MEMORIES GOOD AND BAD

I was stationed on the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier, home ported in Long Beach, California in 1967 and 1968. I was a Second Class Petty Officer. Things were going well in my life. I had a beautiful 1965 Chevrolet Malibu Super Sport (SS) forest green with bucket seats. It shined so bright when I waxed it. Anita and I had a nice apartment on Pine Street in Long Beach. We were expecting our first child, Margaret. We had a reel to reel tape recorder and tons of music I had collected during my Vietnam cruises. We had some good friends and even though there was not much money left over after the rent and car payment we were happy.
We would lift the couch cushions and scrape up .98 cents to attend the .49 cent double feature movies down on Ocean Boulevard. Once we went there with only .49 cents and when we got to the ticket booth realized that we were two not one.
We had a good friend from Louisiana named Frenchy. I was feeling flush one day with about $30.00 in my pocket so we invited Frenchy and I think his live in girlfriend, to dine with us. We went to a fancy restaurant up at the top of Cherry Street. We were seated at the table, the waiter brought us fancy gold leafed menus and we were shocked to see that just about every dish was 12 to 25 dollars each. Anita and I split a chicken dinner and I think Frenchy and his girl did the same. At any rate, it brought me back to reality but in a sense it made us realize that money is in fact no measure of happiness. We enjoyed just window shopping in Long Beach and once in a great while we would splurge and go to our favorite restaurant “Hoff’s Hut”. It was a small place that served excellent food at a reasonable price. We always had the same thing even though the menu had various choices. I chose the chopped sirloin with mashed potatoes, gravy and corn (chopped sirloin is a fancy name for a hamburger patty) and Anita always chose grilled halibut.
We felt we were living high on the hog during those days. Life’s simple pleasures like an afternoon in the park lying on a blanket enjoying the sun, watching people from all walks of life pass by and guessing about them as they walked by. That guy there is named George. His wife’s name is Alice and they have a Chevrolet Impala and a dog named Simpson. They fight a lot and like to BBQ.
Fantasy and fun were the name of the game during those days. We eventually moved to an apartment in Wilmington not far from Long Beach. I would whistle at our land lady, Mrs. Carey. What a nice person she was. She was about 80, loved my whistles and often asked me to cook grilled pork chops which I must say were delicious. Such a joy to have a land lady who seemed to adopt us and we enjoyed our stay in Wilmington. Then came another cruise to Vietnam and long hours of launching aircraft and loading bombs sometimes as much as 20 hour stretches for months on end. War was quite an experience and I lost some good friends and shipmates and had some close calls myself.
Sailing back into Long Beach with the crew manning the rails with flags flying showing off the awards or gedunks as we called them in the day was quite an experience. The docks lined with newspaper and television reporters and hundreds and hundreds of residents and relatives to welcome us back home.
Sousa marches and hugs and kisses and then a period of time in dry dock to prepare for the next war deployment. I was getting close to completing my first hitch in the Navy and had decided to get out.
My happy reunion was soon sobered by the death of my Mother. I flew back to North Carolina where I spent hours standing in front of her casket gazing at her face and waiting for a slight movement or twitch so I could explain to my family that this was a horrible mistake and she was just unconscious. The movement I was waiting for never came and I faced the hardest time in my life coming to terms that my Mother was gone. I don’t feel that I have ever fully accepted the loss. I know my family has never recovered. None of us have been the same since. Time dims the memories and hurts but does not erase the pain of them. The cruelty of the funeral ritual to me extends the depth of the pain and slows healing. I won’t put my family through such an ordeal.
I tried to transfer to another carrier for the short time I had left but no, hell no. We left Long Beach once again early one morning and picked up the sounds of a Russian Sub which we chased all the way from the California Coastal waters into the cold frigid waters of the Alaska islands where we discovered our Submarine was a whale. Well at least it is a whale of a tale eh? All the sailors were expecting to spend some time in Hawaii before heading back to the North Vietnam coastline and here we found ourselves wearing foul weather jackets and launching aircraft to chase the whale. Well, we did eventually make it into the port of Hawaii and I took the time to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, an experience I will always remember. Standing on the memorial looking through the clear water to the sunken battleship below with entombed sailors who went down fighting was a moving experience for me.
Instead of taking me on to Vietnam and flying me back for discharge I was flown back to the states for discharge. They gave me orders to Treasure Island, California for out processing and I drew a line through San Francisco on my ticket voucher and wrote in Los Angeles. I drew a line through my orders also and wrote in Long Beach Naval Station for my destination. Though some processing people questioned the pen and ink changes, I lied and said that it was okay-ed by the ship and the travel costs were the same. I reported to Naval Station Long Beach for discharge thinking they would release me early but no, hell no. I spent the last two months on my first Navy Hitch in charge of a Military Funeral Squad. I still can see the people dressed in black clothing and the tears in the widow’s and parent’s eyes as I handed them the folded American flag after I ordered the gun salute and taps were played. It was a sad time in my life to be so closely involved with that part of the costs of war. Finally, I received my discharge and Anita and I put our suitcases in the back of the Malibu SS and headed back to my hometown in North Carolina. I remember coming down the mountain from Tennessee and seeing the Welcome to North Carolina sign. I pulled the Malibu over and had Anita take a picture of me hugging the sign. I was welcomed home by my family and friends but as I stood over my mother’s grave for hours and tried to revive the good memories, I knew that the reality of life had hit me hard.
I find it amazing that I can recall those details so vividly after all these years have passed yet now, I find often that I can’t recall where I sat my coffee cup down. No matter how great your life seems at times, life intrudes with sad events that mar your happiness. I have developed coping skills but when I conjure up these old memories, the sad times appear along with the good times. The realization that life is a journey and the path has rough spots as well as smooth places sinks in. I concentrate on the good memories and good times and count the other times as part of the experiences that have made me who I am.