mormons called "Mutual" on a few evenings, and that Stake Quartet Festival in Napa... and all of those were with... Mary Gardner... I wondered, "What is Mary doing now-a-days?" But that had been a day or so before, so why was my first call to Mary?
I won't bore you with the conversation, suffice to say that she was actually very pleased that I had called and asked how long it would take me to "come over". I said 20 minutes, she asked if I could make it ten, I said OK, and she said, "Good. See you in five minutes." That's the way I remember it, anyway...
I got one of the fastest showers ever, threw on some civvies, and drove over to her house. I parked out front, walked to the door, and the most amazing thing happened. When I knocked on the door, I don't know what I expected to happen, but the door opened, and this absolute vision of loveliness speaks my name, opens the door, and greets me with a hug.
We lived about a quarter-mile from the local bowling center, a place called Vaca Bowl. My dad liked to bowl, and so did my mom, for a while. I remember going to an upstairs bowling alley, 8 lanes, manually operated pinsetters (guys would sit behind a backboard, and after each ball would drop the sweep, manually press the pinsetter down, release a lever, raise the pinsetter -- along with any pins that were left, -- operate the sweep back and forward, press the pinsetter down, release the pins from the pinsetter, send the ball back, and raise the sweep. For this, "pin-boys," as they were called, relied on the customers to tip them, usually a fairly insignificant amount. If you remember this was in the 1950's a dime per person, per game, in a league could amount to as much as $2.40 for a couple of hours of sweat. Anyway, I used to go to "The Bowl" on school nights, to make money keeping score for leagues. That's how I met her dad, Jack Gardner, who bowled in a prison-employee league, on Monday nights. I was always more comfortable with adults than I was with kids my age, so I struck up a conversation, one night, and we became pretty friendly. He worked at the prison, as did my dad, and they knew each other. My dad used to joke about some of the things that Jack would try with prisoners, but he would also defend Jack with his co-workers, something Jack knew, but no one else did. Particularly Christine, Mary's mother, who had an old fashioned, southern grudge against my Yankee kin. This, I wouldn't find out until later, however.
Mary, on a very few occasions, come with her dad to The Bowl, to watch, and do homework. I made sure to smile and say "Hi" whenever she came. I discovered that the family was Mormon, and I didn't get that, because they didn't say, "thee, thy, or thou," and her dad didn't have a beard... I'd stopped going to church the year before, so I was confusing Mormon with some blend of Mennonite/Amish-ism, and what I knew wasn't matching up with my beliefs. Yes, I've said it more than once, and won't be offended by anyone remarking, "What a freaking idiot." I admit, I was.
At the end of my sophomore year, I knew her name, I knew she was Mormon, and I'd gotten to know her father, and he thought fairly highly of me, because I'd see him at The Bowl, every week, earning 20 cents per person, per three-game series, keeping score for anywhere between 8 to 10 bowlers per night, keeping track of "marks" (spares and strikes), adding up the team games after 10 frames, filling out the league sheet, getting them signed by the team captains, and take them to the league secretary. For mixed leagues, it was $1.60, plus any tips, for 2 hours work, during the Men's leagues, with 10 bowlers, I made a full $2, plus any tips. I could earn as much as $50 in a week, because I had taken 2 years of mechanical drawing, my printing was exceptional, as were my figures, my math, and I took care of the paperwork. Usually it was around $20 a week (tax-free cash), and in the late 1960's, it was as more than I could earn on a Work Permit (20 hrs. per week) at the minimum wage of $1.65 per hour, after taxes. I had a steady source of income, and was soon to have my driver's license.
Not everyone can claim that their first car was a sports car... Mine was a 1959 Triumph TR3.
The white thing, with low swept doors, and wire wheels... The people are a bunch of Mormon kids I got to singing folk songs with during my junior year. The young lady on the left is Mary, sometime in 1967 or 1968, I am on the far-right of the picture, sitting on the hood.
The group was called "A Small Cyrcle of Friends," and it was destined to failure from its inception. The group had seven people in it, the lady sitting in the middle of the picture, I don't remember, but that happens a lot, lately. Anyway, ever try to get seven teenagers to agree on anything? I'm convinced that it can't be done. Translation: We never rehearsed. We had three or four folk songs we could sing, Blowing in the Wind, Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore (Hallelujah), Puff, the Magic Dragon, campy stuff like that... Three of us, at least, wanted to learn some songs by the trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the other guitarist and I had been working on some of them, but we never got around to putting them in our repertoire. We only played two gigs, one at the school, and one at the Mormon Church, before the inevitable personality clashes started, and everyone started losing interest. Everyone except for the three who wanted to do more current folk arrangements.
The three were Mary, Nina, and myself (Nina is the one sitting in the car to the right of Mary). We didn't do anything, except talk about it at school, until the Mormon Stake (for those unfamiliar with LDS congregations, a Stake is made up of a minimum of five, or six Wards, which are the actual congregations) announced a Quartet Festival, in the Napa Stake (of which Vacaville was a part) Building. Nina was pretty excited by it, she got Mary going, and they both ask me if I knew someone, another guy, who could sing and play guitar. As a matter of fact... I did. George, the son of the town's Chief of Police, sang in choir, and had a C.F. Martin DB6. We'd get together, once in a while, and play together, so we were pretty familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses. George sang Tenor in the high school choir, Nina was an Soprano, Mary a resonant Alto, and I sang as a Bass/Baritone. Where as, with "Cyrcle," there was almost a cacophony of voices, this quartet was able to manage some tight harmonies, I spent a lot of time trying to find a "fourth-part" for a three-part song, and succeeded most of the time.
This new group was called "The Ecumenical Council," a reference to something tried by the current Pope, because George was a Catholic, I was still a member of the Lutheran Church, Nina and Mary were Mormons, so it seemed like a good fit. We went to the Quartet Festival planning to sing two songs, Bamboo and Michael, we didn't have long to rehearse, so we went with a couple of easy ones. Come to find out, half of the groups there sang one, or the other, and two groups sang the same two songs we had planned on singing.
Panic, naturally, ensued, and we talked about changing songs, until I heard what turned out to be a game-changer... all of the other groups, and I mean ALL of them, sang in unison. We had practiced four-part harmonies, so we got together and forged a plan. We would start with Michael, and sing the first verse in unison, breaking into four-part on verse two. I watched the judges, and they sat back like they were thinking, "Great, another group singing in unison..." during the first verse. We hit the four-parts hard on the second verse, did Bamboo in four-part, and won the Festival. Everyone stopped to congratulate us, and the judges were gushing with praises.
On the way home, we stopped in Vallejo to go to a concert at the Solano County Fairgrounds, that we weren't supposed to really go to, because Mary's mom said "No". We didn't stay long, and we almost got home in time (I wasn't driving, or we would have been), so I had earned "Strike One," as far a Christine Gardner was concerned. Being the son of Charlie Martin was enough for "Strike Two," so I was already on thin ice, before we really started dating.
We were, kind of, going "steady," for several Months during my junior year, up until her 16th Birthday. I threw a surprise Sweet Sixteen party for her, that everyone had a great time at. Because it was at my house, with my parents home, Mary was allowed to stay out until midnight, but the party had to quiet down after 10 pm, and it was pretty much over by 10:30, or 11pm. I moved all the stuff we used in the garage, and put a 6 ft. rattan couch in front of my car so I could pull it into the garage, and Mary and I could "make-out" (remember, this was 1968, so we were just kissing), and talk until I had to take her home.
It started innocently enough, we talked about plans for the future, how much I hated the thought of more school after high school, and the strangest thing happened... Mary said that that was good, because then I could get a job, and I could save up, so that we could get married after she graduated. I panicked.
I was 16, just shy (exactly five months) of 17, I didn't know "squat," and KNEW I didn't know squat... Hell, I didn't even know what I wanted to do after I graduated, ant that was still a year away. Things were a lot cheaper in the late '60's, but we weren't going to be able to live on the $20 per week I could make at The Bowl. While gas was anywhere from 25 to 35 cents per gallon, and bread was 40 cents, milk was a buck, minimum wage was a paltry $1.65 an hour, or $66 a week, $286 a month, or $3500 per year. In 1968, if not, it was around then, Giants future-Hall of Famer Willie Mays negotiated a $100,000 per season contract, and Arnold Palmer became the first man to make the same amount on the PGA Tour for a season.
We broke up. I happened to mention, to someone I had considered one of my few friends in high school, that I had been thinking of breaking up with Mary. It was first period, Shop class, but by the end of the following period, Mary knew it, and there was nothing I could do but to end it right there. It was hard. We had become very close while we were together, and she had become my Best Friend, the one person I could bare my soul to without judgment or criticism. It wasn't easy for me. I had wanted to stay friends, but the only way I could communicate with her was through her friend, Diane, and she didn't like me much, anyway. What really hurt was when Diane told me that Mary had been crying. I never intended to hurt her, it wasn't my idea to have some A-hole, whom I thought was a friend, blind-side her in the hallways. I wanted to talk it out first; tell her how frightened I was by the thought of getting married right after high school; most of all, I wanted to tell her that I still loved her, and wanted to stay friends, and just see where life took us from there. But, I never got another chance to talk to her. Over 45 years later, as I write this, I've learned that the break-up had been pretty devastating for her, as well.
Looking back, the break-up was a turning point in my life, and not in a good way, either. I dated a couple of other girls, but neither of them compared favorably to Mary. At 18, I was rapidly becoming an alcoholic, had no spiritual tether, and became morally ambiguous. Add in the drugs I was taking, marijuana, psilocybin, LSD, Benzedrine, Hashish, as well as small doses of opium and meth, and I was a train wreck looking for a place to happen.
I joined the Navy in February 1971, and by December of 1972, I was depressed, half-drunk, half-high, and extremely lonely. I was on the USS INDEPENDENCE (CV-62), had been aboard during the last four months of a deployment to the Mediterranean, and was trying to survive living on board a ship in the midst of an overhaul. Living conditions were noisy, dusty, and hot in all the berthing compartments. I tried living off the ship, had an apartment in Norfolk, then one in Portsmouth, VA, and finally moved in with a cook who was on a submarine (also in overhaul), but got in trouble for being late a couple of times, and decided to move back aboard.
One night in mid-December, I was on duty, and had a 20-2400 watch (8pm to midnight). It was a "Roving Patrol," meaning I had to cover everything from the 03 level and above (the "03 level" is the deck just below the flight deck, and above meant everything in the superstructure, including the Bridge, Admiral's Bridge, Flight Deck Operations Control, and the mast. I was up on the top deck of the ship, and actually crawled out to a radar sponsen (a platform for a radar unit). We were in dry-dock, meaning that the ship was in a sort of "bathtub," with all of the water drained. The flight deck was 100-150 feet to the bottom of the dry-dock, and I was 100 feet above that. Looking down, I was suddenly struck with the idea that I could end all of my troubles by jumping. I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't go away. I got as far as putting my legs over the side of the sponsen, when my relief (a guy from my Division) came out of the door below me and called my name. Had he been five minutes later, this would qualify as a tale from the crypt.
On the 22nd of December, 1972, I was called into the Division Officer's office, and met with my LPO (Leading Petty Officer), my LCPO (Leading Chief), and "The Boss," the Lieutenant Commander who oversaw the whole operation of the Ship's Intel Center. The Boss got right to the point, "What are you doing for Christmas?"
I explained that I was "in the hole" for leave (I'd taken more days than I had earned), and was pretty much broke, so I was staying on the ship. The LPO asked about how I was doing, and we talked for a little bit, the LCPO chiming in occasionally. The Boss interrupted, and said, "Look... we know you're having a hard time right now, so we're going to give you some time off. I don't care where you go (at the time, we needed to have approval to leave a 50-mile radius of the ship), I don't care how you get there (people still "hitched," although the Navy forbade it), but you are not to be on this ship for 10 days, beginning December 24th."
The Chief said he might be able to get me a small amount of cash from the Chief's Mess slush fund, and they set me up with the number to the Travis AFB operator on a military-only line called "Autovon," who would transfer me to talk to my parents without racking up the indecent long-distance charges (eg: a single call from Norfolk, VA to Vacaville, CA was $3 for the first three minutes, and 50-some-odd cents per minute, after the first three. A 15-minute call home would cost $10.00, or more). I called my dad, told him what was going on, and he told me to go to the airport, to the Piedmont Airlines desk, and there would be a ticket to SFO in my name (remember, this is the stone age of computers, so being able to buy a ticket in San Francisco, and have it picked up in Norfolk, VA was not an everyday request. The next best thing would have been to Western Union the money to me, but I had a "non-standard" address (meaning it wasn't a street address, or a regular Post Office box), so they wouldn't take it.
It was a grueling flight, from Norfolk to Atlanta, and I had an aisle seat across from a young child who coughed and sneezed the whole way. When I got to Atlanta, and down to the Delta terminal, I found the gate for the 747, and the seating was packed. I went up to the desk (I didn't have a "reservation," I was flying Military Standby, so I was in uniform) and the attendant had a line of stand-by tickets that ran the entire way across the desk. He started to put my ticket at the back of the line, and something caused him to pause and ask, "How long has it been since you've been home?"
"Two years." I replied. He looked at me, seeing my ship's patch on the shoulder of my dress blues, he counted down, and put me fifth from the top of the list. He looked at me and smiled, "See all of these? They belong to people who are just getting out of Boot Camp in Florida. They haven't been home in a couple of months, a few more hours won't hurt them. Merry Christmas, Sailor." I was the last person to board the plane.
It was pretty cool, the last seat on the plane was upstairs in the First Class Lounge. There were eight stewardesses assigned between the regular First Class, and the Lounge, four and four. The flight was routed through Dallas-Ft. Worth, and it was amazing, the plane pulled up to the gate, and so help me, almost everyone got off the plane. A few got on, headed for the Bay Area, but it was four stewardesses and me up in the Lounge from DFW to SFO. One went to help downstairs, but the others decided to go "deadheading" (not working, just another body on board), and we struck-up a game of Hearts. We played a few hands, one excused herself to the restroom, I stood up and stretched, and asked if they minded if I changed into civvies (civilian clothing), and the said it was OK, but I had to use the one restroom currently occupied by the stewardess. I agreed, and when she stepped out, I took my clothes and hopped in, locking the door.
The first thing was the familiar odor of marijuana (remember, people could smoke on planes back then, and pot was a felony). The second was somewhat embarrassing, as I almost got stuck in the aircraft restroom, trying to get out of my dress blue jumper. Somehow I managed, and came out of the restroom to see a stewardess who was blushing rather profusely. All I could say was, "What?" They all laughed. The guilty party had told her co-workers what she had done, and they were a little concerned about how I would react. It turned out that one of the other stews had a pilot friend who used to go to Thailand a lot, and she had a "Thai Stick" in her bag. During the rest of the flight, we took turns taking "hits" off a one-hit pipe, and taking shots of Tequila. We got pretty wrecked, and had a great time.
I have no idea what my dad thought when I came staggering off the plane, but I was pretty "fuh-up" when we got to SFO. I got in on Christmas Eve, and spent the next three days on my parents couch, suffering from the flu I got from the kid on the plane to Atlanta, coupled with the hangover from too much Thai, and way too much Tequila.
When I finally got to where I had no fever, and felt like I wanted to get out, I picked up the phone, and dialed a number from memory. Usually, when I'd get to Vacaville, I'd call my buddy Bill, but it wasn't his number I had dialed. During my flu-sickness, I had a lot of time to think about the direction my life was taking, since I had seriously considered taking my life, I knew that something was missing. I wasn't happy, and it wasn't because I was stationed 3,000 miles from home, and would be going another 7,000 miles on deployment... It wasn't being in the shipyard, with all the heat and noise... Those were superficial things. The biggest thing was that I had no one in my life. I was alone in a crew of 6,000. I had friends, lots of friends, but no one to love, or to love me.
Recuperating on my folk's couch, I tried thinking of when I had been truly happy, and what it was that was different in my current situation. It didn't take me long to figure out that there were a couple of things missing. The first was, perhaps, the most important, I realized that I no longer had God in my life, and that there was a side of me that was starving for spiritual nutrition. I thought of my old Lutheran Pastor, John Zeltin, who helped awaken me to my spiritual side, and how I used to hang on his every word during sermons (I kind of had to, he was born in Russia, and had a thick Russian accent). Pastor Z would actually talk to me, and listen patiently, while I questioned some of the dichotomies in the Lutheran doctrine.
I hadn't been in a Church from 1965, when we moved to Vacaville, on any steady basis, the closest I'd come to church was attending something the Mormons called "Mutual" on a few evenings, and that Stake Quartet Festival in Napa... and all of those were with... Mary Gardner... I wondered, "What is Mary doing now-a-days?" But that had been a day or so before, so why was my first call to Mary?
I won't bore you with the conversation, suffice to say that she was actually very pleased that I had called and asked how long it would take me to "come over". I said 20 minutes, she asked if I could make it ten, I said OK, and she said, "Good. See you in five minutes." That's the way I remember it, anyway...
I got one of the fastest showers ever, threw on some civvies, and drove over to her house. I parked out front, walked to the door, and the most amazing thing happened. When I knocked on the door, I don't know what I expected to happen, but the door opened, and this absolute vision of loveliness speaks my name, opens the door, and greets me with a hug.
I had "a moment," I realized exactly what was missing in my life. I knew, from the moment she opened the door, that I still had very strong feelings for this woman. We were inseparable for the following week, and I came to define "strong feelings" as love. We went to a New Year's Eve party at my sister's house in Vallejo (actually the house we lived in when she went to high school), and on the way home, I expressed those feelings to her. Her reply? "How can you say that?" It wasn't what I expected, but it was a good question. I told her that I still loved her from before, from our time in high school. It was true, and now I was man enough to do something about it. It was hard, having to say good-bye again, but she said she would try to come to Norfolk, if she could, before we deployed to the Mediterranean.
I got back to the ship, and was immediately packed-off to an Intel System's Operator course at a small Naval Air Station in Southwest Georgia for 8-weeks. While there, I discovered that one of my instructors was Mormon, and we talked a lot. Mary had mentioned having a "Temple wedding," and my instructor explained what that meant, but I was so head-over-heels for Mary that I would have agreed to just about anything. We wrote almost everyday, pages upon pages of "love letters," and I ached to see her again. In February of 1973, I asked her, in one of my letters, if she would consider marrying me. I called her, after I was sure she had gotten the letter, and asked her if she had given my proposal any thought. She was in her apartment in Provo, UT, a student at BYU, and her three roommates were there. They all screamed "YES!" at the same time, almost deafening me in my right ear.
When I got back to Norfolk, I had a talk with the guy from my Division who relieved me from that watch, and found he was a Mormon as well. He arranged for me to meet the Missionaries at his home, so I could take "the discussions" (a series of lessons on Church history, philosophy, and structure, with an explanation of The Book of Mormon, which I read on one of our short, post overhaul runs (a series of circles outside of the Chesapeake Bay) that lasted several days. When we got back, I told the Elders that I was ready to be baptized, and become a Mormon. Mary had made arrangements to come to Norfolk on April 5. Unbeknownst to her, April 6 was set up to be my Baptismal date. We told her that we were going to attend a baptism so that I could see what went on, we just didn't mention that I was one of the ones to be baptized.
I could make this a lot longer by telling you what it was like to be freshly baptized, and trying to live my new religion aboard an air craft carrier on deployment, particularly when your LDS Group Leader for the ship was the point-of-contact for porno movies, and most of the other Mormon guys were not real faithful about their conduct. The other Mormon-guy in my Division had transferred, so if it hadn't been for a guy I knew on the USS GUADALCANAL, giving my name to the Branch President in Athens, Greece, I may have gotten in a lot of trouble.
The Branch President was an Air Force Major, in charge of Supply at the U.S. Air Force Station, Athens. His name was Lloyd Vivian, and there are a host of stories I could tell about him, but he took me into his home, treated me like a part of the family, played host to my parents (who came for a week), and introduced me to Autovon, a government telephone system that I could use to call home, without incurring huge phone bills. This amazing man taught me more about being hospitable than any other person in my life. That and a great deal about the life of Mormon families.
When I got back to the U.S., the ship was, once again, in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, for a clean up, and a modification to add more berthing spaces, as the ship's company was growing. Instead of the usual 3,000 crew and 3,000 air crew, the ship was going to have 4,000 crewmen, and still 3,000 air crew, 7,000 people in all. We had decided that sometime in April of 1974 we would have a temple wedding, until my folks found out that they wouldn't be able to attend. My mother was incensed by the idea of her only son getting married, and she not be able to attend. The answer, "You could always join the Church..." wasn't received very well. When my great-uncle and great-aunt passed away, and no one in my family thought to let me know, I took 30-days leave, and had every intention of having a "civil" wedding before I left home.
This wasn't an easy "sell" to a woman who had been Mormon since birth, and had been raised to accept nothing less than a "sealing in the Temple". I told her that I felt like the Mormon Church had abandoned me once I was baptized, and that I would not be ready to become an Elder (a Temple requirement) by April of that year, and maybe even the next. I told her how much I loved her, and wanted to start a life with her then, not some ambiguous date in the future, when someone asked why I was still a Deacon. I had learned a lot about being a Mormon, what it meant, what they believe, but it wasn't from the people I "lived" with. Back in the "Old Boy's Navy," when men went to sea, and their wives "waited" (when I was single, I met my fair share of "deployment widows," if you know what I mean). It wasn't like everyone took off their wedding rings as soon as we shifted colors -- a Navy ritual when a ship pulls out to sea, the "colors" (US flag) is shifted from the "Fantail" (back of the ship) to the main mast -- but there were a lot of them. I tried to find some of the LDS Group aboard the INDY, but they told me that they were "State-side Mormons". I kept my morals, but I drank a lot, and re-started smoking, while we were deployed. I needed her to be in my life, because when I was with her, I didn't need all that other crap.
I wore her down, over time, and I agreed that we would get married "now" (March 28, 1974), and sealed as soon as I became an Elder. That was in June of '75, and we were sealed "for time and all eternity," at the Oakland Temple on July 3. We celebrate both Anniversaries.
I'll never forget the first time I saw her in her Wedding Dress. All in white; long, dark hair cascading down her shoulders, in contrast to the dress. My Best Man, George, whispered in my ear, "She's beautiful, man." I couldn't speak, but I bobbed my head a couple of times, I just couldn't find the wind to agree. This was the absolute BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! I married my Best Friend, the person who would always be there for me. Fast forward 25 years, and on March 28, 1999, we attended Sacrament Meeting in the Alamo Chapel, at 1:00 pm. Exactly 25 years to the minute.
Around that time, I was teaching English at Vacaville High School, and I would put reminders up in March, for our Anniversary on the 28th. My students would ask, "How long have you been married?" I'd tell them 25, 26, etc., and invariably the girls would all go "Awwww!" and one of they boys would say, "How can you stay with one woman that long?" I'd tell them that my parents had been married for more than 60 years, and they would look at me like I was nuts. I'd say, "My advice for a long marriage? Marry the person you have the easiest time talking to, who you know would never betray your confidence, and who will be with you through good times or bad. A marriage falls apart when communication gets difficult or impossible. I know this from personal experience. What never failed to shock students was my belief in a marriage that exists beyond death. "You mean, like, forever and ever?"
Don't think I've been fortunate to have lived in "wedded bliss" all this time. We were legally separated in 1981. I've written about that in another blog, so I won't further extend this.
After 43.5 years, it still amazes me that we're still together. We are polar-opposites on so many things, but we make it work. She likes murder mysteries, on TV, and other forms of crime dramas. Me, I like to channel surf, and have a certain attraction to animation. We have shows we watch together, we also have two TV's in the living room, so if there's any viewing conflict, no one has to leave the room. It's also great to be able to watch TV and have a Giant's game on the other one. The important thing here is that our differences are what makes everything right.
I've often said that, "Marriage is an institution... an institution for the insane, but an institution nonetheless." It has been my biggest blessing to go insane with such a wonderful woman as my Mary. This is the woman I get to spend Eternity with, and whenever that thought crosses my mind...
I smile...
This wasn't an easy "sell" to a woman who had been Mormon since birth, and had been raised to accept nothing less than a "sealing in the Temple". I told her that I felt like the Mormon Church had abandoned me once I was baptized, and that I would not be ready to become an Elder (a Temple requirement) by April of that year, and maybe even the next. I told her how much I loved her, and wanted to start a life with her then, not some ambiguous date in the future, when someone asked why I was still a Deacon. I had learned a lot about being a Mormon, what it meant, what they believe, but it wasn't from the people I "lived" with. Back in the "Old Boy's Navy," when men went to sea, and their wives "waited" (when I was single, I met my fair share of "deployment widows," if you know what I mean). It wasn't like everyone took off their wedding rings as soon as we shifted colors -- a Navy ritual when a ship pulls out to sea, the "colors" (US flag) is shifted from the "Fantail" (back of the ship) to the main mast -- but there were a lot of them. I tried to find some of the LDS Group aboard the INDY, but they told me that they were "State-side Mormons". I kept my morals, but I drank a lot, and re-started smoking, while we were deployed. I needed her to be in my life, because when I was with her, I didn't need all that other crap.
I wore her down, over time, and I agreed that we would get married "now" (March 28, 1974), and sealed as soon as I became an Elder. That was in June of '75, and we were sealed "for time and all eternity," at the Oakland Temple on July 3. We celebrate both Anniversaries.
I'll never forget the first time I saw her in her Wedding Dress. All in white; long, dark hair cascading down her shoulders, in contrast to the dress. My Best Man, George, whispered in my ear, "She's beautiful, man." I couldn't speak, but I bobbed my head a couple of times, I just couldn't find the wind to agree. This was the absolute BEST DAY OF MY LIFE! I married my Best Friend, the person who would always be there for me. Fast forward 25 years, and on March 28, 1999, we attended Sacrament Meeting in the Alamo Chapel, at 1:00 pm. Exactly 25 years to the minute.
Around that time, I was teaching English at Vacaville High School, and I would put reminders up in March, for our Anniversary on the 28th. My students would ask, "How long have you been married?" I'd tell them 25, 26, etc., and invariably the girls would all go "Awwww!" and one of they boys would say, "How can you stay with one woman that long?" I'd tell them that my parents had been married for more than 60 years, and they would look at me like I was nuts. I'd say, "My advice for a long marriage? Marry the person you have the easiest time talking to, who you know would never betray your confidence, and who will be with you through good times or bad. A marriage falls apart when communication gets difficult or impossible. I know this from personal experience. What never failed to shock students was my belief in a marriage that exists beyond death. "You mean, like, forever and ever?"
Don't think I've been fortunate to have lived in "wedded bliss" all this time. We were legally separated in 1981. I've written about that in another blog, so I won't further extend this.
After 43.5 years, it still amazes me that we're still together. We are polar-opposites on so many things, but we make it work. She likes murder mysteries, on TV, and other forms of crime dramas. Me, I like to channel surf, and have a certain attraction to animation. We have shows we watch together, we also have two TV's in the living room, so if there's any viewing conflict, no one has to leave the room. It's also great to be able to watch TV and have a Giant's game on the other one. The important thing here is that our differences are what makes everything right.
I've often said that, "Marriage is an institution... an institution for the insane, but an institution nonetheless." It has been my biggest blessing to go insane with such a wonderful woman as my Mary. This is the woman I get to spend Eternity with, and whenever that thought crosses my mind...
I smile...
Monday, September 11, 2017
September 11, 2001
6:00 am. I walk out of the front door, getting ready for my third year as an English teacher at Vacaville High School. I get in the car, and drive over to a place called "Hava Java," in the shopping center at Monte Vista Ave. and Depot St. The place was owned by a couple, husband and wife, who were Jordanian-Christians, who had grown weary of the persecution by the Islamic majority, so they came to the US. By the time I had met them, a couple of years earlier, they had been in the Country long enough for the husband to retire, somehow ending up in Vacaville, and opening a coffee house. I had been a regular during my first two years, and saw no reason to change the routine, they were really wonderful people, living a Christian-lifestyle, as well as the "American Dream". I just wish I could remember their names. About the fourth time I went in there, the wife already had my order, and was ringing me up at the register, and I decided that I wanted to be able to call them by name, so I asked. When school was out for Summer, I wouldn't go there that often, because it wasn't "on-the-way" to Vaca High. I'd stop in a couple of times, and the wife would have my order ready, and be ringing the cash register before I could get to the counter, and we'd joke about memory, and have a quick laugh.
6:10 am: I get to Hava Java, get out of my car, and as I approach the door, it's only the two of them in the store, she is behind the counter, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, and he's yelling at the TV, "They've done it! They've ruined everything!" As I walk by, I look at the TV, and see a tall building on fire, but I don't stop, I just go to the counter, which gets her moving, and in a minute, I am into my car, tuning to news radio to find out what the flock is going on. It's less that a three minute ride from Hava Java to my parking space at the school, but I'm sure it didn't take that long.
6:13 am: I know this time very well, because it was so early, that the custodians hadn't come and turned off the alarm that I set off, and that's what the report said. I grab the TV remote, and turn the TV to FOX News (one of only three classrooms to not use CNN or MSNBC, that I know of), just in time to see the second strike. I slumped into my chair, and worried, for the second time in my 50 years, about my safety (I was old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, and going to bed worried that I'd be woken up by an atomic blast).
Sometime later, a student (not one of mine) stops and asks if he can come in and watch TV with me, and I invite him in. He takes off his backpack, and looks up just as the first tower goes down. "Fuck, did you see that?" he asked. Totally overwhelmed with emotion, it was all I could do to get out, "Uh-huh." And then my mind, kinda, took a break. We both sat in silence, he was probably afraid to say what he was thinking, I was totally numb from the depth of the emotional "brick wall" that had just fallen on me, and then the second tower collapsed.
My first thought was that today's lessons had just been cancelled, and I called the Principal, asking if I could run my TV all day. After a couple of seconds he okayed my idea, with what was happening in New York, I believed that the students might want to talk about what they were thinking and feeling as they got the news. I was right, too, at least for my students.
Normally, on a "Movie Day," or some other break from the norm, my students would pretty much ignore what was on, and talk about BFF's, and how much better life was going to be after they graduated, you know... normal teenage BS... but not this day.
Our routine was for them to read quietly, write in their journals, or even work on late homework, while I took the roll, a period of about 5 minutes. As a group, they were usually pretty good about the roll call, as it were, and were pretty quiet, but this day, there was nothing, no talk, no joking around, they came in, most said "Good," when they saw that the TV was on, and they watched. They watched with eyes wide, some full of anger, some full of sorrow, and more than a few through frightened tears. They waited until five minutes passed, and in every class, someone would raise their hand and ask, "What happens now?" That would become the catalyst for a class discussion in which participation was almost total. A number of them were angry, so we talked about that, we talked about the sorrow, and what would make someone commit such a heinous attack. Most of them wanted to talk about being scared, so we talked about terror, about extremism, and about fanaticism. The one thing I would not allow, and I would tell them that before we really got started, no hate. We were not going to brew hate in my room, because hate is rooted in ignorance, and I didn't allow ignorance to enter my class. I would even go as far as to "cast a spell" on my doorway, to ward off ignorance, which would usually result in someone commenting, "Hey [Bobby/Tommy/Mike, etc] that means you can't come to class any more..." To make it fun, I'd make a "bet" with my TA's as to who would be the first, and who'd be the person made fun of... I usually got one, or the other, right, and twice got both.
By the end of the school day, I was worn out.
On a side note, because the couple that owned Hava Java were of Arabic descent, people stopped going there (except me), and as the days went by, I watched a man, who had never hurt anyone, lose his business. They're gone now. Where? I have no clue. I did, however, finally understand his comment, "They've ruined everything!" It's just so unfair. Yes, I got understanding, but it cost me a friend.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Some Rumblings
It's hard enough to actually reach my 66th birthday, not that I actually feel any different in my mind, but my body seems to be troublesome. I'm facing a consult with a neurosurgeon, for a possible micro-discectomy, in a couple of days, I have an endoscopy slated for a week after my consult, and another round of Radio Frequency Ablations at the end of the month (August, 2017). I'm supposed to get a call-back for a CT scan, after which I'm supposed to make and appointment with Heart/Lung/Vascular. Somewhere, in all of that, I am hoping to have the micro-discectomy done.
It's pretty much the same surgery offered at any of the Laser Spine Clinics, except this one is covered by Medicare/TCL (TriCare for Life). They will insert a tube into my bulging disks, suction off enough material to reduce the bulge, stitch up the holes, and I can be on my feet in a matter of hours.
I've dreamed of not having sciatica, and I'm not sure how long this procedure will last, my current record of consecutive days w/o sciatica/lower back pain is seven and a-half months. It was wonderful.
Life seems to be about to change, once again... In our current situation, we make enough to pay all of the bills, but there isn't a lot left over... We've talked about things like, new streams of income, and it is possible that I could get my disability rating up to 50%, it would create a little more taxable income, but it would almost double my current non-taxable income. We've talked about leaving California, but with my medical care at David Grant, it's not really practical to do. We've also talked about down-sizing (again), and finding a 2 or 3 bedroom mobile home. There is a Seniors Only park behind Leisure Town, called Lemon Tree Mobile Home Park, and it has a few places up for sale.
The master plan is to sell this house, use the equity to purchase the mobile home (outright, or with really low payments), take over $7,000 dollars off our annual outlay for housing, as well as a few thousand in payments for water, sewerage, and trash, and start enjoying our retirement. In this house, we have an additional $1200+ dollars for the Association Fees every year, as well, and that keeps going up. Two years ago, it was $900...
I've known this for a while... It's not like all was "hunky-dory," or anything. Once Mary retired, and we started getting her social security payments, it didn't take a CPA to figure out that we were fighting a losing battle. A gradual one, but things just keep going up here in the land of fruits and nuts.
We have only two credit cards, mine has only $800 on it, and Mary has $1,300 on hers. Every thing else, we own, except the house. I'll miss the ability to take Jacuzzi baths, but that's about all. It's been a good home for the last 8 1/2 years, we've had some good times here, but I think we need to start looking around, while we still have money in savings...
It's pretty much the same surgery offered at any of the Laser Spine Clinics, except this one is covered by Medicare/TCL (TriCare for Life). They will insert a tube into my bulging disks, suction off enough material to reduce the bulge, stitch up the holes, and I can be on my feet in a matter of hours.
I've dreamed of not having sciatica, and I'm not sure how long this procedure will last, my current record of consecutive days w/o sciatica/lower back pain is seven and a-half months. It was wonderful.
Life seems to be about to change, once again... In our current situation, we make enough to pay all of the bills, but there isn't a lot left over... We've talked about things like, new streams of income, and it is possible that I could get my disability rating up to 50%, it would create a little more taxable income, but it would almost double my current non-taxable income. We've talked about leaving California, but with my medical care at David Grant, it's not really practical to do. We've also talked about down-sizing (again), and finding a 2 or 3 bedroom mobile home. There is a Seniors Only park behind Leisure Town, called Lemon Tree Mobile Home Park, and it has a few places up for sale.
The master plan is to sell this house, use the equity to purchase the mobile home (outright, or with really low payments), take over $7,000 dollars off our annual outlay for housing, as well as a few thousand in payments for water, sewerage, and trash, and start enjoying our retirement. In this house, we have an additional $1200+ dollars for the Association Fees every year, as well, and that keeps going up. Two years ago, it was $900...
I've known this for a while... It's not like all was "hunky-dory," or anything. Once Mary retired, and we started getting her social security payments, it didn't take a CPA to figure out that we were fighting a losing battle. A gradual one, but things just keep going up here in the land of fruits and nuts.
We have only two credit cards, mine has only $800 on it, and Mary has $1,300 on hers. Every thing else, we own, except the house. I'll miss the ability to take Jacuzzi baths, but that's about all. It's been a good home for the last 8 1/2 years, we've had some good times here, but I think we need to start looking around, while we still have money in savings...
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Surviving a Heat Wave...
... is not an easy thing to do. It is Thursday, June 22, 2017. We have had temperatures of 100 degrees, or higher, for the past six, and soon to be seven, days. It is, at this point, the third longest heat wave of the last 150 years. The longest was eleven days, next was nine days, now six straight days of 100+ degree weather. It is an odd series of weather conditions, seeing as how seven days ago, we had rain, hail, lightning, thunderstorms, and enough snow in the Sierra's to cause chain requirements on both I-80 and US-50. Just last week!!!!
No, I'm not jumping on the global-warming band wagon. I've spent a number of June days -- and a couple of May days as well -- sweltering through the last days of classes at Vaca High, and that's just over the last 50 years. In my lifetime, we've seen a number of drought days/years, and then have a rainy year that brings us out of it, for a while. It's a cycle, sometimes things get really bad, because the people in charge of the reservoirs work on projections, rather than realities. An example: let's just say that since our last rainy season officially ended a drought, one projection would be that we would have another year of like precipitation, and reservoirs dump millions of acre feet of fresh water out to the sea. If the following year does not pan-out for rainfall, we have great aerial shots of receding shorelines at our lakes, throw on a 15-second diatribe about global warming, and your get that "heard it here first" sound bite that will look prophetic as the weather cycles between rain and drought...
Yes, it is terrible, the amount of hydrocarbons we release each day, but it's insignificant when compared to that of China, India, and Europe. Each of those areas produce industrial pollution many times more than the USA does, and not even the more "doom and gloom" factions of the global warming folks will deny that. And yet, the US will pay to reduce its contributions to pollution, while the biggest polluters aren't required to reduce anything. In essence, the Paris Climate Accord put the US in a "cap and trade" situation, where companies would be able to buy the opportunities to increase their "cap," but do nothing to regulate the pollution created by other members of the accord. Essentially, we were in it because our leadership was stupid enough to believe that China, India, Europe, or Russia really gave a crap about global warming, or the effect that their pollution might have on that theory.
This is just my own thinking, here, but I believe that all of the "leaks" that have happened since 2008, have been by the global-warming faithful, to nations that are being perceived to be allied in the cause of global warming.
Think about that for a few minutes...
No, I'm not jumping on the global-warming band wagon. I've spent a number of June days -- and a couple of May days as well -- sweltering through the last days of classes at Vaca High, and that's just over the last 50 years. In my lifetime, we've seen a number of drought days/years, and then have a rainy year that brings us out of it, for a while. It's a cycle, sometimes things get really bad, because the people in charge of the reservoirs work on projections, rather than realities. An example: let's just say that since our last rainy season officially ended a drought, one projection would be that we would have another year of like precipitation, and reservoirs dump millions of acre feet of fresh water out to the sea. If the following year does not pan-out for rainfall, we have great aerial shots of receding shorelines at our lakes, throw on a 15-second diatribe about global warming, and your get that "heard it here first" sound bite that will look prophetic as the weather cycles between rain and drought...
Yes, it is terrible, the amount of hydrocarbons we release each day, but it's insignificant when compared to that of China, India, and Europe. Each of those areas produce industrial pollution many times more than the USA does, and not even the more "doom and gloom" factions of the global warming folks will deny that. And yet, the US will pay to reduce its contributions to pollution, while the biggest polluters aren't required to reduce anything. In essence, the Paris Climate Accord put the US in a "cap and trade" situation, where companies would be able to buy the opportunities to increase their "cap," but do nothing to regulate the pollution created by other members of the accord. Essentially, we were in it because our leadership was stupid enough to believe that China, India, Europe, or Russia really gave a crap about global warming, or the effect that their pollution might have on that theory.
This is just my own thinking, here, but I believe that all of the "leaks" that have happened since 2008, have been by the global-warming faithful, to nations that are being perceived to be allied in the cause of global warming.
Think about that for a few minutes...
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Anyone for Cabo?
The Pirate Cruise Ships
It's always fun to travel with family... Pete, Tyff, Victor and Ryan.
The "Old People" in the bow at The Arch.
The fish were amazing through the glass bottom.
Looking back at The Arch from the Pacific Side.
One of the natural beaches cut out from the rocks.
The Arch fro the Sea of Cortez.
Daughter Tyffany enjoying the boat ride.
Again, "Old People" at The Arch
La playa del los liones del mar.
Hate is Such a Strong Word...
... and I am not one who gives into such a strong set of emotions, so if I screw up and say "I hate ..." it really doesn't mean that I despise, loathe, or otherwise detest the thing (persons, institutions, characters, etc.)... Except Virginia.
I was stationed on the USS INDEPENDENCE(CVA-62) from November 9, 1971 until October 10, 1974. I had petitioned for an early release, and could have been off in July, but was turned down due to a 90-day Wonder, who had, from the beginning of his time on the ship, made it his personal duty to make my life Hell. His big play, was that I was necessary to my Division, and had to have an on-board relief. This was all a load of ka-ka, as soon as they turned down my petition for early release, he sent me on Temporary Duty as a Mess Deck Master-at-Arms (essentially the baby sitter for 50 - or so - "Mess Cooks" - a misnomer, because none of the cooked anything, they did all of the clean-up). I had the "Starboard Crew" during our last week in Norfolk, VA, and through all but the last 5 days aboard INDY. So blatant was this man's dislike of me (over a Salute) that he caused some of the most senior enlisted guys in my Division to help me plot, and execute, revenge that I didn't get to see, but was told was "out-flipping-standing"...
Norfolk, Virginia is where I was baptized into the LDS Church, and where I had hoped I could make a fresh start on life. In 1972, after we returned to Norfolk from my first (partial) Mediterranean Deployment, or "Med Cruise," I started hanging out with guys who got drunk a lot, smoked a lot of pot, opium, and any other such stuff, and my life took a real downward spiral. I made one really good friend, "Ank," but I really can't remember any of the others, though they did have an impact on my life. It wasn't exactly like "falling down a rabbit hole," it was more like being on an express elevator to Hell, and it was going really fast...
Those of you who have read my blog, or have spent any kind of time with me, know that Norfolk is where I got so desperately lonely, that taking a leap from the mast of the INDY into the solid concrete of a dry-dock, became a viable option for me, and about the interruption that kept me from doing it, so I won't go into that.
The important thing was being alone. And I mean A-L-O-N-E. I had A friend, and a bunch of jerks I worked with, but Ank had his own problems, and we really never got close enough for me to think about discussing the more serious stuff with him, and the guys at work were quicker than a Hillary-supporter with an anonymously-sourced "news" item. In Norfolk, "proper" young ladies didn't go out with Sailors, and we were treated very shabbily by the "No-fuggers". Even the LDS folks treated the Sailors in their Wards as a lower life form, but that came later. There were a number of "deployment widows," women who's husbands were deployed, and were looking for stand-ins, and "bar hogs," women who hung out in the bars, and would do just about anything, as long as you kept the drinks coming, but that was, pretty much, the limit of a single young male's female companionship in Norfolk, in the early 1970's. I just didn't want that. I wanted to find "HER," the woman who would hold the keys to my heart, whom I could love, and talk to, and pour the secrets of my soul to, not some "one night stand," or until someone's husband came home.
That's what Norfolk will always represent to me, abject loneliness. I understand that much has been done to improve conditions there, and that's nice. It's four decades too late for me, and the damage was done. I do not plan on ever going there, I'm just not that curious. I got out of there once, I'm not going to take any chances on a second time.
I was stationed on the USS INDEPENDENCE(CVA-62) from November 9, 1971 until October 10, 1974. I had petitioned for an early release, and could have been off in July, but was turned down due to a 90-day Wonder, who had, from the beginning of his time on the ship, made it his personal duty to make my life Hell. His big play, was that I was necessary to my Division, and had to have an on-board relief. This was all a load of ka-ka, as soon as they turned down my petition for early release, he sent me on Temporary Duty as a Mess Deck Master-at-Arms (essentially the baby sitter for 50 - or so - "Mess Cooks" - a misnomer, because none of the cooked anything, they did all of the clean-up). I had the "Starboard Crew" during our last week in Norfolk, VA, and through all but the last 5 days aboard INDY. So blatant was this man's dislike of me (over a Salute) that he caused some of the most senior enlisted guys in my Division to help me plot, and execute, revenge that I didn't get to see, but was told was "out-flipping-standing"...
Norfolk, Virginia is where I was baptized into the LDS Church, and where I had hoped I could make a fresh start on life. In 1972, after we returned to Norfolk from my first (partial) Mediterranean Deployment, or "Med Cruise," I started hanging out with guys who got drunk a lot, smoked a lot of pot, opium, and any other such stuff, and my life took a real downward spiral. I made one really good friend, "Ank," but I really can't remember any of the others, though they did have an impact on my life. It wasn't exactly like "falling down a rabbit hole," it was more like being on an express elevator to Hell, and it was going really fast...
Those of you who have read my blog, or have spent any kind of time with me, know that Norfolk is where I got so desperately lonely, that taking a leap from the mast of the INDY into the solid concrete of a dry-dock, became a viable option for me, and about the interruption that kept me from doing it, so I won't go into that.
The important thing was being alone. And I mean A-L-O-N-E. I had A friend, and a bunch of jerks I worked with, but Ank had his own problems, and we really never got close enough for me to think about discussing the more serious stuff with him, and the guys at work were quicker than a Hillary-supporter with an anonymously-sourced "news" item. In Norfolk, "proper" young ladies didn't go out with Sailors, and we were treated very shabbily by the "No-fuggers". Even the LDS folks treated the Sailors in their Wards as a lower life form, but that came later. There were a number of "deployment widows," women who's husbands were deployed, and were looking for stand-ins, and "bar hogs," women who hung out in the bars, and would do just about anything, as long as you kept the drinks coming, but that was, pretty much, the limit of a single young male's female companionship in Norfolk, in the early 1970's. I just didn't want that. I wanted to find "HER," the woman who would hold the keys to my heart, whom I could love, and talk to, and pour the secrets of my soul to, not some "one night stand," or until someone's husband came home.
That's what Norfolk will always represent to me, abject loneliness. I understand that much has been done to improve conditions there, and that's nice. It's four decades too late for me, and the damage was done. I do not plan on ever going there, I'm just not that curious. I got out of there once, I'm not going to take any chances on a second time.
Friday, May 5, 2017
This is What Happens When You Push too Hard...
...You get to live with a pain that runs real deep. Sciatica. It isn't so much the pain, as it is to where it manifests itself. In this case, right in the curl in my right buttock, at the top of the thigh. It's a lot deeper sciatica than I can remember with the ones that were caused by the disks. I always describe it as feeling "like you were kicked very hard, square in the butt, by someone wearing a steel-toed boot." The only thing is, actually getting kicked like that goes away much quicker, and you rarely lose any sleep over it.
There is no position I can get into that is really comfortable. I am currently sitting on a "memory foam" pillow that is sitting atop a desk chair "memory foam" pad that is sitting atop an "executive-style" desk chair. I still hurt. I took a Norco about 3 1/2 hours ago, and I still hurt. I do so little moving around during the day, my Fitbit is calling me "Jabba," and constantly insults me during the day with stuff like, "Maybe it's time to turn over," or "Have I been left on the dresser?" OK, maybe not great jokes, but it's about all I've got left at this point.
I've tried every position outside of the Kama Sutra, that a person can get into, without much more than momentary relief. I've used Ben Gay cream, Aspercream with lidocane, TENS, and even prescription strength,12-hour lidocane patches. The patches probably work the best, so I usually use them at night, after a cycle in the Jacuzzi, so that the 12 hours are over by 9 am, and I can take it off. The directions say that I can "use up to 3 patches, for up to 12 hours, out of every 24 hour period." It's pretty clear, and I won't abuse it, not intentionally, anyway (I once left a patch on for 15 hours... I just forgot it was there...). I've even tried "inversion therapy," and have my own inversion table, but it only made things worse.
Hey, no one to blame but me... I was the one who always wanted to find out what "this" felt like, or "that" felt like. I was the last kid in my neighborhood to break a bone... not that I did it intentionally, but my parents wouldn't allow me to do things if there were a chance I'd get hurt. Being able to play Little League at 9 years old took a long, and sometimes loud exchange before my dad decided that I'd be OK. Ironically, the two times I broke bones in my lower extremities were both related to playing baseball... but that wasn't all... I've probably broken every finger on both hands, at least once. I've dislocated my left thumb so many times that the arthritis can be excruciating at times (but that was from golf, so...)
I've pushed my "rehab" program too far, too fast, and now I'm paying for it. This is a lesson about the difference between trying to rush things, and being patient. It's always been a tough lesson for me, and for some reason, I just keep not getting it... until stuff like this happens. It's also a lesson about me not being a young man any more... about not "bouncing back" as quickly... about how this is supposed to be the time for me to slow down, to appreciate the marvelous, magical, miraculous things that have happened in my life... I'd like to, I really would, it's just that there is so much to do, yet...
I've done international travel, going to the Mediterranean for 14 months (over 3 years), Missawa, Japan for 6 months, and a couple of trips through the Panama Canal, stops in Cancun, Acapulco, and Mazatlán... but always part of a military assignment. Granted, going overseas was pretty easy up until the 911 attacks, but circumstances were never really favorable for travel, no could either of us afford the time... Retirement, however, takes care of the time.
I am pretty much ready to try a limited-scale international trip. We are set to go to Cabo San Lucas soon, to spend a week in a penthouse suite, on the beach, travel included, with our daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons (ages 8 and 3). There's nothing better than traveling to a First Class resort, to relax in luxury for a week, and spend the time with family, unless it was free, huh?
It just so happens, that an error by a time-share agent turned into a MAJOR deal in favor of our kids (their families, and friends), who now have an enormous amount of annual points to use on resort condo rentals, air fare, rental cars, and just about everything else. The trip to Cabo will be the 1st for the whole family, and we only have to pay for food and souvenirs, everything else is covered. Bless you, my eldest born...
There is no position I can get into that is really comfortable. I am currently sitting on a "memory foam" pillow that is sitting atop a desk chair "memory foam" pad that is sitting atop an "executive-style" desk chair. I still hurt. I took a Norco about 3 1/2 hours ago, and I still hurt. I do so little moving around during the day, my Fitbit is calling me "Jabba," and constantly insults me during the day with stuff like, "Maybe it's time to turn over," or "Have I been left on the dresser?" OK, maybe not great jokes, but it's about all I've got left at this point.
I've tried every position outside of the Kama Sutra, that a person can get into, without much more than momentary relief. I've used Ben Gay cream, Aspercream with lidocane, TENS, and even prescription strength,12-hour lidocane patches. The patches probably work the best, so I usually use them at night, after a cycle in the Jacuzzi, so that the 12 hours are over by 9 am, and I can take it off. The directions say that I can "use up to 3 patches, for up to 12 hours, out of every 24 hour period." It's pretty clear, and I won't abuse it, not intentionally, anyway (I once left a patch on for 15 hours... I just forgot it was there...). I've even tried "inversion therapy," and have my own inversion table, but it only made things worse.
Hey, no one to blame but me... I was the one who always wanted to find out what "this" felt like, or "that" felt like. I was the last kid in my neighborhood to break a bone... not that I did it intentionally, but my parents wouldn't allow me to do things if there were a chance I'd get hurt. Being able to play Little League at 9 years old took a long, and sometimes loud exchange before my dad decided that I'd be OK. Ironically, the two times I broke bones in my lower extremities were both related to playing baseball... but that wasn't all... I've probably broken every finger on both hands, at least once. I've dislocated my left thumb so many times that the arthritis can be excruciating at times (but that was from golf, so...)
I've pushed my "rehab" program too far, too fast, and now I'm paying for it. This is a lesson about the difference between trying to rush things, and being patient. It's always been a tough lesson for me, and for some reason, I just keep not getting it... until stuff like this happens. It's also a lesson about me not being a young man any more... about not "bouncing back" as quickly... about how this is supposed to be the time for me to slow down, to appreciate the marvelous, magical, miraculous things that have happened in my life... I'd like to, I really would, it's just that there is so much to do, yet...
I've done international travel, going to the Mediterranean for 14 months (over 3 years), Missawa, Japan for 6 months, and a couple of trips through the Panama Canal, stops in Cancun, Acapulco, and Mazatlán... but always part of a military assignment. Granted, going overseas was pretty easy up until the 911 attacks, but circumstances were never really favorable for travel, no could either of us afford the time... Retirement, however, takes care of the time.
I am pretty much ready to try a limited-scale international trip. We are set to go to Cabo San Lucas soon, to spend a week in a penthouse suite, on the beach, travel included, with our daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons (ages 8 and 3). There's nothing better than traveling to a First Class resort, to relax in luxury for a week, and spend the time with family, unless it was free, huh?
It just so happens, that an error by a time-share agent turned into a MAJOR deal in favor of our kids (their families, and friends), who now have an enormous amount of annual points to use on resort condo rentals, air fare, rental cars, and just about everything else. The trip to Cabo will be the 1st for the whole family, and we only have to pay for food and souvenirs, everything else is covered. Bless you, my eldest born...
Saturday, April 29, 2017
An Oktoberfest in Munich Story...
Right before I joined the Church, I was on a deployment aboard the USS INDEPENDENCE (CV-62), to the Mediterranean Sea. I had been on part of a deployment a year earlier, and had learned that there were things one really needed to have, and one of those was a EUR-RAIL Pass, essentially, a six-month ticket to ride the European railroads, anywhere, anytime, for (in pre-1974 Dollars) $65.00. Every time we were in port, in Naples, Athens, Barcelona, wherever..., and I had a weekend off..., I would disappear. My Navy ID was my passport, and I got to places many of my shipmates didn't, because they didn't have the Pass.
The ship was in Naples, it was a US Holiday weekend, which meant that, since I had Duty on Thursday, nobody had to go in on Monday, my leave started on Tuesday... I had a three day head-start on a 4 day leave, to go North to Munich, just in time for the start of Oktoberfest! I had $650 I had saved, and going to a real Oktoberfest, was high on my bucket list.
Just so you know, this was before cell phones, before direct international dialing, before it was easy to "reach out an touch someone..." I had a signed leave authorization, checked out on Friday morning, valid for 7 days, but when I got back, the papers submitted would only charge me for 4 days of leave (it always helped to have a guy from your boot camp Company in Personnel). Now days, you call from Munich, I guess...
Friday morning, right after Muster, when the off-going Duty Section was released, I took the leave papers I submitted (for 4 days), went down to Personnel and swapped them for the 7 day papers, changed clothes, grabbed my "Liberty Bag," checked off the ship, and rode one of the first Liberty Launches of the day. I'd asked if some of the other guys, with Passes, if they wanted to go up for the start of Oktoberfest, and no one wanted to go... I asked a couple of guys I knew aboard the ship who didn't have the Pass, but had the money to buy a ticket, and go, but no one seemed to want to spend the time on the train.. So I was off to Munich, alone. It's not as bad as it seems, it was 1973, and people didn't mess with Americans (too much) in Europe.
Sure, there were, what I called, the "Language Game," where a National's ability to speak English decreased with an American's demands to "find someone who speaks English around here". From that previous partial-deployment, I learned that if you knew enough of just about any European Language to say, "I do not speak _____. Does anyone speak English?" in the local language, darn near everyone did. The ship had a civilian instructor aboard to teach PACE (Program for Afloat College Education) classes in Linguistics, and we had become friends as I would go to our ship's library, and study books on Elementary Languages, for Greek, Italian, and German, and he offered to help me master those phrases. Some guys learned to ask those questions in French, and had limited success, but I learned them in whatever the language was of the country we were going to, and never, not even once, had a hard time finding someone whom I could speak with.
It was a great plan, but it had one glaring weakness... Menus... I got on an early train, and reached Munich in the late-afternoon/early-evening, and I though I'd stop at the restaurant in the Station, and grab a bite... except the menu was in German, and my attempts to use my phrases in German were failing (I decided to take this trip four days before I left, and I looked at the book, but hadn't done a lot of practicing), when a gentleman, who had been sitting with a woman a couple of tables over, came up and asked me what the problem was, in English that showed little of the German influence. I told him I didn't read German, and just wanted to order something to eat. He helped me get my order placed, and went back to his table for a minute, and came back. He asked if he and his wife could join me, "for your luncheon". Being grateful for his help, I agreed very quickly. He got the waiter's attention, said a brief word in German, and sat down.
He introduced himself as Karl, and his wife as Helga, and said that they were grateful for the chance to practice their English, since they would soon be visiting their son, who was a student at an American university. We talked, Karl ordered us bier while we waited, and we talked for a long time, before, during, and after our meal. I found out that Karl was some kind of plumbing "magnate," in Munich, and owned his own chain of plumbing stores throughout West Germany, and that Helga spent time writing short stories, and some poetry that had been well received in the West (there was still a wall in Berlin at this time). About two hours, and at least three of Germany's best bier's, I realized I still didn't have a place to stay, and had gotten pretty hammered on the bier.
It was while I was saying "Thank you," Karl paid for everything, I asked, "What university does your son attend in America?"
Karl smiled and said that his son was going to be a Veterinarian, and was going to school at the University of California at Davis, obviously proud that his son had been accepted for study at such a good veterinary school. When I told him that Davis was only 20 miles from my home, everything changed...
Karl picked up my bag, and said for me to follow him. I told him that I had no idea where I was staying that night, and he said that he did. I told him I was on a budget, I had money, but I wasn't prepared to stay anyplace expensive. He looked back over his shoulder, a smiled as he said that I could definitely afford the place he was taking me, no matter what kind of budget I was on. It was just after dark, I was in a car, driving across Munich from the train station, and couldn't have found my way back to the station if I wanted to. Karl and Helga kept up a quiet dialogue in German, and Helga laughed a couple of times, as did Karl. Finally, we pull up to a gate, Karl taps in a code, the gate opens, and we drive up to what looked like one of those 5-star hotels, complete with a parking valet. We got out, and walked into this richly decorated room, which I assumed was the lobby, until Karl turned to me a said, "Welcome to our home."
I tried to be adamant, "No, you can't be serious. You don't know me, I don't really know anything about you, and I really am prepared to rent a room..."
At length, Karl put a hand up, and said, "Look, people in America treated our son Gunter very well. A couple met him in an airport restaurant, found out he was going to the university in Davis, and drove him up to the school. There was some mix-up about his dormitory assignment, and the people who Gunter had just met, offered to let him stay in their home until things got cleared up. It turned out, that the couple liked Gunter so much, they offered to rent him their... Granny Flat, is what they called it, it is a room with it's own entrance, kitchen, and WC, for a lot less than it would have cost him to stay in the dormitories. Helga and I had talked about doing the same thing for some one here, and you seemed to be a nice person, so we picked you. Since your home is near Davis, it seemed to be the perfect time..."
I quit objecting after a while. In the meantime, Karl took me around Munich, pointing out the various landmarks, and points of interest, stopping occasionally to step into a Biergarten, and have a liter or so... I remember stopping off at his office, in a really nice building, and him leaving a note for his secretary, and his assistant, that he would be out of the office for the next week. He called both of them from the office, and told them personally, so I thought the note-thing was rather redundant. He said that the notes had specific things for them to do, so they wouldn't have to remember where he wanted them to start. I guess German has a shorthand of its own... I got it, though. He was just reminding them who the Boss was, and making sure that they didn't get behind on their own work, he'd take care of his when he returned. He told me that during Oktoberfest, usually only a limited amount of business got transacted, particularly at the corporate level, "because bosses liked to party, too".
That was one of the last things I really remember, other than an acute hangover on the train back to Naples. Sitting on the train, I pulled out my wallet, to see how much money I had left... $650. It must have been a helluva party, not only do I not remember, it didn't cost me anything... How many people can say that?
The ship was in Naples, it was a US Holiday weekend, which meant that, since I had Duty on Thursday, nobody had to go in on Monday, my leave started on Tuesday... I had a three day head-start on a 4 day leave, to go North to Munich, just in time for the start of Oktoberfest! I had $650 I had saved, and going to a real Oktoberfest, was high on my bucket list.
Just so you know, this was before cell phones, before direct international dialing, before it was easy to "reach out an touch someone..." I had a signed leave authorization, checked out on Friday morning, valid for 7 days, but when I got back, the papers submitted would only charge me for 4 days of leave (it always helped to have a guy from your boot camp Company in Personnel). Now days, you call from Munich, I guess...
Friday morning, right after Muster, when the off-going Duty Section was released, I took the leave papers I submitted (for 4 days), went down to Personnel and swapped them for the 7 day papers, changed clothes, grabbed my "Liberty Bag," checked off the ship, and rode one of the first Liberty Launches of the day. I'd asked if some of the other guys, with Passes, if they wanted to go up for the start of Oktoberfest, and no one wanted to go... I asked a couple of guys I knew aboard the ship who didn't have the Pass, but had the money to buy a ticket, and go, but no one seemed to want to spend the time on the train.. So I was off to Munich, alone. It's not as bad as it seems, it was 1973, and people didn't mess with Americans (too much) in Europe.
Sure, there were, what I called, the "Language Game," where a National's ability to speak English decreased with an American's demands to "find someone who speaks English around here". From that previous partial-deployment, I learned that if you knew enough of just about any European Language to say, "I do not speak _____. Does anyone speak English?" in the local language, darn near everyone did. The ship had a civilian instructor aboard to teach PACE (Program for Afloat College Education) classes in Linguistics, and we had become friends as I would go to our ship's library, and study books on Elementary Languages, for Greek, Italian, and German, and he offered to help me master those phrases. Some guys learned to ask those questions in French, and had limited success, but I learned them in whatever the language was of the country we were going to, and never, not even once, had a hard time finding someone whom I could speak with.
It was a great plan, but it had one glaring weakness... Menus... I got on an early train, and reached Munich in the late-afternoon/early-evening, and I though I'd stop at the restaurant in the Station, and grab a bite... except the menu was in German, and my attempts to use my phrases in German were failing (I decided to take this trip four days before I left, and I looked at the book, but hadn't done a lot of practicing), when a gentleman, who had been sitting with a woman a couple of tables over, came up and asked me what the problem was, in English that showed little of the German influence. I told him I didn't read German, and just wanted to order something to eat. He helped me get my order placed, and went back to his table for a minute, and came back. He asked if he and his wife could join me, "for your luncheon". Being grateful for his help, I agreed very quickly. He got the waiter's attention, said a brief word in German, and sat down.
He introduced himself as Karl, and his wife as Helga, and said that they were grateful for the chance to practice their English, since they would soon be visiting their son, who was a student at an American university. We talked, Karl ordered us bier while we waited, and we talked for a long time, before, during, and after our meal. I found out that Karl was some kind of plumbing "magnate," in Munich, and owned his own chain of plumbing stores throughout West Germany, and that Helga spent time writing short stories, and some poetry that had been well received in the West (there was still a wall in Berlin at this time). About two hours, and at least three of Germany's best bier's, I realized I still didn't have a place to stay, and had gotten pretty hammered on the bier.
It was while I was saying "Thank you," Karl paid for everything, I asked, "What university does your son attend in America?"
Karl smiled and said that his son was going to be a Veterinarian, and was going to school at the University of California at Davis, obviously proud that his son had been accepted for study at such a good veterinary school. When I told him that Davis was only 20 miles from my home, everything changed...
Karl picked up my bag, and said for me to follow him. I told him that I had no idea where I was staying that night, and he said that he did. I told him I was on a budget, I had money, but I wasn't prepared to stay anyplace expensive. He looked back over his shoulder, a smiled as he said that I could definitely afford the place he was taking me, no matter what kind of budget I was on. It was just after dark, I was in a car, driving across Munich from the train station, and couldn't have found my way back to the station if I wanted to. Karl and Helga kept up a quiet dialogue in German, and Helga laughed a couple of times, as did Karl. Finally, we pull up to a gate, Karl taps in a code, the gate opens, and we drive up to what looked like one of those 5-star hotels, complete with a parking valet. We got out, and walked into this richly decorated room, which I assumed was the lobby, until Karl turned to me a said, "Welcome to our home."
I tried to be adamant, "No, you can't be serious. You don't know me, I don't really know anything about you, and I really am prepared to rent a room..."
At length, Karl put a hand up, and said, "Look, people in America treated our son Gunter very well. A couple met him in an airport restaurant, found out he was going to the university in Davis, and drove him up to the school. There was some mix-up about his dormitory assignment, and the people who Gunter had just met, offered to let him stay in their home until things got cleared up. It turned out, that the couple liked Gunter so much, they offered to rent him their... Granny Flat, is what they called it, it is a room with it's own entrance, kitchen, and WC, for a lot less than it would have cost him to stay in the dormitories. Helga and I had talked about doing the same thing for some one here, and you seemed to be a nice person, so we picked you. Since your home is near Davis, it seemed to be the perfect time..."
I quit objecting after a while. In the meantime, Karl took me around Munich, pointing out the various landmarks, and points of interest, stopping occasionally to step into a Biergarten, and have a liter or so... I remember stopping off at his office, in a really nice building, and him leaving a note for his secretary, and his assistant, that he would be out of the office for the next week. He called both of them from the office, and told them personally, so I thought the note-thing was rather redundant. He said that the notes had specific things for them to do, so they wouldn't have to remember where he wanted them to start. I guess German has a shorthand of its own... I got it, though. He was just reminding them who the Boss was, and making sure that they didn't get behind on their own work, he'd take care of his when he returned. He told me that during Oktoberfest, usually only a limited amount of business got transacted, particularly at the corporate level, "because bosses liked to party, too".
That was one of the last things I really remember, other than an acute hangover on the train back to Naples. Sitting on the train, I pulled out my wallet, to see how much money I had left... $650. It must have been a helluva party, not only do I not remember, it didn't cost me anything... How many people can say that?
Saturday, April 15, 2017
I Wish to Thank...
... a guy named Gordon B. Hinckley for his service to the world, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and for his efforts to bring people back from the very edges of Mormonism. When he became President, in 1995, I was struggling with the Word of Wisdom in just about everyway one could. I drank, I smoked, I didn't go to Church because everyone "knew" what I was doing, and I felt like I was being shunned a lot.
We were in Paradise, CA, and I had just transferred from Butte College to Chico State. I went to school in the daytime, worked at a bowling alley 40 hours a week, and somehow made time to go to my son's baseball games, and other things associated with being a dad. After work, I would drink with my crew from the bowl, get home about 4am, be up at 8am, and go back down the hill to start it all over again. I went to school Monday thru Friday, and worked Wednesday thru Sunday, so unless there was a Monday holiday, I didn't have a day off for two years. Since Sacrament Meeting was at 8, and I usually still smelled a little like liquor, I didn't go to Church very often.
Then, right before my final semester, I was driving home, with a blood-alcohol level of .24 (three times the legal limit), and ran into the back end of a flatbed truck parked along the Skyway. I was thrown forward against the steering wheel, which pushed my glasses into my nose cutting both sides, getting bruised ribs from the seatbelt, and receiving several small cuts from the broken glass. That was all.
It was on the following day, when I went to the junk yard to see what my car looked like, I couldn't believe it... The corner of the flatbed hit the windshield right where the rear-view mirror is attached, and peeled the roof back behind the driver's seat. There was this jagged edge of metal, which had been the roof of my car, and somehow, it missed me. I WAS LUCKY TO BE ALIVE!!!
And then I thought, "Not lucky, blessed."
I got to thinking about all of the times, when we held family prayer, that someone asked that we be protected, and all of the times we'd been able to avoid serious injuries... There had to be a correlation...
In 1995, I had been out of AA for about 4 years, because they helped me find my spiritual side, and then refused to talk about anything but a "higher power" when I asked about God. There were so many conflicts, a serenity prayer that started, "God, grant me the serenity..." but if you talked about God, someone had to get up after you, and clarify that AA wasn't a religious fellowship. I was willing to play along, for a while, but it was like watching a mystery, and right before the killer is named, the movie is over... My spiritual side had been rekindled, and had begun to burn, and I couldn't get a single old drunk to talk about God. It also wasn't something I could take to my Bishop, or Priesthood leader; people just weren't trained to deal with problems like alcoholism.
Enter one Gordon B. Hinckley. I had listened to him for a number of years, speaking at General Conference as a member of the Twelve, and every single time, felt like he was talking just to me. Through his efforts, the Church began to recognize the fact that not everyone was able to live the Word of Wisdom easily. He organized a Committee to approach Alcoholics Anonymous, and ask if the Church could adapt AA's 12 Steps to become more Gospel/LDS amenable. AA gave them permission to put something together, for AA approval. After seeing the adaptation, AA gave their approval, and the Addiction Recovery Program went from being an idea, to a functioning Church Service Mission. Mary and I served as the Missionary Couple for ARP here in Vacaville. Just the fact that the Church decided to do something about Members with addiction problems meant a great deal to me.
Pres. Hinckley also identified a problem frequently encountered by new converts... I called it, "Dunk 'em and leave 'em," something I faced when I was first baptized. Before I was baptized, everyone was so nice to me, came up and shook my hand, welcoming me... After baptism, it was like I didn't exist. I had tons of questions, just because I was baptized didn't mean that I actually knew what it was like to be a Mormon, and the one LDS guy in my Division just shipped out to U of U to get his Bachelor's Degree, and become an Officer. It's a long story, and involves a porn dealing, LDS Group Leader, so my first 9 months as a Mormon were pretty messed up...
Most of my 44 years as a Member has been spent just going through the motions. Show up, take sacrament, go home, and not show up for weeks at a time... I felt that everyone knew stuff, that I just wasn't getting. The LDS guy from my Division used to play a game with the Missionaries, someone would pick a chapter in the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, or Pearl of Great Price, and the other would recite the Chapter Headings. I couldn't do that, heck, I still can't do that. I prayed, fairly often, to be forgiven for the things I had done wrong, and never felt like I was making any progress. Until 2003.
In 2003, we moved to Spokane, and I met our Ward's High Priest Group Leader, and let's just say that our lives paralleled in a lot of ways. We were attending the Priesthood Session of Conference, at the Spokane Valley Stake Building, sitting side by side, as we had become friends over the several months we'd been in Spokane, and Pres. Hinckley talked about listening for the answer to our prayers. What a novel concept! I guess, up to that point, I believed that my prayers were a one-way communication, just say them, and let God alone to do his work... We talked about listening for answers on the ride home, and I decided to try it sometime.
It struck me funny, when I prayed, once again, for forgiveness of my past sins, and actually stopped to listen for an answer, I could almost feel Him thumping me on the head, telling me to stop bringing up old business, I had been forgiven for that stuff the first time I asked. When I told my friend about the experience, it opened up a long, long conversation on the Atonement, and I finally understood a whole lot about what it means to be a Mormon. I took a lot away with me from our sojourn in Eastern Washington, and this is what I have learned:
The Church is perfect. The doctrine is perfect, the organization is modeled after Christ's own church, it has a Prophet at it's head, and it has a second witness of Jesus the Christ. The people, on the other hand, should probably get electroshock every so often. They gossip, they judge, they're hypocritical, and NONE of them are perfect, despite any airs they may put on. A year in a Bishopric taught me that.
I've gotten over the "Be ye therefore perfect," thing. For one, there's no freaking way that I am going to ever be perfect, except perhaps on the other side of the veil. I really can't "strive" to be perfect, hope to be perfect, or ever be considered perfect, other than being a perfectly bad example... The only thing I can hope, pray, or try for is to be a little better today, than I was yesterday. I realized that being a Mormon isn't a competition, in the eyes of God, we are all equal, and I'm good with that. I realized that being a Mormon doesn't give me any right to judge other people, but gives me the responsibility to view others as the Savior sees them.
After Spokane, I stayed active until 2013, when I had lung cancer surgery, which, when coupled with chronic back problems, kept me at home for most of the next three years. Ordinarily, I'd have slept in, watched football/baseball/golf on TV, and I did for a couple of months, until I felt a part of me slipping away. It was that spiritual part, it wasn't being nourished, and I was in real danger of losing it. I started having my own meetings, with talks from General Authorities (via the Ensign, and BYU Channel), but I really missed being with my Ward Family.
That spiritual side has been a part of me my whole life. It sustained me through some of the worst times imaginable, it has been a small ray of hope, a glimmer of pure light that shines in times of the deepest darkness. It's the side that tells me that Jesus is my Savior, that even though he was crucified in the flesh, he lives on, to guide me back to his presence. It's the side that tells me that through the Atonement, I can one day return to His presence, and hear those magnificent words, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."
We were in Paradise, CA, and I had just transferred from Butte College to Chico State. I went to school in the daytime, worked at a bowling alley 40 hours a week, and somehow made time to go to my son's baseball games, and other things associated with being a dad. After work, I would drink with my crew from the bowl, get home about 4am, be up at 8am, and go back down the hill to start it all over again. I went to school Monday thru Friday, and worked Wednesday thru Sunday, so unless there was a Monday holiday, I didn't have a day off for two years. Since Sacrament Meeting was at 8, and I usually still smelled a little like liquor, I didn't go to Church very often.
Then, right before my final semester, I was driving home, with a blood-alcohol level of .24 (three times the legal limit), and ran into the back end of a flatbed truck parked along the Skyway. I was thrown forward against the steering wheel, which pushed my glasses into my nose cutting both sides, getting bruised ribs from the seatbelt, and receiving several small cuts from the broken glass. That was all.
It was on the following day, when I went to the junk yard to see what my car looked like, I couldn't believe it... The corner of the flatbed hit the windshield right where the rear-view mirror is attached, and peeled the roof back behind the driver's seat. There was this jagged edge of metal, which had been the roof of my car, and somehow, it missed me. I WAS LUCKY TO BE ALIVE!!!
And then I thought, "Not lucky, blessed."
I got to thinking about all of the times, when we held family prayer, that someone asked that we be protected, and all of the times we'd been able to avoid serious injuries... There had to be a correlation...
In 1995, I had been out of AA for about 4 years, because they helped me find my spiritual side, and then refused to talk about anything but a "higher power" when I asked about God. There were so many conflicts, a serenity prayer that started, "God, grant me the serenity..." but if you talked about God, someone had to get up after you, and clarify that AA wasn't a religious fellowship. I was willing to play along, for a while, but it was like watching a mystery, and right before the killer is named, the movie is over... My spiritual side had been rekindled, and had begun to burn, and I couldn't get a single old drunk to talk about God. It also wasn't something I could take to my Bishop, or Priesthood leader; people just weren't trained to deal with problems like alcoholism.
Enter one Gordon B. Hinckley. I had listened to him for a number of years, speaking at General Conference as a member of the Twelve, and every single time, felt like he was talking just to me. Through his efforts, the Church began to recognize the fact that not everyone was able to live the Word of Wisdom easily. He organized a Committee to approach Alcoholics Anonymous, and ask if the Church could adapt AA's 12 Steps to become more Gospel/LDS amenable. AA gave them permission to put something together, for AA approval. After seeing the adaptation, AA gave their approval, and the Addiction Recovery Program went from being an idea, to a functioning Church Service Mission. Mary and I served as the Missionary Couple for ARP here in Vacaville. Just the fact that the Church decided to do something about Members with addiction problems meant a great deal to me.
Pres. Hinckley also identified a problem frequently encountered by new converts... I called it, "Dunk 'em and leave 'em," something I faced when I was first baptized. Before I was baptized, everyone was so nice to me, came up and shook my hand, welcoming me... After baptism, it was like I didn't exist. I had tons of questions, just because I was baptized didn't mean that I actually knew what it was like to be a Mormon, and the one LDS guy in my Division just shipped out to U of U to get his Bachelor's Degree, and become an Officer. It's a long story, and involves a porn dealing, LDS Group Leader, so my first 9 months as a Mormon were pretty messed up...
Most of my 44 years as a Member has been spent just going through the motions. Show up, take sacrament, go home, and not show up for weeks at a time... I felt that everyone knew stuff, that I just wasn't getting. The LDS guy from my Division used to play a game with the Missionaries, someone would pick a chapter in the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, or Pearl of Great Price, and the other would recite the Chapter Headings. I couldn't do that, heck, I still can't do that. I prayed, fairly often, to be forgiven for the things I had done wrong, and never felt like I was making any progress. Until 2003.
In 2003, we moved to Spokane, and I met our Ward's High Priest Group Leader, and let's just say that our lives paralleled in a lot of ways. We were attending the Priesthood Session of Conference, at the Spokane Valley Stake Building, sitting side by side, as we had become friends over the several months we'd been in Spokane, and Pres. Hinckley talked about listening for the answer to our prayers. What a novel concept! I guess, up to that point, I believed that my prayers were a one-way communication, just say them, and let God alone to do his work... We talked about listening for answers on the ride home, and I decided to try it sometime.
It struck me funny, when I prayed, once again, for forgiveness of my past sins, and actually stopped to listen for an answer, I could almost feel Him thumping me on the head, telling me to stop bringing up old business, I had been forgiven for that stuff the first time I asked. When I told my friend about the experience, it opened up a long, long conversation on the Atonement, and I finally understood a whole lot about what it means to be a Mormon. I took a lot away with me from our sojourn in Eastern Washington, and this is what I have learned:
The Church is perfect. The doctrine is perfect, the organization is modeled after Christ's own church, it has a Prophet at it's head, and it has a second witness of Jesus the Christ. The people, on the other hand, should probably get electroshock every so often. They gossip, they judge, they're hypocritical, and NONE of them are perfect, despite any airs they may put on. A year in a Bishopric taught me that.
I've gotten over the "Be ye therefore perfect," thing. For one, there's no freaking way that I am going to ever be perfect, except perhaps on the other side of the veil. I really can't "strive" to be perfect, hope to be perfect, or ever be considered perfect, other than being a perfectly bad example... The only thing I can hope, pray, or try for is to be a little better today, than I was yesterday. I realized that being a Mormon isn't a competition, in the eyes of God, we are all equal, and I'm good with that. I realized that being a Mormon doesn't give me any right to judge other people, but gives me the responsibility to view others as the Savior sees them.
After Spokane, I stayed active until 2013, when I had lung cancer surgery, which, when coupled with chronic back problems, kept me at home for most of the next three years. Ordinarily, I'd have slept in, watched football/baseball/golf on TV, and I did for a couple of months, until I felt a part of me slipping away. It was that spiritual part, it wasn't being nourished, and I was in real danger of losing it. I started having my own meetings, with talks from General Authorities (via the Ensign, and BYU Channel), but I really missed being with my Ward Family.
That spiritual side has been a part of me my whole life. It sustained me through some of the worst times imaginable, it has been a small ray of hope, a glimmer of pure light that shines in times of the deepest darkness. It's the side that tells me that Jesus is my Savior, that even though he was crucified in the flesh, he lives on, to guide me back to his presence. It's the side that tells me that through the Atonement, I can one day return to His presence, and hear those magnificent words, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."
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