Memories For Sale: $3.99

John Prine sang, “Memories-they can’t be boughten; they can’t be won at carnivals for free,” and to a certain extent he is correct. One can’t purchase a specific memory, but one can get caught off-guard, and get gob-smacked with an image or object, that will allow a memory to materialize for a nominal fee.

I'm reasonably certain that the hat I just purchased
is one that is designed to be worn by women.
Ask me if I care...

In my case the fee was $3.99, a price tag more reflective of 1972 values than those of 2018, and the object was a hat. I was striding toward the back of the thrift shop in the Ray’s shopping center in Willits the other day, heading for the section of used books, when this hat on a rack grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go.

The hat was identical to one I had rocked as a nineteen-year-old, having been the recipient of a handmade model, created by none other than my mother, Pauline. 

I was wearing this black, Russian, fur-lined hat, when I staggered off the six-seater plane onto the tarmac at Ft. Leonard Wood Missouri, in early January, 1972, around four in the morning.

Having arrived at the army entrance station in Los Angeles about twenty-two hours earlier that day, with the expectation that I was going to Ft. Ord [California], my ultimate destination came as a frightful shock. Wearing a light SoCal kind of jacket, the only thing that was appropriate for freezing January weather, was this Russian hat.

Ft. Dix, New Jersey, April, 1972

“I got a s’prize for y’all; y’all’er goin’ to my home state-Missouri,” the rotund, grinning sergeant had informed us, sucker-punching us for the first of an endless supply of rude awakenings, this one the worst one. Instead of riding a bus up the Cali coast about six hours’ distance to Ft. Ord, we were traveling halfway across the country to an outdoor icebox. 

Forty of us lads-er, make that thirty-nine-from the greater Los Angeles area, were sent to what was referred to as “Little Korea,” without any more notice than the announcement by the smirking sergeant. Stunned, we stared at him in mute dismay.

A lone voice in the back spoke up. “What if you have Ft. Ord guaranteed in your enlistment packet?” Thirty-nine sets of eyes swiveled jealously toward the lucky SOB who had had the foresight to get some sort of guarantee.

If anything, the sneer grew wider. “Well, ain’t you the lucky sack of shit? You’re goin’ smack into a meningitis outbreak, which is why the rest of these jaybirds are headed to Ft. Leonard Wood. They just got over one there, but you never know. You might catch another one…” His voice tailed off, and he grinned slyly. 

Thirty-nine sets of eyes followed the sacrificial lamb as he gathered up his stuff and trudged off through a door-gone-but not forgotten. For one nano-second there, we didn’t feel quite as miserable as we had been earlier. Hindsight is 20/20, was all I could think. Fuck Ft. Ord was the next thought that popped into my head.

As abjectly cruel as the world was at boot camp, one thing that became available after a short indoctrination period, was the nightlife just off post. For me nightlife meant the opportunity to quaff beer and shoot pool, and I went off post exactly once the whole ten weeks I was in Missouri. 

To drink beer and shoot pool, one did not have to leave the army base.

In the frenzy of being introduced to Missouri nightlife, a smoky, desultory sojourn in a noisy and crowded bar, I left my Russian hat behind as I stumbled out the side door, trying to keep up with my buddies.  

Dejectedly, I wrote to Mama and informed her of the calamity, suggesting that I felt bad enough already, that she should not be angry at me for being so careless. Or drunk-whatever. Beer will accomplish the task most capably, especially if you hate where you are, hate what you are doing, and miss being a college kind of dude with a girl friend.

Instead of berating me, Mama went into her sewing room, and whipped out another hat, out of the same bolt of fur-lined material, from which she had made the first. She then wrapped it up and took it up to the Sunrize (sic) Market Post Office, and sent it on its way the same day.

In addition to a letter responding to my lamentation of losing the precious hat, Mama sent the replacement. She didn’t even tell me to be careful and not lose this one, because she had a sneaking suspicion that would never happen.

Well, somewhere along the line the tattered remains of that replacement model, must have been sent down the line-gone but not forgotten.

I was after a book the other day, having forgotten mine up on the mountain, and I found one in Ed Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny.” I also found a hat, which I was delighted to pay $3.99 for, thus disproving the saying that you can’t buy memories.

I did, and I’m wearing my memory right now.

On a similar note, I reconnected with this dude, John Scott,
a couple of weeks ago, after not having spoken to him for
46 years.  We have exchanged numerous emails since then.