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.