SOMETIMES IT'S DIFFICULT TO KNOW IT'S FRIDAY

I'm in the Air Force. I'm in the mess hall. I'm eating dinner with a coworker. He comments on how good the franks are. I agree. I don't think I have ever tasted franks this good.

This talk about wieners reminded me of an experience I had when I worked in a grocery store. I proceed to tell him about this butcher, who every Monday morning would wash the franks left over from Saturday's business in a bucket of suds while singing the Rinso White song. "Rinso White, Rinso White. Happy little washday song."

I told him that the butcher told me they do that so mold doesn't get a good hold on the skin of the wieners.

We finish eating and as I'm getting up, I happen to notice that he didn't eat any more of those delicious franks.

While I was writing this, I remembered another good story, concerning what, I don't know. But what it did was make me realize that it is not memory that gets bad as we (at least I) grow older, it is word association. When we are young(er), one thing reminds us of another bang bang bang. Now, if it does happen to remind us of something and we lose it, going back to the thought that associated with it before, it don't work.

This same phenomena would also account for why it is so easy to lose things as old men and women. We cannot associate the place where we left the eyeglasses with the eyeglasses. All lines between them are kaput, like a communications line cut by artillery barrages during a precursory to a dastardly attack on our weakened lines caused by incompetence at the highest level and the clever spy the enemy employs in a sneaky manner in order to confuse and lull us into a state of false security and hubris.

Rereading the story about the franks, I remembered the story I forgot. This story also takes place in the same mess hall. This time I'm eating dinner with two coworkers who are quality control inspectors. Which reminds me of another story and yet another. These last two stories could get me in trouble if anyone wanted to be a dick, but I would just deny it and they would look like idiots, so that's all right.

So we three have gone through the food line and have sat down to eat. The two inspectors notice that the liver is a shimmering pastel shade of green. They call the head cook over and complain about it. The head cook leaves for a few moments, comes back and informs them that he called the veterinary and the vet says green liver is good to eat.

The three argue some minutes more and while the two are insisting that the liver is not fit for human consumption, I look down at my plate and realized that while they were arguing, I had cleaned my plate - green liver and all. I also noticed that the head cook had seen the same thing, but to his credit he kept his mouth shut and didn't mention it. I saw a small smile at the edges of his mouth, though.

One of the stories I could get in trouble with occurred due to these same two guys. I was working in analysis at the time, helping a Master Sergeant put out a monthly report on the workings of Armament and Electronics section (A&E).
These two looked over our reports and told my boss that one of the trainers seemed to garner an awful lot of maintenance hours. I was tasked to research this and find out why. I did so and it turned out to be nothing more than a reporting debacle. I told my boss this, and I also told the two inspectors this. It didn't help. For three months they focused on this trainer and kept writing it up for excessive maintenance. The last time they did this, I got fed up with it and took all of the maintenance reports pertaining to that particular trainer home with me. I figured,"out of sight, out of mind."

I kept the records at home for a couple of months, heard nothing about it from the Bobbsy Twins (Yes, we actually called them that out of their hearing), finally burned the records in the our fireplace. That fixed that trainer's problem! Never heard any more about it.

I worked swing shift for many years. One of our worst supervisors used to volunteer us Tech Sergeants to clean up the Colonel's office. The Colonel had lower grades working for him, and we didn't work in his office - we worked the aircraft, so this was a real sore point to me.

One night my supervisor told me it was my turn to clean the colonel's office. While I was cleaning the office, I went into the Colonel's files and looked for a twix (a message from higher headquarters giving orders to do something or other. Everything that was done with the aircraft had to have orders given to do any particular thing. No twix, no authorization.) I wanted only one to be in a file, thus depleting the file. I found a file that had only one twix and threw the twix in the trash.

The colonel had two large glass ash trays on the table where he did his briefings and I also took one of those and threw it in the dumpster.

After I had finished cleaning the colonel's' office, my supervisor came in to check my work and asked me where the other ash tray was. I told him I only saw the one. He insisted there were two. Looking him directly in the eye so he understood, I insisted I had only seen one. He never had me clean the colonel's office ever again.

WELL, IT WASN'T HARVARD

My older brother by two years took me to school and enrolled me in Kindergarten. One day many weeks later, somebody said about me, "The new boy..." The teacher told him that didn't he think it was time to start using my name, since I was no longer the "new boy?"

Sitting in class one day, a boy raised his hand and asked if he could go to the bathroom. The teacher told him no. No using the bathroom. I finally had to go so bad, I just peed my pants. I remember a little girl turning around and looking at me, but nobody ever said anything about it.

I'm in the second or third grade, late in the year. I'm sitting on the floor, reading an arithmetic book -- something I do often. I want to learn to do arithmetic, but so far we haven't been taught any. I read the stories in the book and marvel at the numbers and signs, but that's as far as I get. I hear two teachers standing right next to me. One of them says to the other, "When they want to learn arithmetic, they'll ask. I fervently wished someone would ask so we could get on with it. At no time did it occur to me for ME to ask.

Years later, in High School, I learn about an education system "in the old days" where one of the dogmas was that when children were ready for a subject, they would ask to learn it. It was supposed to be a very modern thing to do, back then. It was called, "Progressive Education."

It didn't occur to me that I had been taught in one of those schools. It was not until years later when the incident came to my mind and I realized, as a grownup, that those two women teachers had purposely situated themselves near me and said what they said as hint for me to ask, "Please, Sir - may I have some more education?" They had obviously seen me reading that arithmetic book every day for months. Must have been very frustrating for them.

By the time I was in forth grade, I had memorized my times tables and could do some simple multiplication. Then I was transferred from Brooks Progressive School to Phillips Elementary School because my parents moved and they wanted us kids to move with them and since I was one of the kids, I went.

The very first day in my new school, we had a math test. The test was on division. It looked like Greek to me. I had no idea what was going on. I guessed at every question. I never noticed any unusual treatment that teacher gave me, but she must have wondered where I had been schooled. I imagine though, that Brooks Progressive already had a reputation amongst teachers, so she probably already knew how to get me on track.

When I was in the seventh grade I went to a one room school in Northern Iowa. The first day there the teacher, in order to gage our abilities, asked my older brother and I some questions. One I remember was, "What is the smallest part of the body?"

We hemmed and hawed for a while and I guessed, "The finger?" My brother guessed something similar, but I don't remember what that was. So much for education in the big city.

I learned to do phonics by listening in on her teaching the first graders. One time only, she asked me to correct their phonics papers. At the time, I thought she just needed my help, but now I see that she was surreptitiously testing me. She had no doubt noticed my intense interest in her first grade class whenever they were on phonics.

WAITING IN BUSHES FOR A WOMAN TO PASS

So I'm walking down the alley. I come to 28TH street and on the corner of the alley and 28th, there is a large oleander bush. Also, a car is coming from my left. As I have explained in a previous blog, I don't like for cars to wait for me. So I hide behind the bush and wait for the car to pass. I wait. And I wait. Curious, I peek around the bush and there's the car, stopped. The lady driver is laughing her head off. She knew what I was doing and decided to wait me out. One for her, none for me.
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I walk into the dentist's waiting room and facing me is a boy about twelve years old, staring at me and grinning - like he knows me. Also in the periphery of my vision, I see a young girl, about five or six, also staring at me and grinning. What is this? Do they know me? I don't recognize either of them and usually I know whether babies are someone I have seen before somewhere or new ones. These look new. So why are they acting as if we are old friends? My memory is getting that bad?

I place my hand on the boy's head as I pass and I sit where I can see the both of them. The boy turns around in his seat, and grinning, he looks at me. I can get neither to respond in any other way to me. Curious.

So I finish my dentist business and I get home and I happen to glance in the mirror and my hair looks like Stan Laurel's hair - sticking straight up. What had happened is that I commonly run my hands through my hair so I usually look a mess. My wife and I have an agreement that she is to check me out before I go anywhere, but this time she was playing her game on the computer so I left without my checkup.

BUDDY CAN YOU SPARE A DAME?

A bit of background on this next, otherwise I might come off sounding a bit nuts. Maybe not, but you never know.

I was getting into loving humanity and I had read -- and believed, that there is a relationship between loving and service. The mind will not let you serve someone you hate or dislike, so it you serve them, then the mind, in order to be consistent, must make you love them.

Also, remember that as I walked around downtown and midtown Sacramento, I wore bib overalls, was barefoot, carrying a pair of thongs, the book I was reading, and a stick I happened to be carving. Quite a sight, I imagine. Oh yeah, during some of this time I was also bearded as in my picture on Blog number twenty and a half.

One night I'm walking down 28th street, about to cross "L" street against a red light. As I step into the street, an old man waiting at the curb said to me, "You're supposed to wait for the red light." Now there was nobody else around, no cars, no other pedestrians. No reason at all that we should wait for the green light, but trying to serve, I immediately stepped back on the curb and stood beside the old gentleman. Neither of us said a word, but I sensed that he was uncomfortable since I was doing something out of the ordinary. But I served him and I did love him. I felt good.

One day I'm walking down 21st street on my way to Weatherstone's and this mentally challenged boy started talking to me. We talked for a while and then he wants me to go inside. He lived in a halfway house and I was familiar with these, since my wife did some of her internship at theses houses and I often accompanied her. I say, "OK."

We go inside and there was about six or seven of his peers in there and I stayed and talked with them a bit and then the owner of the house -- a large Black woman came out and saw me there, asked me why was I inside and I told her about the boy wanting me to come in. She was very polite and kinda condescending because I think she thought I was not quite right in the head, dressed like I was and seemingly fitting in with mentally challenged people. She told me to leave in a manner one would tell a six year old boy to leave, and I left. It was an interesting visit.

One day I was in Safeway buying something, carrying one of my sticks and the lady at the counter said to me, very sweetly, "Did somebody carve that for you, Honey?" Obviously to her, I didn't have the sense to do something like that.

One time I was sitting on the sidewalk in front of Weatherstone's and a guy walking by gave me a quarter and went inside. I thanked him, but the guy with him must have explained about me because he came out and apologized. I assured him I wasn't offended. I kept the quarter.

One time a man downtown came up to me and said, "I don't want to offend you, but are you hungry? Would you like a sandwich?"

Another time I was walking down "J" street after buying a sandwich, eating on one half, carrying the other. A bum sitting on the sidewalk asked me, very excitedly, "Are they giving away food?" I said no, but I gave him my uneaten half a sandwich.

I heard a lot of people saying some bad things about the bums. Some fear, mostly just didn't want them around. I always looked upon them as I did children. What they showed you was what they were. They didn't put on any poses about what a great this or that they were. They were real and I appreciated that. That's what I like about babies too -- besides that, babies are cute.

To me, bums are the spices that made humanity taste so much better. I guess you could call them the "salt" of humanity.

I heard a lot of intimate conversations in my walks because strangers would assume I was a bum and they didn't think I was important enough to hide intimate things from -- that I probably wouldn't understand them anyhow.

Funniest thing that happened to me in this vein concerned a friend I met at a coffee house called Java City at 18th and Capital. I used to sit and talk with him for hours. He was a self-employed sign painter with one part time employee.

He liked to talk about food. He ate out a lot and liked a good meal. One day he mentioned an especially good wine he had run into at a restaurant and I offhandedly commented, "I don't like wine."

He looked at me in surprise and exclaimed, "Why, I never met a wino that didn't like wine before."

Now I had been talking face to face with this guy for a year or two, almost every day.

He had never seen me drunk, had never smelt alcohol on my breath, had never seen me take a drink of an alcoholic beverage.

I didn't drink anything in those days except maybe a bottle of beer once every two or three weeks on a hot day. And all this time he had me pegged as a wino solely because of the way I dressed and the way I wore my hair and beard.

He knew I was married to a social worker. My wife often sat with us as we talked.

I laughed a lot about that incident. One of my favorite memories. What a guy. I got some more stories about him, but not right now.

SPIDER MAN, SPIDER MAN IF HE CAN'T DO IT NOBODY CAN

I didn't feel like writing much today, but I always feel like editing. Editing is where the real writing takes place. The first words are always a mishmash of loosely connected misspelled and out of syntax blathering. Pulling prose written like poetry with intelligence and verve out of that mishmash is where the fun lies. Someday I'm going to do that.

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So I'm sitting at my desk at work and I notice my right elbow seems a little tender. Every time I put my elbows on the desk top, I get a sharp shooting pain. I look at it and right on the point of my elbow is a little red pointed sore -- like a pimple, but small and no whiteness showing. Funny.

Later I notice my whole elbow is red, the "pimple," gone. That night at home, I see that my elbow is now swelled and very tender. Next morning I go to work and people comment on the size of my arm, all of which is swollen. I go to the doctor's, they say to take some time off, rest -- come back if it gets worse. I go home.

Next morning I wake up, and am talking to my wife. I feel fine -- got a day off work, feel good, got sympathy for my "injury," all in all, a good day. The only thing wrong is my swollen arm, but it doesn't hurt, so feel pretty good about the whole thing. Then out of the blue, I feel very nauseous. I run to the bathroom, vomit and let loose some liquid excrement. I don't feel good no more.

I think what happened there was that the poison in my arm let loose into the blood stream all at once.

I take it easy all day, the next morning I go to work.

I still don't know what happened to me, but I remember that the day before I got the "pimple," I was under the house, pants tied at the ankles, long sleeved shirt on, putting up insulation. I was dressed this way because under the house were a lot of black widow spiders. A lot! I wasn't too afraid of them because it was my experience that if you disturbed the web, they would hide in a hole. All I had to do was be sure I saw then in order to avoid them. I didn't know at that time that they not only lived in cracks, but in holes in the ground and I think this is where I got my "injury."

The part I don't understand is why it took so long - 24, maybe 48 hours from bite to appearance of injury. Of course I could have been bitten the same day I got the injury, in the office. Maybe I was carrying one on my person although that doesn't seem likely. There being a black widow spider in the office doesn't seem likely either, though.

Maybe not even a spider bite. Who knows? Just anther mystery to take to my grave.

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I used to walk a lot. It was my favorite thing to do. I loved it. One day I'm walking through the Safeway parking lot and a car pulls up and stops and waits for me to pass in front of it. I hate that. I figure I'm on foot, not using any gas or brake lining or rubber, so I should wait for cars to go in front of me. Besides that, I used to walk really fast and I hated any impediments in my path. So what I did, and usually do, is to make a sharp right turn so that I am parallel to the auto and we both can go the same way until it passes me and I can make a sharp left turn and we both keep moving with no interruption. When I did this, I hear a woman's voice yelling at me from the car, "Dirty artistic bastard!"

LEAVE THEM COWS ALONE, YOU DOG!

When I was fourteen, a freshman in High School, my first job-for-pay was mowing the lawn on a neighbor's farm. I got two dollars for mowing a pretty big lawn. He asked me if I wanted to stay at his farm and do odd jobs for two dollars a day, plus room and board. I liked it there - I ate good and he had a nice farm. Better than ours, actually. 'Sides, I wouldn't have to milk cows, which I hated. He only had four and we had forty.

He let me ride one of his horses -- actually, I was doing him a favor, exercising it. But one day I dropped the reins while the horse was galloping and didn't get them back until he stopped. I told the farmer about it and he never let me ride any of his horses ever again. I didn't mind, as at that time in my life I didn't really like riding horses. One day he had me out cutting cockleburrs and my friends in town were getting fifty cents an hour for cutting cockleburrs, so I felt cheated and I loafed. I actually laid down in the middle of the corn rows, the corn being only a foot high. He was the kind of a guy that would own a pair of binoculars. Did he see me? I dunno, and I don't remember how it happened, but I never worked there again.

I cut cockleburrs with my friends once in a while. The very worst job I had was unloading coal from a railway car in the dead of winter. It was cold and the coal was too big to shovel easily and too small to pick up by hand. Took me and my fiend three days to get the damn thing unloaded.

Three of us also unloaded a boxcar full of bricks. We had these tools that had a handle that lifted up, with which you carried the bricks and also the handle was on a hinge that pulled the two ends together to grab seven bricks.

I got in a fight with my dad that night when I got home because we started working right after school and there was no way to tell anyone where I was. We didn't have a phone on the farm.

I figured my Mom worried my dad over it until he got worried and released it in anger when I got home. He told me I couldn't work there again and if I didn't like it, I could leave. I started to leave, and purposefully went toward the door he was standing near, and thankfully, he stopped me.

The next day my Mom told me it was all right for me to work there.

My next job was after we moved into town - Emmetsburg, Iowa. I worked in an old ladies garden -- pulling weeds, etc. She was nice, but it didn't seem like a real job and I was seventeen by then.

One day I walked into a grocery store and asked for a job and surprisingly, I got put to work right away. I had to dust every shelf and every can in the place. I would remove a bunch of cans, dust where they had been, and as I put the cans back, I would dust the cans. Not realizing it at the time, but after I finished doing that, if a customer asked me where something was, I knew.

There was one other box boy and a man and a woman cashier, and then the owner. The owner usually stayed in the back, candling eggs. Farmers sold their eggs to the grocery stores, the grocery stores sold the eggs to their customers. The eggs needed to be candled before being retailed in order to weed out rotten eggs, or those containing blood spots.

To candle an egg, you pass it in front of a hole in a box which contains a lighted bulb. You could see the interior of the egg in this way, much like an x-ray, only much clearer.

Once in a while I would candle eggs 'cause it was fun, but now that I'm older, I shouldn't have been doing that. I was never shown how to do it, I just learned from watching. I think I did it right, but I dunno, know what I mean? All I knew was to watch for cloudy eggs -- rotten, or dark spots -- blood. Anything else, I would have passed out of ignorance.

That reminds me, my friend's father came to the farm one day to spray the chicken coop for lice and my friend said, "See that chicken?" My dad's gonna kill it. I never did see what was different about that chicken, but sure enough, when his dad saw it, he picked it up and wrung its neck. I saw my grandmother do that to a chicken a few months later. I was not a very curious person in those days, so I never asked what was wrong with the chicken. I think it had something to do with not being a layer. No, it wasn't a rooster, Silly.

The man and woman who worked as cashiers up front would occasionally call out, "Carry out." I would rush up to do it 'cause it got me out doors. One day I went out and a car was parked and the horn was blaring nonstop. There was an old man in the driver's seat who evidently was deaf. People were knocking on the car door window, telling him his horn was honking. He just looked at them stupidly. Somebody finally got it stopped -- again, I don't remember how.

One day when one of the two cashiers called for a carry out and I rushed up there, they got on the other bag boy for not doing his share -- for always letting me do it. The man said that he was in charge of up front. The owner came up from the back to see what was going on and when he heard this, he said, "No, I'M the boss of up front and the back. It's my store. I'M the owner." The cashier quit a week later. I'm not sure, but I think the woman quit too. They married around that time..They were a nice-looking couple.

I always felt kinda guilty for being the cause of that whole brouhaha.

My brother worked for a construction gang building houses. He made a lot more money than I did, so I went there and asked for a job even though I was worried it would be too tough for me. I got the job and shortly was carrying wet concrete in a wheelbarrow and the boss was watching me to see if I could handle it. It was a little touch and go for a while, but in later days, after I had worked out a little more, it was a breeze. The first surprise with that job was that it was MUCH easier than working in a grocery store. Physically and mentally. And I didn't have to deal with customers.

I worked there a number of months during the summer until one day the boss came on the sight. Usually the seven of us (one was my chemistry teacher) worked without supervision. I worked hard, loved the physical labor, but when the boss arrived, we were working on the roof and when we ran out of boards we had to go down and carry a bunch back up. It seemed to me, and I'm sure I'm right, but everyone but me started working extra hard because the boss was there. One guy never went down to get boards until the boss showed up.

I hated being thought a hypocrite or a suck up, so although I had made several trips to get boards, when the boss showed up, I waited on the roof until somebody brought boards for me to nail. Naturally the boss saw this and thought me a slacker, so he took me with him and told me what to clean up, keeping tabs on me. I told him I wanted to quit and he said, "Yeah, I thought you might." I knew he thought I wanted to quit because he was working me, but it really was because I knew what he thought of me and I didn't want to be around him anymore. I always felt uncomfortable around him anyhow -- a father figure, I guess, and I never got along with my father. Hated my dad, actually, until about six months before he died.

I always thought -- or hoped, anyhow, that my chemistry teacher, who knew me and saw what a good worker I was when the boss wasn't around, would say something to that effect to the boss so the boss wouldn't think I was a loafer. I really doubt he ever did that, though. But still, I hoped.

My next job was with the Air force, the early years. The one year enlistment. I already told you about that. You gotta pay attention.

After I got out from my enlistment, I again went to where my brother worked -- in a packing plant. Killing beef.

First day, I went into the dressing room to put on some clothes I didn't mind getting bloody and dirty. I then walked out into the killing floor and hanging up by the hind feet, on a moving chain, were three black steers. Now, I knew I was going to be where beef were killed, but when I saw they actually did that, I was a bit shocked. I don't know what I expected -- cans of beef, maybe?

My brother told me he once saw a steer loose on the floor, and one day I saw it happen too. His climbed over the chute, mine somehow didn't get hooked up right and wasn't stunned enough. They hit them over the head with a sledge hammer. My brother told me that was once his job.

My job was to push the carcasses along to the cooler room after the beef were skinned and cut lengthwise. Also, whenever this buzzer sounded, I was to go over to the call tube -- like they use to have on ships so the captain could talk to the engine room? I would hear something like, "Jason (not his real name) has a cut on a hide." I would then relay this information to Jason, who would then proceed to chew me out like it was my call and I was insulting him. I hated it when the tube said his name. I cringed. My brother went up to him one day and told him to knock that shit off, and he did,

I quit after a few weeks, went to the horse kill, got fired after three days. I hated both those jobs. Don't know why I ever went there. Had no money and too much time, I guess.

Went to Emmetsburg Junior College a month after getting fired.

Now this is strange. False memory coming up. You see, I was sure I worked in construction as a senior in High School, but I didn't meet the Chemistry teacher at that job until I went to college. I must have worked at that grocery store through my Junior and Senior years in High School, went in the Air Force, got out, went to work on the killing floors, went to college, got a job building houses. Logically, that makes sense, but memory wise, it didn't happen like that.

But then I remember quitting the grocery store to go to work in construction. I did not work in the grocery store while going to college. I worked bottling milk.

What's the use of having a memory if the damn thing ain't going to work right?

COME IN OUT OF THE RAIN, YOU IDIOT!

In military basic training, you spend an awful lot of time in class, which is usually a tent or wooden building out somewhere in the boondocks where you gotta march to in the hot Southern Texas sun.

These classes are designed to make sure the dumbest person in the class "gets it." So the classes are boring - stuff you already knew taught by people who never knew, over and over until you fall asleep sitting up with your eyes open.

One day, I swear to God (although I shouldn't), We all saw this HUGE rabbit off in the distance. I had often heard of Texas rabbits, but I thought that was just the "Big Texan" myth. It's no myth about the rabbits. Looked as big as a German Shepard. Everybody went, "Looka the rabbit! Looka the rabbit!"

One day four of us were told to report to somewhere, I forget just how it came about, but all four of us had gotten a perfect score on our entry tests and they were recruiting for military people to work on IBM machines and one guy they wanted for Intelligence school - to learn Russian.

It so happened that every one of us had enlisted for only one year and they insisted if we wanted to join them, we would have to extend our enlistments to three years. None of us did. I think we were the only four out of forty 'cruits that were offered these "plum positions." The smartest guys enlisted for the shortest time. How poetic is that?

The recruiter told me my commanding officer would be a Colonel and so nobody would mess with me. Even as dumb as I was, I knew that just because he was a colonel, that didn't mean HE wouldn't mess with me.

I found out years laterthat Colonels were insane - at least the ones in SAC were.

One of them gave us NCO's a lecture and told us to watch the lower grades because if they were prone to littering, the next thing you know they'd be burning down the barracks. I'd hate to be him, having to rely on people like us to keep his bombers flying. Might have to put an armed guard on each of us.

The biggest drawback to turning down the offer was that it turned out that I served twenty-one years anyhow, so two more tacked on to what I was already in for would have been nothing. Besides, I was eighteen years old. What's the hurry getting out at that age? Huh? And I could have had an "in" with the IBM people way back in 1949. Maybe later I could have gone to work for them, got into their stock options program and today I could be sitting in my sauna while I have my secretary type this that I am typing. I coulda been a tycoon. I woulda looked good.

I was always scared of inspections. I was always sure that I had done something wrong. Years later, when I had four stripes, I was standing inspection and the Major looked me over, passed on, the First Sergeant looked me over and passed on, then the Tech Sergeant, the one that writes down demerits the Major tells him to, looked me over and whispered, "You stripes are falling off." I looked at my right sleeve and sure enough, my sewed-on stripes were literally hanging by a thread.

Also, at that same base during that same time period, we were out policing up around the building where I worked and a buddy said, "Hey Reynolds. You got on brown shoes." Hah! Sure enough. I had mistakenly put on civilian shoes. The rest of the day I felt like I was in one of those dreams where you're naked in a crowd of people.

I was working on a plane one day and got to talking with my co-worker and he told me that when I first reported to work after Tech School, Master Sgt Minough took one look at me and slowly shook his head. I was wearing clean but wrinkled one-piece fatigues (boy, those were comfortable!), needed a haircut, hair not combed, black but not polished shoes. Thank heaven I shaved that day.

I went to a USO show one afternoon, just me and another guy was all the audience they had and it was a good show. I was surprised thatthey did the show, seeing as how sparse the audience was. I liked it a lot, thought it a shame more people weren't there.

One day a few of us were sent to another part of the base to pull K.P. The barracks and the mess hall were not painted white like ours - they were tar-papered. This was where the "Coloreds" were stationed when the military was segregated. You would have thought that congress, the military, somebody would realize the cost of the buildings was being paid by the people and if each citizen had to pay maybe three pennies more to get the whole base looking the same, it could have been done.

After basic I was shipped to Dennison Texas, the birthplace of Dwight D. Eisenhower, about fifty miles north of Dallas. The base was a training base for flying cadets. I was assigned to the motor pool as a mechanic.

The county where I was stationed was dry, Dallas was in a wet county, so me and another guy made a coupla bootlegging runs for the troops. It was easy to sell the stuff. We didn't do it too long, thank heavens. Getting caught would have ruined my career.

I once went to visit a friend of a friend who was in the county jail. Him and a friend had gone with their two girlfriends to the girlfriend's farm for horseback riding, took the saddles and sold them.

I didn't know anything about auto mechanics and I was to learn by O.J.T. (On the Job Training), but I never did. A friend worked on the grease rack with the buck sergeant in charge. They used to have to grease the vehicles with a hand-held grease gun - a lot of work, but they had gotten a pressure gun so the work was easy. The two of them had the grease shed fixed up so's one of them could go up by the rafters where they had a cot and could sleep or read magazines. They told me that the Master sergeant thought that they still had to work hard because of when they had the hand-held grease gun. My friend asked the buck sergeant to ask the Master sergeant if he could have another man because they were overworked and the Master Sergeant said OK, so I went to work there three. Three men for a one man job! Military.

YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW, FELLA.

I joined the Air Force in 1949, eighteen and just out of High School. I originally was going in for three years, but at that time, if you were eighteen, you could join for one year. So I did.

The reason I joined the AF in the first place was because I didn't think I could hack the basic of the Army or the Marines or the Navy. I thought about the Coast Guard, and I wanted to join that, but somewhere between thinking of it and actually doing it, I forgot there was such a thing as the Coast guard. My senile forgetfulness started early this life.

I get sworn in, in Sioux City Iowa and traveled by Pullman train (get me!) to San Antonio Texas, to Lackland AFB. Took a day to get to Texas, another day to cross Texas. It was while traveling on the outskirts of Texas that I saw my first slum. Miles and miles of closely packed tin-can sheds in which happy families could get in out of the rain, supposing there was any rain.

We were marched to our barracks The D. I. (he wasn't called that, but I forget what he was called, and I saw movies) showed us how to make our beds, arrange our footlockers and send our civilian clothes home. Walking in to the barracks, I noticed Mexicans gathering together toward the end of the bay, speaking Spanish. I had seen Blacks do that, and of course Whites do it, but it is not noticeable since it is what we are used to. I don't know why, exactly, but the sight of the Mexicans doing this really took my attention. I was not used to seeing Mexicans. I don't remember ever seeing one until this time.

Which reminds me. In Estherville Iowa, in 1954, a small town in Northern Iowa, there was one taxi company and it was owned by a Black family. The only Blacks for hundreds of miles around. How and why did they wind up there? Now, I would question them, but in those days I just took things for granted. But it is puzzling, no? I wish I knew their story.

Then we went to get haircuts.

Every two weeks, we were taken, like naughty children, to get our haircuts. Black barbers on one side of the barber shop, White barbers on the other side. The Air force had just that year, 1949, been desegregated. I think. Either that year or the year before, or the year before that. I think it was that year. Does it matter? No. No White ever went to the Black side - we called them "Coloreds" back then and nobody minded, but progress abides, don't it? No Black went to the White side except one time later one of the Blacks - I think it was our Right Guide, went to a White barber because, as he loudly declared, "That guy don't know how to cut hair. He messed me up last time." Now, remember, this was a Black guy with Black hair and only a few weeks previously, we had all had our heads shaved. How bad could his cut have been? Did he take off an ear?

I hope I remember to tell you about the time I went to pull K.P. over in the area where the "Coloreds" used to live before military desegregation.

I was made a squad leader because I had previous military training. National Guard, you know, and there are some stories there too, which I might tell you some day, but not now, please. I'm busy here.

There were two "casuals" - guys who had finished Basic but didn't have their orders to report anywhere yet. When I finished my Basic, I was a casual for a week or so too. Got my own room. High living, being a casual. Could go on my own to chow hall too. Baby grew up, you betcha.

Anyhow, these two guys - just out of Basic, remember, were the T. I.'s (I remembered!) assistants. They wore corporal stripes on an armband. These two would kick in the butt, different Airmen that were messing up. The T.I. never did that, but evidently it was on his instructions. Either that or he just didn't mind what those two was (yep, that's correct syntax. "Was" is attending "what". It sounds wrong, but what's a fellah to do?) doing. I wish someone had punched one of them out, but of course nobody ever did. They didn't ever bother me in any way, nor any of the other squad leaders, which makes me think the kicking was the "T.I.'s idea. It was degrading and totally uncalled for.

I grew up rather poor. Didn't know it at the time. When we lived in Des Moines, away from my Grandparent's farm, we never had milk to drink except when I was in Forth grade - and the school started selling a small container of milk for, I believe it was five cents a week. Mom would sometimes give us four kids one egg each and I would dip bread in the yoke and then make a sandwich of the rest of the egg in order to make it stretch.

The first thing that impressed me in the mess hall was that three quarts of milk were at each table for four. We could have all the milk we wanted. Every morning I got two! (Count 'em) two! eggs. I still ate them the same way I had done in Des Moines until I realized that I didn't have to stretch it out anymore and I could just eat the eggs like we did on the farm. I ate my first turkey while in the Air Force.

When I was nine I read a story about a boy who gave up his savings to buy a poor little girl a turkey for Thanksgiving. He found out that her family was having round steak instead of turkey and asked his mother if round steak was cheap. His Mother said, "Well, Yeah!" OK, she didn't really say that. I just threw that in. I thought, "Damn! I wish we could have steak for Thanksgiving, let alone turkey. We always had chicken for Thanksgiving.

Still speaking of being poor, I once ate supper at a friend's house when I was five years old and my friend got a glass of milk, but I didn't. I had hoped I would get one, but didn't really expect it. Poor is poor, no matter who it is.

Also, Once when I was five, a classmate brought to school some toy cars which I thought pretty neat. I asked my mother if I could have some and she said, "Aren't you getting a little old for that?" That puzzled me for awhile, but then I thought she was probably right.

One of my very favorite memories of Basic training was that every morning, without fail, while we were dressing, a guy's radio would go off and we would hear Eddie Arnold singing, "Cattle Call, " which has a lot of yodeling in it - in fact, it always started off with yodeling.

The first time it happened, I expected someone to yell, "Turn that damn shit off!" But it never happened. Every morning, Eddie Arnold yodeling. Whites accepted it. Blacks accepted it. Mexicans accepted it. I always thought the guy who had that radio tuned to a Country station had a lot of self-confidence. And you know, I never knew who had the radio, never cared, That seems really odd to me now, but in those days I kinda sleep-walked through life. Missed a lot.

We would get up at daybreak, dress, fall out for roll call, then go back inside to shave and shower, fallback out for a march to the mess hall for breakfast. Every morning, without fail, these threatening dark clouds would gather and it looked for sure like it would rain. But it never did. Hot, hot, hot.

I loved that part of the day.

JUSTA WALKIN' INA RAIN

I was walking over to Safeway's one afternoon and I noticed a hysterical woman with three men around her. She was telling them that she was over at Taco Bell across the street from Safeway's, in her car, when a young man with a gun demanded all her money. She said that for some reason, when he found out she was a nurse, he apologized and left - without the money. She kept saying, with a bit of amazement in her voice, that "he looked so clean. He didn't look like a robber."

I asked her what he was wearing and she described the clothes (I forget the description now - it's been years and I'm an old man. So sue me.) I forgot to ask what kind of shoes he was wearing.

I finished my business at Safeway and was walking home and I saw this young man on a corner by Carrows Restaurant about two blocks kitty-corner from Safeway's, wearing clothes just like she described. What made me hesitate to go into Carrows and call the police was that he looked so clean. He didn't look like a robber. I noticed he had on clean white tennis shoes. I wished I had asked her about the shoes. As it was, I was so affected by his looks that I thought I must have the wrong guy, so instead of calling the police, I decided to follow him and if I saw a policeman, I would point out the guy and let them handle it.

I followed him down"J" street. He would occasionally look into a store window, like he was window shopping. Occasionally, I would look in a store window to watch him through the reflection. And no, it never occurred to me until after it was all over that he was doing the same thing I was doing. He was watching me while I was watching him. I thought I was so clever.

I followed him like this for about ten blocks until he went down an alley and when I got to where I could see him he was gone.

This was when I realized that he must have been watching me all the time. I realized I must have stood out like a sore thumb - barefoot, wearing bib overalls, carrying a bag over my shoulder.

I felt like an idiot. I went back to Safeway and talked to the guard - who was one of the men talking to her when I first saw her. I asked him if she had described the guys's shoes. He said, "Yeah. he was wearing white tennis shoes."

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I used to walk the streets of Sacramento constantly. I would only go home to eat and sleep. One night about two in the morning, I was walking down 16th street, downtown and I notice a "working girl" ahead of me about a half block ahead. I kept walking and then somewhat of a ruckus occurred - talking, movement, to my left, and three men came out from behind a building, all three carrying clubs, sticks, in their hands. I kinda looked at them wondered who they were looking for, continued my walk, the hooker ahead of me. The three men started acting like the Keystone cops - bumping into each other, seemingly confused, whispering amongst themselves.

Eventually I didn't see them any more, nor did I see the hooker. It was only when a police helicopter shone his light on me that I realized the hooker must have been bait for the three "armed" men. The fact that I must have just seemed mildly curious about them and not at all interested in the hooker, nor afraid of them must have thrown them off their plans. Maybe they thought I was bait for the cops?
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Some months later I was walking again late at night, in another part of town, and when I got near a freeway underpass, this small wiry Black man (individuals not named by color or race are Caucasian like me) ran up along side of me and came to a screeching halt. I think he tried to scare me, but I just said, "Hi."

We walked side by side for awhile, some comments I don't remember, and then he asked if I knew him. I was a little suspicious by this time, so I said, "Yeah, I know you." We walked some more and he asked for money. I offered him a quarter, but he said, "No, I want five dollars." I told him I wasn't going to give him five dollars. If he wanted the quarter, it was his, but that's all he was going to get from me.

By that time we were about a half block from a main street where there were people, and a little more light. he seemed to get very nervous and he started looking around - in my mind, for cops. I figured he had a knife and was trying to get up the nerve to actually "arm rob" me. I put on my angry persona and told him that he was beginning to make me angry and I didn't want him walking with me any more. He left.

So again, I figured that here I was, alone on a dark street, nobody around, and I wasn't scared of the situation when I should have been, and the only way they could figure this could be was that I was once again, "bait."