Installment # 45

One of the dangers of a lack of common sense, at least for me, is that you tend to believe people who are passionate about what they are telling you, or at least are good at seeming to be passionate about they are telling you.  Dennis Donovan’s father had been in the paratroopers during World War II.  He filled our heads with stories that any testosterone-laden young man would respond to.  In 1961 the military draft was still in effect.  Once a young man turned 18, he had to register with the Selective Service and wait to be contacted to report for his two-year assignment.  He might be contacted at age 18, or it could be one or two years later.  There were college deferments available, but I wasn’t planning on qualifying for one of those.

The length of service required if one volunteered for the Army was three years.  A seventeen year old could volunteer with parental permission.  I did the math: if I enlist at age 17, I will be 20 when I get out.  If I wait to be drafted for two years, I will be at least 20 when I get out or older if I am 19 or 20 when I get drafted.  Two years?  Three years?  What’s the difference?  Let’s get this over with.  I can report that I was not in boot camp (Basic Training) more than a few days before I realized the enormous difference between two years and three years in the Army.  Plunging into things and getting them over with seems to be one of my more consistent inclinations.

My impulsiveness in this particular case may have been the most important action in my life, because my three years were up before the Vietnam War cranked up.  During the last six months or so of my three year commitment we were hearing that volunteering for Vietnam was a good idea, because you got combat pay, but were not in harm’s way at all.  We were considered “advisors,” whatever that meant.  This was during 1964.  As students of history might know, it was during 1965 that President Lyndon Johnson and Congress made the decision to send some 100,000 young people over there as combat troops, not so-called advisors.  If I hadn’t volunteered at age 17, I would certainly have been part of the big ramp up of troops.

Let me switch gears here and talk about my best Army buddy, Tom Harris.  I don’t know how we got to be close friends, because we were not in the same unit in Germany.  Maybe it was our mutual interests in music and drinking.  We both gravitated toward the same group of a dozen or so people who we enjoyed being with, and eventually we were best buds.  He was over 6 feet tall, and I was lucky to hit 5’ 8”.  He was lanky and I was stocky.  When the Righteous Brothers became popular we tried to sing like them.  He of course was the tall guy, and I was the shorter guy, (Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, respectively).  Tom had a music background, could carry a tune better than I could and could sing harmony a lot better.  He spent a lot of time helping me to hear and create harmonies, or at least hold the melody while he hit the harmonies.  Tom was also a drummer.  He seldom had access to a set of drums, but he used the table and his fingers to teach me rhythms.  He would start with something simple and I would duplicate what he did; then he would begin to add on and embellish his progressions, and I would repeat what he did until I could no longer do it completely.  To this day I can play the “fingerdrums” and create rhythms that are hard for others to duplicate.

I remember one time Tom borrowed an exciting new camera called the Polaroid-Land camera that actually printed out a color picture a few seconds after you snapped it.  What magic!  I have a scrap book filled with black and white pictures that we mainly had to develop ourselves.  There was a darkroom on post which we were welcome to use whenever it was available.  It was quite a cumbersome process.  Anyway, Tom and I wandered around the town of Mainz, stopping for a beer or two in any number of our favorite places, and taking pictures with this Polaroid camera as we went along.  No camera had automatic focusing in those days, by the way.  You had to focus before you clicked the picture.  The next day we looked at the pictures and could see that they were becoming blurrier and blurrier the more beer we consumed.  I hadn’t really felt it that much, but here was proof positive about impairment (a word I probably had not heard of).  Back then you were either drunk or you were not drunk.

With our mutual love of music, we attended any USO performances that came around.  The men and women who traveled and entertained the troops were mostly talented, though of course given the spotty and sometimes rude receptions they received, performers with better options did not continue long with the USO.  I remember attending a live performance of Pajama Game that I was enjoying, but every time someone started to sing there would be some groans and boos from sections of the audience.  I wondered why people bothered to attend if they didn’t like musicals.  Some probably had nothing else to do.  Maybe the talent level was really poor, but I didn’t notice.  To this day, Sandy and I will enjoy a movie that the critics (the so-called experts) had nothing good to say about.  But we enjoyed it.  Maybe we are just too uneducated or too easily pleased or something.  We often are attracted to a movie because of the cast, and some of our favorites could read aloud from the phone book, and we would enjoy it, because we just like the actor.

I guess I could list some names here for posterity.  Just as some names take me back to my parents’ day, maybe some of these will be of interest to young people in the future:  Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, Ann Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Antonio Banderas, Renee Zellweger, Owen Wilson, Nicholas Cage and Johnny Depp.  Some that I like maybe more than Sandy does include Tom Cruise, Michael Kane, Maggie Smith, Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie.

I enjoy movies and TV programs that Sandy will not watch, because she finds them too unsettling or disturbing.  The TV programs are all pre-recorded using our DVR system or our ROKU equipment and Netflix.  I basically will not sit through commercials unless I have to.  With the DVR we can fast-forward through the commercials.  The ROKU features have the commercials already eliminated.  Sandy will have nightmares or have a lot of trouble getting to sleep if she watches something disturbing, and she finds some fairly mild things disturbing.  There are programs like “Once Upon a Time” and “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland” that I tell her are not much scarier that the movie Shrek, which she had no trouble with, but she insists that they bother her.  At the other extreme, I can watch almost anything and fall right into a peaceful sleep afterwards.  My theory is that we do not need to believe a story in order to enjoy it; we just need to suspend disbelief.  I can enjoy a story with creepy characters, aliens, vampires, zombies, etc, and then just let it go from my mind, because I didn’t believe any of it.  I simply suspended my disbelief while being entertained.  I suppose Sandy is one of many who simply cannot do that.  Whatever!

I have a black and white picture of a young Brenda Lee when she came and performed for us via the USO sometime around 1962-3.  I just Googled her and found that she was born in December of 1944, so is 9-10 months younger than me.  So she was 18-19 years old at that time and cute as a button.  The website says that she is 4’9” and has been married since 1963.  She was introduced from the audience recently during a TV special in 2013.  I didn’t recognize her at all until they said her name.  It was certainly a rude reminder of how much my appearance has changed, too.  I’ve started giving out pictures of myself from when I was in my 20s.  I’m quite impressed now with how I looked then, although at the time I just took it for granted, or was just unaware.

When our time came to return to the States to be discharged, Tom and I were both assigned to the same ship, which was not something we could have counted on or controlled.  Some people were flown back, for some reason, but most went back by ship; and there seemed to be a ship leaving about once per week, so you wouldn’t know for sure exactly when you were leaving or how.  If I recall correctly, we left in early October 1964 and arrived in New York in time to be discharged about two weeks earlier than the end of my 3 years, which was early November.  The feeling of walking out of a military installation back into civilian life is basically indescribable, but words like exciting, exhilarating, scary, unreal and unbelievable help. 

Another word is disorienting: a feeling of not belonging and a fear of not being able to fit back in.  Three years doesn’t sound like a long time to someone who has been an adult for, say, 50 years.  But really, I was just transitioning to adulthood during the three years in the military.  I had left as an irresponsible 17 year old and was now entering civilian life without, in my mind, the option of picking up where I had left off.  Although we were still heading for the bars as soon as we could, we knew we had left the irresponsible teen years behind and that it was time to be adults in the civilian world.  We just weren’t sure what exactly that was, or how well we would do at it.

It is almost like starting life over as a new person.  I was proud and pleased that by age 20 I was a high school graduate who had completed his military obligation.  I had done the responsible thing in those areas and was expecting to continue to do so in the future.  But first…Tom and I found a place to change out of our Army uniforms and then, with some ceremony and flourish, dumped all our military things into the nearest garbage cans.  We then caught the bus to where Mom was living (and where I had lived the last 18 months or so before the Army) in the apartment in Inwood.  Being with Mom really helped me feel like I was home, starting a new life. 

I am tempted to compare the experience with maybe being in jail for a number of years and then getting out and trying to adjust to life “outside.”  But there are two notable differences.  These days, at least, prisoners have access to all manner of video, audio and written communications and up-to-date information.  During my 3 years in the Army in the early 1960s, especially the 2 ½ years in Germany, I saw virtually no television, heard virtually no radio, and did not subscribe to any newspapers.  When I heard music from home, I didn’t know if it was already out of date at home, or even how popular it had been at its peak.  This was at a time when so many of the “girl groups” were popular, like The Supremes, The Shirelles and Martha and the Vandellas.  Some guy would receive a 45rpm record from home and we would all hear it when he played it, but I never knew if it was 20 days old or 20 months old-a big hit or not.

The other big difference between coming home from Germany to start a new life, as I did, versus getting out of jail is that in the latter case you have a negative stigma that makes it very hard to change and succeed.  By comparison, entering back into society at age 20 after serving in the military is a positive, not a negative.  Potential employers and potential in-laws are of course much more favorably disposed toward the returning soldier than toward the ex-convict.  They want to help you change and succeed.  But the disorientation is real and probably similar.  While I was gone Major League Baseball had reorganized.  Instead of two leagues of 8 teams each, there were 3 divisions in each league, with 4 to 5 teams in each division.  So there were several teams I had never heard of, plus a wild-card playoff system.  To get to the World Series a team had to first qualify for the post-season, and then win a division play-off series and then a league championship series.  It was all very confusing and made me feel like a foreigner.

And then there were all the makes and models of automobiles!  When I left there were only 3 or so models within each of the makes, the makes being the 5 GM product lines plus Ford and Chrysler, and I felt I knew virtually all of them. The only foreign car was the VW from Germany.  I was dimly aware of the existence of some high-priced, high-performance foreign cars, but never saw any, except in advertisements.  I also realized that there were cartoon characters and TV programs I had never heard of.  Rocky and Bullwinkle?  Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy?  Who? Adding that to the disorientation with music, baseball and cars, I really felt like Rip Van Winkle must have felt waking up and wandering back into town after sleeping for 20 years.

At any rate, Tom and I spent about two weeks saying “hello” and “goodbye” to my friends and relatives on Long Island, then packed up our meager belongings and left for California.  We used our Soldier’s Deposit money (aka our jump pay) to buy a late model Chevy convertible; Mom packed us some food in a Styrofoam cooler; and off we went to see if there really was a Route 66, as mentioned in some songs.  It was early November, so we chose the southern route, rather than the northern route, entering California at the border town of Needles.  Tom had grown up in California.  His Mom was living in the town of Castro Valley.  His older sister was married and living somewhere in the area.  His Dad was in jail (again).  He was not a violent or dangerous type; he just couldn’t stay sober long enough to hold down a job, and I guess he resorted to petty theft and maybe disorderly conduct.

Tom and I hooked up with his best buddy, Ed Goldblum, who had also just gotten out of the Army.  He had been stationed in Korea.  The three of us were hired at Pan Am in early December 1964 and got an apartment together.  Initially we got on the same shift at work, so split up the food duties.  One of them made breakfast and one made dinner.  Being the least capable, I was the sandwich man, making the sandwiches that we took to work for lunch.  I even got complaints on that, because I was not interested in putting lettuce or pickles on sandwiches.  I just liked plain lunch meat and cheese.  I remember one time they asked me to open a dinner meal that was in a tin foil container, and put it in the oven.  I somehow opened the wrong end and made a brown mess all over the place.

I was determined to keep enough money in my little savings account to buy a one-way ticket back home to New York, in case California didn’t work out for me.  Some of the crowd I had reunited with on Long Island before we left for California told stories of guys they knew or had heard about that went out to California and nearly starved to death, coming back mere skin and bone.  These were probably not creditable stories, but they were enough to make me cautious.  But once I had a steady job at Pan Am and some guys to share rent with, I felt more secure.  When I turned 21 in February 1965 I bought my first car.  It was a 1954 Chevy that was on the lot for $195, but they let me have it for $150.  That was the end of my savings.  Around the same time I drove by myself all the way to State Line, Lake Tahoe, after a night of drinking, and lost whatever money I had left.  I even tried, with no luck of course, to get an advance with my gas credit card in order to keep gambling. 

Fortunately, I could get gas for the car and get myself home the next day – flat broke, but with a car, a job, some buddies, and a place to live.  That was pretty much the end of my interest in gambling.  I had flown up to State Line two or three times on packages that included round trip airfare, lodging and maybe $15 worth of chips to gamble with.  In those days State Line was trying to get established as a good alternative to Reno and Las Vegas.  There was essentially no gambling allowed in California.  This was prior to the casinos on the Indian reservations and prior to voter approval of the Lotto.  There were a few seedy card clubs that could legally host a few very limited forms of gambling, but their clientele was scary and uninviting.

In those days at State Line there were several free shows that were quite entertaining, plus unlimited free drinks when you were sitting at a blackjack table gambling.  It was obvious to us even then that the clubs’ idea was to get you there, encourage over-drinking, let you lose the $15 they had given you to start with, then dig into your pocket and lose your own money.  I had some initial success, but once I experienced losing, I lost interest in gambling.  I had read a book written by a pit boss that probably did me more harm than good, except that losing after digesting all his information caused me to give up gambling – so that was good.  Having experienced addictions like smoking and drinking, I can appreciate how a gambling addiction can absolutely ruin a person’s life.  I have always been grateful that I never had a gambling addiction.

I saw a graphical analysis once that purported to prove logically that the loss of the amount being bet has a psychologically negative impact in excess of the positive impact that would result from the same amount being won.  If I recall, this was presented in connection with the mathematical concept of “the gradient of approach versus avoidance,” where “the attractiveness or repulsiveness of a goal increases as one gets closer to it,” but the avoidance gradient is much steeper than the approach gradient.  As a simple example, say you only have $100 to your name, and you lose $5.  Compared to the $95 you have left, that $5 represents something in excess of 5%.  But if you win $5 that represents less than 5% of the $105 you now have.  So logically, the joy you might experience from winning the bet is not worth the pain you might experience from losing the bet.  So gambling defies logic, but so do a lot of things we enjoy doing, so…whatever.

We all married in our early twenties, which was quite normal in those days.  Ed married first, and Tom was his best man.  I believe Ed returned the favor for Tom’s wedding, although it was a much smaller affair, and I don’t remember much about it.  Tom also served as my best man.  There are several pictures of him in our wedding album that I treasure.  Tom and Ed both eventually went into management with Pan Am and transferred to other U.S. airports within the Pan Am system.  Tom was in Houston, I think, when his marriage ended.  I only know his side of it, which was that his wife had always been weird, and she just got too weird.  I know she wore black for her wedding, and she was a combination hippie/Gothic/extra-sensory type person.  I know she didn’t approve of Tom’s smoking and drinking.  They had a son, Mark, whom I do not believe I ever met.

I last saw Tom in Houston.  He had remarried and had twins – a boy and a girl – whom I did meet, because I flew there to visit with Tom when he was terminally ill with Leukemia.  He was well enough to enjoy and appreciate my visit, but he was weak and sick.  Ed showed up, too, so the three of us were reunited for just a few days, and under very sad circumstances.  This was around 1990 or ’91, so Tom was only about 48 years old.  I think of him often, usually at times when I am feeling gratitude for my own health and longevity, remembering that none of us can count on it.  A life – any life – cut short is a tragedy, and there are millions of them throughout the world every year, from children to late middle age.  Sandy used to say that if a person lived to 75 or so, they had a good life and it was OK if they passed away.  I have never subscribed to such a low number.  I am shooting for 100+ but I guess I would admit that 95 represents a good life.  The problem is that it is only 25 years away, and I feel like I am just getting started.

Before my latest diversion, I was saying that my impulsiveness in joining the Army for 3 years, instead of waiting to be drafted for 2 years may have been the most important decision of my life, because I might have lost my life in the Vietnam War before I ever reached age 20; and if I had made it back I may well have been emotionally damaged for the rest of my life, as so many of the Vietnam veterans are.  So I put that impulsive decision to join the Army at 17 ahead of my second most important impulsive decision – marrying Sandy at age 22 – because my life would either have ended or been drastically altered in Vietnam.  I may have met someone else after Vietnam whom I wanted to marry, but who knows what kind of “damaged goods” I might have been.  What kind of person would have married me, and why? What kind of person would I have turned out to be?  Major, pivotal game-changer in my life!

Mom had full care and custody of me at that time, and her signature alone was sufficient for the Army to accept my enlistment at age 17.  They had initially wanted my father’s signature, as well, and he refused.  So my whole life was majorly impacted by the thread of a decision on the part of the Army to accept Mom’s signature alone as sufficient.  Dad had been drafted into the Army during World War II, but hated it and found a way to get a physical disability discharge by 1943 (and I was born in 1944).  I am thus older than the “baby boomers,” who were conceived in great numbers after 1945, when the soldiers started returning home. 

Interestingly, Dad played semi-pro football prior to the military, and resumed after he was discharged.  So one wonders how he managed to get himself discharged.  I’m not saying he should have stayed in and risked dying…then where would I be?  I wouldn’t exist!  Quick aside: Dad played offensive guard.  In his day a “big guy” was 6 feet tall, 200 pounds.  Dad was 6 feet tall, but only 175 pounds.  As such, he had to use guile and quickness more than strength.  He was always the pulling guard when they ran such a play, leading the ball carrier into the hole.  By the late 1950s there were two or three 300-pounders playing in the NFL.  They were considered absolutely huge.  There was “Big Daddy” Lipscomb, for one, and two men with the first name of Roosevelt.  One was Rosie Greer; the other I can’t remember.  Anyway, these days many college football team offensive lines average 300 pounds or more!

Getting back to military service, I am certainly not proud that Dad wrangled himself a medical discharge and, for that matter, wouldn’t sign for me to join during peacetime in 1961, but it is true that if he had gotten himself killed during WWII Donald and I would never have existed. I am not in any way disrespecting the millions of Americans who served during World War II or Vietnam or Korea, the Middle East or wherever.  Just as my story would be a lot different if Dad had not gotten out in 1943, or if I could not have enlisted in 1961, the story of America would be a lot different (no doubt for the worse) if the millions had not served when called upon.  I’ll mention here in passing that Uncle Harold was drafted in April 1941, possibly in response to the war that was going on in Europe and our increased hostilities with Japan.  Aunt Dot and Uncle Harold were married and living in California when Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941.  Uncle Harold was immediately shipped out to Hawaii, and Aunt Dot came home to Long Island to wait and pray.  Uncle Harold was sent from Oahu to Okinawa and ultimately to Japan.  He was in the Army Field Artillery.