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...
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