My Redacted Life: Chapter Two (Cont. _7)

Okay, so I had traveled to Little Rock to visit two young urban planners and find out about job prospects. They knew of none. That’s what I had expected. I should be on my way back to my boyhood home now, with the developing skyline of Little Rock in my rearview mirror. I should be planning my route back to California, this Arkansas caper at its end. Sex, drugs, and cable cars beckoned.

But no. They had invited me to lunch and there I sat, in the Greyhound station waiting for the time to go and meet them. Idled passengers napped, optimistic young ladies in short dresses mingled, children squirmed and bounced, and this entire cross-section of America seemed to sense something better just over the next horizon.

I waited and watched. Over the last four years, I had gotten good at that. One of the young ladies offered to give me anything I wanted if I happened to be interested. A job? Well no, something else. I’m fine. Too bad.

I waited some more. What would we talk about at lunch? I had already confessed to them that I had little to offer a potential employer in terms of experience or skills. I had learned to exist in close quarters with a wide diversity of other people and I knew how to get a job done just in time, not too soon, and not too late. I did share with them that I was anxious to gain experience and skills and was well aware of the fact that I possessed little marketability in the civilian world. In other words, I could be a cheap, but inexperienced date for the right employer.

At last the time came to depart. As the last of the wandering girls headed my way, I stood, winked at her, and walked back out onto Little Rock’s Main Street. It was bustling with folks headed for lunch, or somewhere. I passed the site of the F.W. Woolworth store where, at 11.a.m. March 10, 1960, some 50 brave students from Philander Smith College had marched from campus, were refused service at the whites-only lunch counter, and were arrested for their uppityness.

Things were changing in America, even in Arkansas. I thought this was good and wondered what all the fuss had been about. Of course, though, the United States Navy hadn’t allowed segregated eating facilities since the Truman Administration, way ahead of the curve, as they say today.

A person thinks odd thoughts when alone on a big city street. I began thinking about the various forms of bravery. There was the combat zone kind, the storm at sea kind, and the demanding human rights kind. I didn't think for long though, I was already back at the Hall Building.

The guys didn’t take me to a lunch counter. They took me to a place called “The Capitol Club,” and it was fancy, cloth napkins and the whole bit. I’m sure I looked a bit out of place among all the suits. Jim Vines was even wearing a three-piece one. Tom showed a great deal of self-assurance by wearing a sports coat. Between the two of them, they seemed to know everyone who walked by. I didn’t know a soul.

A waiter came. Tom knew him by name, or seemed to. It was long before the time in Little Rock at which one ordered cocktails at lunch. I watched them closely and when they ordered iced-tea, I did the same. I remembered what a girl friend in college had told me about her mother’s advice to a daughter who had begun dating. “Don’t order the most expensive item on the menu, and don’t order the cheapest. Order something that looks healthy and wouldn’t be difficult to eat in public.

I didn’t have to worry on that account. The Capitol Club offered neither barbecued ribs nor corn on the cob. I ordered the same thing Tom Hodges did. A person couldn’t go wrong that way.

Some small talk ensued as we dined. Jim told a funny story about a planning commission meeting he had attended. Tom asked me about a legendary football player from my home town named James “Jitters” Morgan. I was proud to say I knew him and graduated a year behind him. Turns out Tom had played against him in high school and still remembered the bone-jarring tackles. He asked about a girl he knew from college, and I said I thought she got married and moved away. Too bad, he said, with a far-off look in his eyes.

Was this it? Lunch in a fancy place with small talk? I had begun to assess the time I had left to endure this. Once again, I could hear the ships sounding in San Francisco Bay and hear the seagulls fighting overhead. I took a bite, one that was to prove the most difficult in my life to chew and swallow.

Jim looked at Tom. Tom nodded and looked at me. I took the fork from my mouth and looked back at the two of them.

“We thought,” Jim said, slowly as was his habit when putting a lot of thought into what he said, “that we might offer you a job.”                  

Well I'll swan.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two (Cont. _6)

On a tip, I came to Little Rock to meet two men who had started a firm dealing in urban planning and development. That’s what the name said on the door. That’s what I expected to find, and I did. Ushered into the president’s office, I met the two men I had come all the way to see.

Tom Hodges, the president, was the shorter of the two, an athletic type with curly blond hair and an almost ruddy face. His partner (in business, we have to say that these days) was Jim Vines, way beyond six feet in height and ebullient in personality. We shook hands all around and I was invited to sit.

They asked about me and I told them what I knew. One asked me how I liked Vietnam and I said didn’t like it much at all. One asked how I liked the Navy and I said I could take it or leave it, having just chosen the latter option. One asked how I liked college and I said I liked it quite a bit and would have stayed there indefinitely had I been able.

They asked about the courses I took. I told them. One asked if I had an interest in writing. I told him had the U of A offered a “minor” program, I would have qualified for a minor in literature. That seemed to get their attention.

They asked if had management skills. I explained that I had once held the most significant management position in the United States Navy. This was the truth, but I stopped short of explaining that it was as a Third Class Bosun’s Mate. Though it was the truth, I was already perfecting the habit of not telling someone everything you know the first time you met them.

They asked me if I was married. I said no, but then I hurriedly hastened to say that I was looking forward to dating women now that my military obligation was over. An unmarried 20-something in those days could start rumors real fast, so I emphasized the word “women.”

They divulged that they had been fraternity brothers at Fayetteville in a highly prestigious fraternity. I had to admit that I couldn’t afford to pledge one as I had to work my way through, but that I had a great deal of respect for the Greek way of life. Having recently lied with ease to a two-star admiral, I found no difficulty in lying to two civilians whom I had just met.

I actually considered myself sort of an honorary Greek, I told them. I had been a janitor at the Chi Omega sorority house for a couple of years as I slogged my way through college. That was the flagship sorority on campus and had contained unequal portions of fine young woman, desperate husband seekers, and pluperfect bitches. Tom divulged the fact that his wife had pledged that sorority and I said no more about it. Ever.

They further divulged that Jim had finished his undergraduate degree at what is now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock while Tom finished at Fayetteville. The two had reunited at the University of Oklahoma where they had both garnered masters’ degrees in urban and regional planning. Tom had worked for a consultant upon graduation and Jim had gone with the State of Missouri. Tom lured him back to Arkansas to start their own firm and here they were.

Both Little Rock and the State of Arkansas, it seemed, had begun to recover from the ignominy of the Central High School crisis of 1957. Things were happening and they seemed quite pleased to be in on the very beginning of things.

I was at my obsequious best and seemed to respond to inquiries well. To my surprise, I used profanity neither for emphasis nor from long-ingrained habit, and addressed each as “Mr.” until they told me to stop. They asked if I had any interest in urban planning. I employed my skill at prevarication once more and waxed eloquently, if I do say so myself, emphasizing my love for the city by the bay.

Then they showed me around. In addition to a receptionist, they had a drafting squad of two, who were busily preparing maps. One was Paulette, an attractive young woman with short black hair. The other was Donnie, a former college football player with a grip that could crush a baseball. Each regarded me with a great deal of suspicion.

“Tell you what, “Tom said to me as I prepared to leave. “We have things to do, but why don’t you come back at twelve and we’ll treat you to lunch across the street?”

I agreed and we shook hands around once more. Then I found myself on the streets of a strange city with more than an hour to spend. Having wandered penniless in larger cities than this, I knew of one place where a stranger could kill time without being under suspicion. That was, of course, the local Greyhound Bus Station.

A kind gentleman in no great hurry pointed me the way and off I went, walking and looking. As I walked and looked, I wondered.

Those guys had fulfilled their promise to Charles Rush. They were done with me, and by any standard had no further obligations. They had advised me honestly that they knew of no job openings. They had things to do.

Why, then, were they taking me to lunch?

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two (Cont._5)

After I found a place to park in Downtown Little Rock, I walked over to Capitol Avenue and took a look. Wow. Two new high-rise bank and office buildings graced the street amidst old buildings that still held their charm. One of the new buildings, I was to learn, was called “The Worthen Building” and the other “The Union Building,” both after the banks housed within.

I stood in front of one of the older structures. The sign on front identified it as “The Hall Building” and placed it at 501 East Capitol. That’s where I was headed, to the fifth floor. I had no idea what to expect. A camera shop occupied the ground floor. I made a mental note to stop there on my way out and swung open the heavy door to the  building. I had an appointment to talk to two young men about employment prospects in the greater Little Rock area. Whoop de do.

The lobby was ornately furnished after the old style. I took the elevator to the top floor, then walked out and down a hall to where a partially glassed door bore the words, “Urban Planning and Development Corporation.”

Beneath those words, I read:

Thomas L. Hodges, AIP

James A. Vines, AIP

All of the writing sparkled in gold leaf. It looked mighty high-class to me.

In my only decent set of civilian clothes, and wearing my borrowed tie, I walked in. I mentally rehearsed my lengthy credentials in the unlikely event that we talked long enough for them to come up in conversation.

- I had worked as a lifeguard summers while in college, easily the best job I’ve ever had, albeit somewhat short on retirement prospects.

- I had worked my way through college as a janitor at the Chi Omega sorority house, a “pen and ink” draftsman for the U of A Editorial Service, and part time bartender.

- I had worked one summer for an architectural firm in Monroe, Louisiana.

- I had been trained by the United States Navy to kill people, or at least to keep people from killing me and had spent a year employing said expertise.

- I had been trained by the United States Navy to rig ships, moor them, tie fancy knots, curse and bluster in a salty and seaman-like manner, drink with the best that proud institution had to offer, and drive boats. Along the way, I had held choice jobs due to an innate ability to kiss butts and stay out of the brig.

If that wouldn’t get my name on some fancy-assed door, I didn’t know what would.

I drew a deep breath and walked in, little knowing that my life would never be the same again.

Young, dumb, and full of ... wonder.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two: (Cont. _ 4)

So here I was, a mid-twenties vagabond, just released from the military going to a city I knew nothing about and not optimistic at all. An recent acquaintance said he knew two young urban planners who had started a consulting firm in Little Rock. That’s all I knew. More on that later.

It was 1970 and nearing the end of the so-called “Great Society Era.” More on that later.

A bit about me. I had quit smoking two years before. I moved from sometimes three packs a day while overseas (depending on how the six-hour watches fell) to zero cigarettes per day in one four-hour period. Quitting is that easy. You just stop. You don’t use medication. You don’t brag about your efforts. Your don’t do it gradually. You don’t make a big fuss about it. You just goddam quit.

You also get fat if you’re not careful.

I had quit my second day aboard the USS Hunley. Navy ships serve four meals a day, one of them at midnight (Midrats) for those going on, or coming off, watch. Guess who, with a newly found and ravenous appetite availed himself. Yep. Oh, and there was a "Gedunk Bar" on board that stayed open from eight to 12 bells. It specialized in calories and I was a regular.

So I wasn’t the very picture of a modern urban heartthrob as I motored toward Little Rock. Overweight and wearing cheap “civilian” clothes, I probably looked like an applicant for a Fuller Brush job. Oh, I was a handsome devil to those discerning souls who chose to look beyond mere physical appearance into the more meaningful character of a person. (I’ll have more on that later).

I was mentally visiting another planet when I reached the outskirts of Little Rock, When I returned to the actual moment, I was surprised to see two new modern office towers rising above the downtown area, dwarfing a third, the Tower Building. It had been built while I was in college, as part of an urban renewal program.

It struck me, the sight did, not a blinding strike, such as the one Saul of Tarsus experienced on the Road To Damascus, but an eye-opening strike. Here was modern American city in need of a new band of heroes. My eyes opened to new possibilities. Scenes swirled in my head, and none involved the State of California.

I squirmed in my car seat and straightened Daddy’s old “wedding and funeral” tie.

Look out Little Rock.

Look out World.

Tell me more about
urban planning. I'm
terribly interested.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two: (Cont. _ 3)

I had one hand on the door that would open my way back to San Francisco, California when the name of another city was mentioned: Little Rock, Arkansas. I'd never thought of it. I'd only come to talk to the Director of my home town urban renewal agency as a last step in proving there were no jobs around for a recently separated veteran of the United States Navy. I knew there was little opportunity for employment in Little Rock either. Besides, I carried the additional burden of having served time in Vietnam.

I was "outa there" as they say these days.

"I know these two guys in Little Rock," the director said, seconds before I escaped. "They have started an urban planning firm. We just hired them for some work. Would you be interested in visiting with them? They might know of something there."

"Well, hell yeah. Why not?"

A phone call and I was set up for a meeting next morning. Little Rock was just a little shy of 40 miles away, no big deal. I'd go ahead and pack so I could leave for California the day after. I was sure the trip would be fruitless and my journey would continue. There was also the fact that, supposedly, they would have to hire me back at my old job out West, and there wouldn't be any more prospects in Little Rock than they were in Pine Bluff. Things were looking rosy.

There were some things I didn't think of at the time as I headed up the twisting highway toward our Capital City next morning.

I was Caucasian, not only Caucasian, but Northern European Caucasian. My last name said so.

I was a man. My DD 214 said so.

I was a graduate of the University of Arkansas. My diploma said so.

I had been reared in a stable home. My mother said so, had beaten it into me at times.

These impeccable, but largely unearned, credentials automatically placed me way more than halfway up the Ladder of Success in the state of Arkansas—called "The Land of Opportunity" in fact—in the year of 1970.

The rumble of the tires on  my Chevrolet Impala, "Steinbeck" gave me a peaceful, easy, feeling as the song says. I was content. But like another popular song was to mention years later ... had I been more astute at time, I might have felt the Earth move under my feet.

What I knew about
Little Rock in 1970

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two (Cont. _2)

Out of the military a couple of weeks, I was getting restless. Here I was, one foot out the door heading back to California, and the other responding to a mother’s request to find work in my hometown. Mothers win. Always.

It was early December of 1970, and she had convinced me to make one more try at dropping anchor in what she saw as life's safest harbor—home.

I wasn’t optimistic. So far, the folks in Arkansas hadn’t been real impressed with either my qualifications or my veteran status. I had been four years away and my puny Bachelor of Arts Degree seemed a distant and impotent achievement. Peers who had evaded the Draft had been learning and earning for four years while I languished, or so it seemed to me then.

The Honorable Discharge, such a proud achievement and sine qua non of my youth was now being pretty much translated as “chump.”

But my cousin Troy, with whom I was very close, worked for the city and knew the Director of the Urban Renewal Agency in Pine Bluff, a nice fellow named Charles Rush. Troy had arranged for me to meet the director and discuss the potential for meaningful work in the state. It was rumored that he knew a lot of people.

So, I bundled up and headed to the city’s new civic center. It, at the time, was a proud new addition to the city, designed by the architectural firm of Edward D. Stone, until then perhaps the most famous architect produced by our state. It was an extremely unfunctional facility that hasn’t stood up well, but that’s another story.

Mr. Rush welcomed me into his office graciously. I didn’t own a suit, and a needy shipmate had stolen most of my civilian clothes just before I left the service. I did borrow a tie from my father. I think he had purchased it for funerals back in the 1950s. I’m sure I made a splendid appearance.

No, Mr. Rush explained, there wasn’t much work for a college graduate with no special qualifications in the area. I had pretty much decided that on my own, but thanked him for his insight. His office, he said was fully staffed and he knew of no positions available anywhere.

We talked, I could almost hear the sounds of foghorns from ships heading west through the Golden Gate and taste the salty fog of my beloved San Francisco. I had tried, Mother, so take that and grant me my freedom.

I thanked Mr. Rush for his time and began, mentally, to assess the route I would take to the West. Arkansas had a new governor who seemed willing to continue the progressive programs started by his predecessor. I wished the best for my home state, but California was a big place and opportunities seemed to grow on trees there. I had even been able to find a job in “The City” while I was burdened with a 1A status (Same-same Goodbye my Darling, Hello Vietnam) from my local Draft Board.

Just imagine what a free man could do there, in San Francisco I mean.

I had a hand on the office door when Mr. Rush said, “Wait a minute. Would you be interested in working in Little Rock?”

I thought I was marketable,
 but to whom?

A Break

It’s Sunday and I’ll take a day off from the story of my professional life. Maybe I’ll mention my political and religious preferences instead.

I’m a lifelong Democrat. I would have voted for Winthrop Rockefeller had I been home at the time. But since I’ve been in Arkansas, I’ve only pulled an “R” once. That was during a minor conspiracy designed to rid the state of one of the worst disgraces in our political history, second only perhaps to Orval Faubus. There not being major controversies in the Democratic primary once upon a time, many folks switched primaries to rid the state of Arkansas of the further shame of Tommy Robinson. Can’t blame me for that, can you? I sincerely believe I have always voted from conscience and not from hatred.

Because of my personal history and beliefs, I will never vote for a member of the party that allowed the scurrilous attacks upon the patriotism and military service of my brother and shipmate John Kerry, known as “The Swift Boat Attacks.” I apologize for my intractability, but it is a decision both carefully and deliberately made.

I subscribe primarily to progressive ideas. I do share my conservative friends’ apprehension of over-regulation. I think this occurs, to a large degree from the failure of American government to establish a policy and strategy structure that might find bi-lateral agreement. For example, we have no workable transportation policy, much less do we have a compassionate and workable national policy on the criminal justice system.

Consequently, our highways face imminent obsolescence and we incarcerate people at a rate higher than any country should contemplate. We jail people for long periods of time when, for most, a short period would be just as effective. On the regulation side, we have a vast army of bureaucrats who see their job not as one of problem solving but simply one of writing regulations. And when one sees one’s job as that of writing regulations, they … will … write regulations, whether they make sense or not.

The can backfire into a knee-jerk revolt against regulations of any sort, even badly needed ones. I fear that is what we are seeing now.

I do not despise taxes, believing, as did Oliver Wendell Holmes, that they buy us civilization. I do despise the wasting of tax dollars. In this area, let him who is without sin …

To the other point, I’m not a big fan of organized religion. I do, however, vote more in harmony with the Sermon on the Mount and the 25^th Chapter of Matthew than upon the execrable rantings of Ayn Rand.

To those on either the Left or Right that pass falsehoods, personal attacks, mean-spirited postings, racists comments, or outright slander on social media: we must strive to do better.

Here is where I think I differ from many friends on the other side of politics:

Based on my education and analysis, I disagree with the policies, style, personal behavior, statements, and unwillingness to heal America, as exhibited by Donald Trump. It is my personal conclusion that America will suffer for years because of his lack of leadership. I find him shallow, vindictive, slippery, mercurial, and mendacious.

Please form your own opinion and act accordingly. I gave four years of my life to protect that privilege. I believe in the right of all to examine the facts as I have done, come to their own reasonable decisions, and vote. We differ in conclusions, not in brotherhood.

Now for the challenge …

President Trump is supposedly planning a sit-down with Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, a country with which America has been at war since the 1950s, and which now has nuclear weapons. The purpose of the talks is to seek a more harmonious relationship between the two countries.

In contrast with many friends of the opposite political party, as per my observations during the presidency of Barrack Obama …

I do sincerely hope the President of the United States is successful in the talks.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Two

Out of the navy at last, and having dispensed with all the greetings, I settled into my boyhood home to contemplate my future as a civilian. Marrying Bridgette Bardot was probably out, as was making tryouts with the New York Yankees.

One childhood dream remained, but, sadly, my thoughts of becoming a fireman (yeah fire “man,” this was 1970) had been sullied by the experience of actually fighting fires as part of my job as a sailor in the United States Navy. Real soot up your nose ain’t as romantic as it might seem.

Picking the guitar on the Grand Ole Opry was probably out as well. I wasn’t that good at photography or writing and had minimal talent in architecture, my college major.

Someone suggested that I file for unemployment while I studied on things and used up all my “beer money.” I had nothing better to do, so I went down and applied.

It was the most humiliating experience of my life other than walking on stage in school play with my fly unzipped.

Silly me. I thought unemployment, which is paid for by employers, was for those who were temporarily out of work due to no fault of their own. Back then, those seeking the benefit were classified, at least in 1970s Arkansas, as somewhere between Republicans and dope fiends, that is to say they weren’t welcomed into polite society. After numerous trips waiting for hours in a room with no chairs, a smug old bitch in frosted hair told me they didn’t pay unemployment to veterans, particularly my type of veteran. When I asked what type of veteran that was, she chose not to answer. She just arched her false eyebrows and smiled.

But I knew. It was a response to which I had become accustomed. There was just this weird and caged-up resentment for what we, my brothers and I, had done on orders from our country. Maybe we acted smug, or expected to be treated like folks had treated the WWll veterans when we were growing up. Maybe one of us had insulted a member of the National Guard. Some regulars, never I of course, did call them “Chicken-shit peckerheads.” Maybe a relative had been killed and we were somehow held responsible because we were still alive. Maybe they thought we directed the nation’s international relations policy and gave orders to “Pencil-Dick” McNamara.

When I applied for work with AT&T®, this smirkey little bastard told me there were no jobs, but even if there were, he would suggest mentioning neither my education, nor my veteran status, as any jobs for people like me were for local laborers who really deserved the work.

A lot of people had some bone to pick with us for some reason. For many, it’s never gone away.

I’ll never know what the problem was, but goddam their eyes.

Anyway, the draft-dodgers had all the jobs, it seemed, and my few humiliating experiences at trying to find employment gave me plenty of ammunition to explain to Sainted Mother why I just thought maybe I’d head on back to San Francisco. Besides, I had to go through the phase of learning to moderate my speech patterns, or some such shit, people said. I knew they didn’t mind intemperate speech that much in California.

As a Jack Nicholson character was to say in a move much later on, “I was just inches from a clean getaway.”

Sainted Mother, for all her lack of formal education, though, always had another ace up her sleeve.

She smiled that damned sweet little smile of hers. “You know your cousin Troy?”

Hell, did I know my cousin Troy? He took me to the airport when I was on my way to Vietnam. He half-raised me. We had spent all afternoon drinking beer the day before she asked me the question.

I just nodded.

“He knows a man who runs the urban renewal department for the city. He wants to take you to meet him tomorrow morning. You’ll do this one last little thing for me, won’t you?” She framed her face the way mothers do when they have just cut your legs off, in a metaphorical sense.

“Yes,” I said, “Yes I will, yes.”

My life was about to change in ways that I had never imagined.

How the hell was I supposed to know?

My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Concluded)

This brief segment ends the first chapter of my “life after military duty.” That duty had afforded me ample time to ponder my future. Unfortunately, I was still at a loss, despite all that pondering, and I’m hell on pondering, just ask my wife.

Back then, though, I felt the way a modern shopper does when looking at shelves stocked with (it seems) hundreds of kinds of toothpaste. They say that having too many choices inhibits decision-making. I don’t know. I have observed that football team captains don’t tend to marry early in life, unless they have to, and many of them do.

As for me, I had always reckoned on returning to San Francisco upon my separation, maybe signing up as a merchant seaman. Or, I had a drafting job supposedly waiting with Babcock and Wilcox, one I had filled while facing the military draft. They were supposed to hire you back when you left the service, but I found out later that there were lots of ways companies had to screw veterans over. That in itself, screwing veterans over, would prove to be a national obsession, but I didn't know it yet.

There were also these things I had heard about in the Navy called “computers.” They sounded too complicated for the folks in my old SF neighborhood, but who knew? Maybe there was opportunity there. Besides, San Francisco was about the goddamdest, gut-busingest, goldardnest, fun-chasingest place in America to live, as long as you had a  job and a good, heavy, summer coat. The thought of returning there was a strong pull, particularly for one who had just served a two-years sentence in that hellhole of hatred and incivility known as Charleston, South Carolina.

Returning to “The City” seemed a logical choice. I had, after all, left my heart there. Or was it Bangkok? I couldn’t remember, but I was in “California or Bust” mode. I could almost smell the Eucalyptus trees and feel the bite of the early morning fog, not coming on “little cats’ feet” but like thundering herds of bison bounding down Haight Street from the wide, old Pacific. I figured on lighting out before too long. The pull of the West was too strong.

I hadn’t, though, counted on my Sainted Mother. Stay tuned.

Pre-Military pondering ...
San Francisco Beach 1967 ...
Notice the pack of Camels.

My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Cont. 7)

It was Day Two of my civilian life, November 13, 1970 if I remember right, and I was home. My mother and I had met on the steps of our country store and shared our greetings. We weren’t an overly demonstrative family, but she made it clear that she was glad to see me finished with military life.

As she put it in her eloquent and feminine way, “I was always so goddam afraid they would send you back over yonder.”

We went inside where my father sat on his stool behind the store’s counter. It was his throne, and none entered his domain without recognizing his rule. He nodded my way and said, “Make it home all right?”

That’s the German equivalent of a scream of joy.

You remember a lot of things about your father as you grow old. Strange things. I think back often to how it must have been growing up in the deep woods of Arkansas in a tortured home life that would end in a separation and bitter estrangement.

His father had been hired out as a youth to a farmer in the German colony of Golconda, Illinois. Part of the money he had earned went to the education of brother who became a highly respected PhD, at the University of Iowa, teaching and studying about rural sociology.

Granddaddy got to keep some of the money, and later narrowed the choices of how spend it to purchasing a small flour mill in St. Paul, Minnesota, or buying a sizable chunk of timberland in the wilds of Arkansas.

On such decisions ride the gods who dispense the vicissitudes of life, laughing all way.

Of all the stories Daddy told me, the one that stands out involved a band of gypsies who stopped at their isolated homeplace wanting to swap a jug of milk for a wagon bow. “For your babies,” they said.

“Got no babies,” my grandmother said, threatening them with a broom and chasing them away.

They left, according to my father’s telling of the story, walking and singing,

“Up the road,

Down the road.

Here we go.

Got no baby.

Got no wagon bow.”

Don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s a hell of a good story. Anyway, that’s the man who met me. He didn’t ask much about my service career. He never wanted me to join, but realized I had no choice. Having been called “A dirty Hun,” as a child during World War One, he didn’t consider military service any of his business, or mine.

He was a hard-headed, but mischievous man. He suffered the bitter prejudices of his day, but never refused a genuine plea for help from anyone in need, no matter the color of their skin. He was never cruel and never cheated a customer. He forgave many a credit bill for a family headed for Detroit and a better life. They would often offer him their plot of family land in payment.

He always refused. “What would I do with it?” Anyway, a lot of families who owned land went broke during the Depression.

He was a product of his time and place. He thought Franklin D. Roosevelt deserved a place as an addition the Holy Trinity. A “Blue-Dog Democrat,” his whole life, I am afraid that he could never have accepted an African-American as president. I suspect he would have changed political parties because of it, as so many of our people have.

That day, though, we didn’t discuss such things. He was most interested in the route I had taken home and how much traffic I had encountered. He had simple interests in a brain that whirled like a Cray computer. An eight-grade dropout, he could work algebra problems in his head without knowing algebra. He could envision and build a house, barn, or conveyor-device to load firewood without benefit of paper or pen. He could add long columns of figures, even those written in his tortured writing, without a single mistake.

He read the newspaper each day and was fond of comic books. He liked most white people okay, and all “colored” people it seemed, as long as they kept their place. He wasn’t fond of preachers or loafers. He could grow anything and butcher an entire hog with less effort than it takes me to mow a lawn.

He always kept a cow and a calf in a barn behind the house. It gave him pleasure, and it also provided an opportunity to enjoy a shot of Old Yellowstone after a long day in the store. More than one, though, and he faced the wrath of the tiny terrorists to whom he was married. Our mother was much the source of his strength and whatever success he enjoyed. He was a lucky man in marriage, a bit of good fortune I was later to enjoy myself.

Oh, I wish he had enjoyed an education. He might have helped with a cure for cancer. I regret that he suffered from the prejudices of his generation, but I’m glad that it didn’t make him mean as it has so many others. I wish at times that he hadn’t been so set in his ways, but then I think of others who got rich doing the same thing he did for a living and couldn’t have done it without pushing the boundaries of decency.

Is short, they gave him to us as we found him and that’s all I can write about. We could have done worse.

That day, we sat and talked for a long time about traveling, about traffic, about crops, and about fishing. If the weather held out he said, “We might just give it a try on Sunday.” I said I would like that.

Pre-Fishing Days

My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Cont. 6)

 It had only been two days since I left the Navy, and now I was home, almost, that is. I left the urban area of my hometown and descended into the Bayou Bartholomew wetlands, crossing the bayou itself. In 1958, four feet of water had covered the road ahead, the entire area suffering a major flood.

Today, a large Walmart and attendant development sits in the floodplain, awaiting its turn.

That day, I could see home. It was a large country grocery store, on high ground at a slight curve in the highway. Our house was attached to it. You simply walked through a door at the back of the store into our kitchen.

I drove past the homes of childhood friends, O.D. Walker and Jim Fletcher. I saw what we had one thought was a mountain cliff designed for play and exploration. Now it looked to be just a slight erosion remnant, left by the bayou over thousands of years. Youth magnifies, and life, unfortunately for us all, diminishes.

Slowing, I pulled in beside the store. Cars came and went there all day long, so there wasn’t any reason why anyone would suspect an unusual visitor. But in that strange way that mothers know things, the door to the store opened and she walked out.

Mable Josephine Harris von Tungeln was slight woman, maybe five-foot three. She had been laid aside to die, premature and unfit, after she was born while the doctor treated her mother with, Vick’s Salve of course. He had a bit left over and saved Mabel as well, this from our family historian. Her father had died when she was three, and the only thing she remembered about him was the scene of her oldest brother’s climbing a post and ringing a bell that signified meals or an emergency.

Her mother had raised the two sisters still at home in the most abject poverty one can imagine. A playmate had pushed young Mabel down in the schoolyard when she was in grade school and her classmates had discovered that her “drawers” had been sewn by a hapless mother out of castoff curtains from a local church. She never could forget that, and I’ll always remember how she would break down whenever she heard Dolly Parton sing “My Coat of ManyColors.”

Somehow, she had survived to adulthood. There, if you looked at her you would see frail figure in a simple cotton dress and horn-rimmed glasses, seeming to be weak and helpless in the face of a cruel and challenging world.

Cross her, and you would excite hot bands of steel and find a tigress who didn’t fear a person in the world, even my father. She hated nobody that I remember, but had no use for drunkards (anyone who might or had taken one drink in their lives), fast-talking salesmen, and “religious fanatics.” She liked Elvis and would sneak fifty-cents from the cash register each time a new single came out. She knew professional wrestling was fake, but thought I Love Lucy was real.

We had had two talks in our life about intimacy between people. The first was after a neighborhood 18-year-old had been discovered having an affair with a 52-year-old woman. He had then feigned a suicide attempt to garner sympathy. Mother’s explanation: “I’ve always heard that an old woman can just drive a young man crazy.”

The second was when I had tried to explain how I was in love, I imagined, with someone long forgotten. “Let me tell you something,” she had explained “When I married your daddy, I wasn’t in love, as you say, with him at all. I married him because I knew the von Tungeln men worked, and if I married him, I never would have to go hungry again. Then, after we had sharecropped, butchered hogs to get money to buy this store, and then ran it together, I woke up one morning and realized I worshiped the ground he walked on, and still do. That is what love means for poor people.”

And that’s the woman who now stood on the porch of our family store with her hands on her hips, looking at me.

Don't let that innocent
smile fool you.

My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Cont. 5)

It was only the second day of my civilian life but it felt like a year had passed. In a few moments, I would be home. Home. Robert Frost once said, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." I knew my return wouldn’t be that cynical. It was the only place on earth where they wanted to take me in, at least from love.

 

Fight our country's
 enemies, and this
is your thanks.

I've mentioned that the Navy had offered to take me back in and give me home if I only promised to serve on river boats in Vietnam. See, to the right,  how the country allowed people to treat men who did that. I’m glad I passed on a grand patriotic adventure such as that.

Back to Day Two, I drove by fields, recently harvested, where men still made good livings tilling the soil. Large, but not grand homes, appeared where plantation mansions had stood years before. The farms gave way to scattered housing, then subdivisions, and then commercial enterprises. I seem to remember that a massive outdoor movie screen still stood on the outskirts of town. Roberts Brothers Tire Store came into view, then an all-night service station where we had delivered milk when I was an eleven-year-old.

Herbie’s Barbecue, where they used to bring beer to your car, was still there. I learned later that the bathroom was still as filthy it as it had been when I left. They say Herbie left it that way to discourage people from spending too much time within. A story, not verified, by me at least, held that a young man had left his empty beer can on the long, once white, urinal, his last beer before leaving for Vietnam, only to find it still in the same spot on his return. I don’t know. You hear a lot of things in your home town.

My crowd’s main teenage hangout, “The Wagon Wheel” had closed years ago. I drove on.

I reached Main Street and saw our town’s landmark: a billboard with a little girl on a swing that actually moved, “Little Miss Sunbeam.” I don’t remember how long it had been there, at the end of Main. I just couldn’t remember when it wasn’t. She was still swinging that day, and smiling right at me. Appropriate.

All the sights were familiar now. My heart was warm. I was no longer a stranger in a strange land. In a few moments I would be home. I drove down a divided and landscaped street with grand homes on either side. Then I made the final turn toward where my future waited.

I had no way of knowing at the time, but at a college 60 miles away, a beautiful young girl of 20 was finishing classes for the day and was sashaying across campus on the way to meet her boyfriend at the Student Union. Her flowing red hair and grandly formed legs no doubt drew a great deal of attention that day. Jimmie Buffett would later describe her type as “A smart woman in a real short skirt.”

Paths cross in this world. They choose strange routes and take their time. Sometimes, they carry anchors with them. I sometimes wonder if the gods don’t stand at the intersections and laugh.

Tomorrow: meeting Mother.

In my hometown, you know you have
arrived when she smiles your way.

My Redacted Life: (Chapter One (Cont. Four)

On the afternoon of the second day of my release from military service, November 13, 1970, I neared my hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas harboring strange feelings. F. Scott Fitzgerald in one of his books, Tender is the Night, I think, describes a man’s going home to a small town in America from Europe for his father’s funeral. He described the competing feelings far better than I ever could.

I was not going to a funeral, but I found the memories of long-ago times crowding in and finding warm places in my heart. I saw a road leading to a lake once legendary for crappie-fishing, then a spot where a cousin experienced a terrible car wreck. I headed my car, Steinbeck, along a highway where our family sometimes traveled to and from our annual vacations to Florida. Some years we headed in the opposite direction, to the Texas Gulf. All were glorious events, which a snatch of a once popular song could place me within, to my everlasting joy.

That made me think of choices ahead of me. I had money to get to California, “light out for the territories,” so to speak. I had a place to stay just a short piece ahead. I could “drop anchor” there.

California was an exciting, vibrant place abounding with dreams waiting to be picked from trees.

Arkansas was under the tortured leadership of a progressive governor. Like a great vessel reversing itself in the Ocean, it was turning away from the bigotry and backwardness of the past. The state called itself “The Land Of Opportunity.” Maybe it would become that. Was there some young entrepreneur striving, even at that moment, to place the land of my birth on the map of history?

I knew this: There wasn’t a soul in the entire State of California who cared a whit about my dreams or aspirations, not to mention the sacrifices I had just made at my country’s request.

What I didn’t know was that here, in my native spoil, there were few, outside of family and the dearest of old friends, who cared a whit for those things as well. What would surprise most me most was that my entire country felt the same way.

Steinbeck and I moved on into the future, singing happy songs.

My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Cont. 3)

There is something about crossing the Mississippi River. No matter which way you’re going, you’re going someplace new. Certainly, that’s how I felt as I continued my second full day after separation from military service.

The ancients must have been in awe when they saw it for the first time. Wide and muddy, it has no reason to argue or brag. It’s the goddam Mississippi River and you can take or leave it. Much of America takes it. The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles, including all or parts of 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Years later I would read, at least three times, one of the greatest books ever written about one river. Back then, I was just fascinated all over again by the muddy expanse.

I descended into Arkansas and immediately came upon Lake Chicot and the city of Lake Village. I couldn’t have counted the many happy hours I’ve spent fishing on that Lake. It was divided then into two parts, one was constantly muddy from undeterred runoff. They used to have powerboat races on it when I was young. The other half was dark blue water that housed some of the best fishing in the state.

My father had taken up fishing trips when my brother was old enough for excursions. Lake Chicot was a favorite. It was long and narrow. You could paddle across it easily. As I drove by that day, I could almost re-smell the soft fragrance of willow trees of an early morning as we set off to our favorite fishing spot. No wild rides, no fancy musical shows, no entertainment spectacles, just a boy and his dad crossing a welcoming lake in the pre-dawn stillness. If there is a better time on earth for a young boy, I can’t imagine it.

There had been times, when I stared, rifle in hand, at the jungles leading up Monkey Mountain at Da Nang, when I had tried to relive one of those trips in my mind, just to pass the post-midnight hours. Now, here I was, all grown-up and wiser, back again.

Leaving Lake Village, I headed toward McGehee, then a thriving farm community that still housed an active railroad depot and thriving business district. Although I didn’t know it at the time, a few miles to the north one could find the remnants of the Rower Relocation Center, a World War Two concentration camp where Japanese-American families had been held as prisoners by a country that had abandoned love and grace. All that is left there is a cemetery and a monument to the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team.

442nd Monument at Rower

That was a regiment manned by Japanese-American citizens, whose families were incarcerated in places like the Rower Center. These men wanted to prove their loyalty to their country and were finally allowed to participate in the European Theater. The 442^nd became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. In less than two years of combat, the unit earned more than 18,000 awards, including 9,486 Purple Hearts, 4,000 Bronze Stars and 21 Medals of Honor.

A few years ago, my family and I attended a ceremony in McGehee to dedicate a museum in memory of the Rower Center. A college classmate attended. He had been born there. George Takei attended as well. He spoke, and described how, as a five-year-old, sent there with his family, He was forced to face the American flag each morning, with the barbed wire fences in the background, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

I didn’t know all this at the time. I was simply heading down the highway of my future, across a country that had just robbed me of four years of my life.

The Mississippi River drainage basin

My Redacted Life: Chapter One, (Cont. 2)

Having earned my release from the bondage imposed by the military in general, and the U.S. Navy in particular, I continued my “free-world” journey November 12, 1970 from Starkville, Mississippi.

I loaded my belongings: the old Gibson guitar, a sea-bag containing what I had not donated to shipmates, a plastic container of papers, three additional sets of civilian clothing, and a grocery sack full of books. Everything I owned didn’t fill the back seat of Steinbeck, my beloved 1967 Impala.

How often since have I wished my wife and I could get everything we own into the back seat of a car and take off toward the horizon.

I headed west on U.S. Highway 82 toward Winona, Indianola, and Greenville. It was nice farm country. Our country was yet not fully blemished by interstates. White flight had not devastated some cities and created new ones. Farming still required manual laborers who shopped at local stores. I passed through still-proud downtowns, places that had served white folks proudly and black folks begrudgingly for years. But change would be coming and time wasn’t an ally.

I pressed on. After Winona, I entered the portion of the state that the Flood of 1927 had inundated, although I didn’t know it at the time. That day, dead cotton stalks chattered at me in the cold November wind, wanting to tell me of those dreadful days. If the State of Mississippi shares a collective gift, it exists in the telling of stories. But I wanted nothing of dreadful tales on that second day of my freedom. I wanted joy. How about some stories of happy slaves dancing around those mansions for “Massah”?

Sliding an eight-track cassette of Hello, I’m Johnny Cash, into the slot, and with See Ruby Fall blasting away, I drove on, past Indianola and toward Greenville. Much later in life, I would meet a man from Greenville, now living in Oklahoma. He is a fine man who cooks pastries and takes them to a local nursing home where he paints the toenails of the women there. Mississippi, like all places, produces its share of saints I suppose.

Reaching Greenville that day, I detoured through Downtown and saw the levee where, in 1927, armed troops held African-American farm workers in bondage to prevent their escaping to the north during the confusion of the flood.

Today though, all was wise and wonderful. People milled around as if the past was only a taunting dream. I circled back past the brick buildings and turned right, ready to embark on my future, whatever it should be. The military, with its mixed memories, was fading further and further into its sea-scented but shrouded history.

That's when I saw the Mighty Mississippi.

Farewell to the old me.

My Redacted Life: Chapter One, (Cont.)

I left Charleston, South Carolina on, I believe, November 11, 1970. I didn't drive fast, for I had no place in particular to go. I've never felt like that since. It was a good feeling while it lasted.

Near the end of my service, I had used savings from combat and sea pay to purchase a 1967 Chevrolet Impala I had named "Steinbeck." We traveled well together.

The last thing I imagined was that I would ever be back, but I did return once, four years later with my young wife while on a vacation through the Southeast United States. My hair was long enough that the Charleston police ignored me. I still remembered how to get around the area. We visited the normal tourist spots, checked out some old haunts, and then moved on.

In 1970, there was a special feeling in the air, one of boundless promise. The United States stretched out before me like a patchwork of dreams ready to be savored. A few trees still boasted their autumn colors and sun hovered above in a bright blue sky. The earth was at peace with itself. America had just sent men to the moon and we had finally admitted that the entire adventure in Vietnam had been a foolish and horrific blunder. We wanted out, and that was the first positive sign.

Arkansas beckoned to me. The state had just elected the most progressive governor in recent history. New high-rise bank buildings were standing proudly over our Capitol city. My home town was constructing a new Civic Center designed by the office of Edward D. Stone. We were constructing an interstate highway from east to west and one from the center of the state southeast to Texas. Our future seemed unlimited.

As I said, I was in no hurry. To my mind, I had wasted my life for four years in a frantic hurry to be done with military life forever. Now, my goal was to savor each day. As I left South Carolina, I felt as if I were leaving an asylum for the mentally challenged. No more bars where entertainers sang songs using the "N-Word." No more insolent salespeople who didn't even attempt to hide their distaste for military personnel. No more police who, as one told me late one night, didn't "feel complete unless they had enjoyed beating up a sailor." I was entering a new world where the American Civil War had ended.

Sitting in a cheap motel in Starkville, Mississippi that night, picking on an old Gibson guitar I had bought for $40.00, I thought of a life at sea and decided I might prefer to drop anchor someplace where there were people who loved me. It had been a long time.

And thinking back further, I thought that I would never have to sit through a night in abject fear for my life. I would miss the Sea. I would miss it a lot, but not enough to accommodate the attendant bullshit. I was headed places.

Everything would be coming up roses for me from now on.

That was only partially true.

Do I ever miss old shipmates?
Do I ever miss the Sea? Sure.

My Redacted Life. 1

My military life ended when I told a boldfaced lie to a two-star admiral of the United States Navy. I didn’t think too much about it at the time. I was a Third Class Bosun’s Mate. That’s a highly respected position, one largely earned by bluster, bullying, deception, and prevarication. Since I only knew one admiral on a personal basis, I lacked perspective.

Here’s the deal. I read somewhere that each of us should write the story of our own life, redacted of course, omitting those parts that would threaten hard-earned reputations, marital harmony, or “free-world” status. Yesterday, someone egged me on.

I begin with my exit from the navy. That experience had begun in San Francisco, California when the Draft Board sent my Sainted Mother a letter that translated roughly as, “Tell him he cannot run from us any longer and that if he doesn’t report to the Oakland, California Induction Center by the date specified, the entire resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall be unleashed upon him. Along with this message, you might suggest to him that he have a will prepared, for his chances of a long life aren’t particularly promising.”

We respected our federal institutions in those days, and with a charming invitation like that, I sought a military solution that was more forgiving of negligent attitudes than the United States Army, or so I thought. There was also the prospect of carrying a rifle and slogging through the jungles of Southeast Asia.

So, I joined the United States Navy, and they first thing they did was to send me to the jungles of Southeast Asia and start me slogging around carrying a rifle. I still fail to understand the obsession that some have with those things (They don’t really make it larger. Trust me).

After that rather unpleasant experience, they sent me aboard the USS Hunley out of Charleston, South Carolina. That’s where I met my Admiral.

They, the Navy, had taught me to drive boats. We carried different varieties and sizes, from 50-foot wooden crafts, to officers’ vessels, to landing crafts left over from the Normandy Invasion. I drove them all.

After I had performed a year as naval coxswain without sinking a single boat, they told me that two jobs were open for which they, the Navy, felt I was eminently qualified. The first was a return to Southeast Asia, this time to drive boats on the rivers there. The second was as coxswain of the Admiral’s Barge (a nice swanky boat).

With a premonition of the dreadful manner in which the future Republican Party would treat those who drove boats in Vietnam, but with a twinge of adventurous patriotism, I went to the ship’s fo’c’sle late on a moonlight night, watched the flying fish guiding the ship, and pondered what would be a major life’s decision.

For almost 15 seconds.

That’s how I came to know my Admiral. As I say, he was a “two-star.” That’s where the Navy started them, admirals I mean. They saw no use for a BG equivalent so I began as coxswain for the equivalent of a major-general.

My duties varied from taking the Admiral’s wife and her friends to Fort Sumter to taking the Admiral out to meet a submarine returning from patrol. I had to move alongside the sub while we were both sailing along and let him jump from the barge to the sub. The experience chewed up the seats of my dress white trousers every time we did that, but I never dumped him.

Back to my last day of active duty. I was signing out, ready to say for the last time, “Request permission to go ashore, Sir,” when I was called to the phone in the Captain’s headquarters. The Admiral wanted to speak to me. “Come to my headquarters on the Main Base,” he said. “I have something for you.”

“Mary, Mother of Jesus,” I thought. Then my mind locked and loaded and went into attack gear. “Admiral,” I said, “I’m transferring out this morning, and I have three shipmates I promised to take to the airport on a tight schedule.” 

I imagine that may have been the first time anyone had told the “Old-Man” no in 20 years.

Anyway, after some wrangling, he agreed to have his aide mail it to me. It was a Naval Citation. I tried to trade it for a cup of coffee once, but they wanted money too.

Of course, there were no shipmates and no promises for transportation to the airport. I had lied. There was only freedom. I always regretted it a bit, but I’m sure the Admiral got over it. For me then, it was all, “Give me a fast car, for I intend to go in fun’s way.”

They, the Navy had paid me for travel all the way back to San Francisco, and I planned to take advantage of their offer. First, though, I planned a stop at my childhood home. I gave the stuck up, hateful, and military-loathing people of Charleston “the finger” as I drove through town.

It was “Goodbye Navy, hello Arkansas.”

One duty of a Coxswain, is too take
part in "Man Overboard" drills while at sea.
Look closely, I'm the one with my arm out.

Sunrise With Schubert: April 10, 2018

Tempted to feel sympathy for Mark Zuckerberg today? Instead, why not have a moment of silent sympathy for other victims of the U.S. Congress? How about a bit of remorse for the victims of the House Un-American Activities Committee? Add to them the victims of Senator Joe McCarthy and his venomous aide Roy Cohen. Many of those victims saw the loss of their jobs, their savings, their homes, and even their families in a particularly sad moment in our history.

Who were the victims and what was their crime? Most times, the crime amounted to having attended meetings, perfectly legal at the time, with known communists or about communism. These would have occurred in the 1930s, when the poverty and cruelty of the Great Depression spawned an interest in the government’s helping the poor, in whatever way possible.

Most of the victims had toyed with the ideas of communism and abandoned them, much as college sophomores read Ayn Rand, become enamored, then abandon her foolishness during their junior year.

The greatest transgression in appearances before HUAC seems to have been a refusal to provide the names of others who had attended meetings or read communist literature in their younger years. The committee went after those in the arts with particular vehemence: artists, entertainers, actors, and writers.

Some actors, like Ronald Reagan and Robert Taylor, gleefully supplied names from among their friends and colleagues. More honorable people, like playwright Arthur Miller, refused and were found guilty of contempt of congress.

In a particular example of dark humor, a HUAC Chairman offered Arthur Miller, who was married to Marilyn Monroe at the time, a deal to drop Miller’s upcoming hearing if he would arrange a photograph of the Chairman with Marilyn. Miller refused, and we can each decide the more honorable of the two.

It was a dark time in America. The tactics of the committee were repeated by Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn. Cohn, if you remember, was, before he died of Aids, was a legal advisor and confidant of the now President of the United States of America.

Mark Zuckerberg walks into the halls of congress today as a billionaire genius. He will be a billionaire genius when he leaves, and will be a billionaire genius when he wakes up tomorrow, the day after, and the day after.

Weep not for the billionaire. Weep instead for the innocents who saw their lives destroyed by the darker forces of government.

Oh, and read about the new museum dedicated to the thousands of victims of lynchings in our country. Sorrow and sadness should always appear to us through the prisms of time and context.

One of the few memorials in
our country to true victims.

Sunrise With Schubert: April 9, 2018

There's this couple I know, nice folks, who became "boyfriend and girlfriend" in the third grade. They married right out of high school and are still together. Who knows how many grand, great-grand, and beyond, offspring they have? I think about them every great once in a while.

Secrets? I don't imagine they have many. If my relatively short marriage (44 and a-half  years, but who's counting), is any indication, old secrets best lay buried. I don't think I would want "her" to know some of the things Mike Dunkum, the boys, and I did back in our college days. Some memories still make me shudder.

I don't think I'd want anyone to know, and I don't think any of that group would tell. We know too much on one another and we've never held ourselves out as being above retribution. I even have a couple of photographs.

And don't even get me started on my naval career.

Maybe secrets are good in that they add some tension to life, and a dependency upon tension seems to be an evolutionary trait, descended to us from earlier species in which the relaxed and oblivious tended to be eaten first.

Perhaps secrets also lurk as instruments of shame should they be unleashed like some subterranean monster roused by nuclear explosions back in the sc-fi films of the 1950s. Shame used to be a powerful behavioral determinant back when I was growing up.

It's not so much anymore. I suppose cell pone obsession makes keeping secrets ever more difficult. Concomitantly, it makes shame a less potent force in our lives. But, on second thought, it can't all be blamed on texting and such, for the greatest collection of shame-challenged individuals in our county these days can be found among those running the government.

It wasn't cell-phone-mania that cleansed those folks from the moderating influence of shame. It must  have been something else. I suspect it was the worship of, the love of, and the burning desire for more of … money, or at least the freedom from shame that riches can buy.

Maybe that's why the Galilean warned us so strongly against the worship of money. His second major gripe seemed to be divorce. Perhaps he saw that it was difficult to keep secrets after the third or fourth marriage. Mothers used to be dispensers of shame par excellence. I suppose that particular gift becomes strained when one is preoccupied with trying to remember which kid belongs to which husband.

As for the couple with whom I began this essay, I don't think they needed secrets to make them good people. They were just raised that way for starters, and love did the rest.

Got to go now, need to put away some photos I was scanning, tourist photos taken on my R and R trip to Bangkok these many centuries ago. Some old shipmates and I are swapping, but don't tell anyone. Those are tour guides in those pics. Nothing more. Trust me. I'd be ashamed if they weren't.

Secrets? I've a few. But don't
tell her. She thinks I'm perfect.
Not.