Born To Drive

July 4th, 2011

Born to Drive

Today being the Fourth of July, I find it natural to reflect on the concept of freedom. Being able to live as you choose, including traveling about in your own vehicle, are key components of this theme. With this in mind I want to tell you about last October, and Mama’s desire to retain freedom.

Which of the following reasons would prevent a person from obtaining a driver’s license?

a)  Being eighty-eight years old

b)  Having cataracts on one’s eyes requiring surgery

c)  Having limited use of one of your hands, because an ailment has developed, making use of that hand impossible without a fair amount of pain.

d) All of the above.

e) None of the Above

If you guessed “e,” then you were right. It’s a long story, but kind of an important one in the big picture, because it tells us a lot about Mama. She is an independent person, and to her, independence means being able to get into her car, and go to the post office. Independence means not having to rely on others for transportation. Independence means renewing her driver’s license every October.

Unfortunately, living up on a ridge-top in northern Mendocino County does not help the situation out. Even to get to the nearest town requires some tricky highway driving, exacerbated by the Type A driving personalities one encounters on the highway these days. Not long ago, Mama returned from a trip to Shingle Town with the side of her little station wagon all scraped up. 

I had stopped by to carry in her groceries for her, and it was pretty hard to ignore.

“Whoa, what happened? Drop your watch?”

“What? Oh, that. I have to make an appointment at that place in Willits.”

“Yes, I can see that. Jim Yokum’s body shop is the one you mean,” I murmured.

“I suppose.” That pained expression.

“And how did it happen again?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Could you try?”

“Well, there was this pickup truck.”

“Pickup truck? What kind of pickup truck?”

 “Big. It was huge and covered with mud, like they were doing a lot of off-road driving.”

“Or a lot of on-road driving, at high speeds. So what about it? You didn’t like the color and decided to sideswipe it?”

“No, he sideswiped me," she exclaimed indignantly.

“What did you do? Did you get his license? Are you all right?” She looked fine, just moving slowly after the long period of sitting.

“I’m fine but I couldn’t get his license; I was trying to keep from ending up in the river.”

“Hold that thought, Mama.  Can you start at the beginning? Take a load off your feet. Here’s the mail; I’ll just put it on the table next to you. Where did this take place?

“Right where you leave Highway 5 to get back here to Mendocino County.”

“And this man tried to force you off the road? Did he even see you?”

“How should I know? He came out of nowhere.”

“I hate when that happens. He didn’t stop? You didn’t call Po-Po?”

“No, he didn’t stop. I don’t think he ever saw me.”

“So you don’t want to pursue it? We should just ignore that someone tried to kill you, whether purposely or not?”

“I don’t think he saw me.” 

“Well, I don’t think so either, otherwise he might have avoided you. So OK. Let’s make an appointment and get rid of the evidence.”

"Can we make this our little secret?" she implored. Uh, oh.

When I relayed this to her, Annie couldn’t help thinking of Dean, the ninety-one year old beau of a friend’s mom. Dean was personable, even charming, and he was also desperate to retain his driving rights. Unfortunately, he kept running into other people’s cars.  

To avoid complications, he had taken to carrying around large amounts of cash, so as to better extricate himself from any legal entanglements before they began. He simply paid off his victims so handsomely, that all discussion of constabulary procedures evaporated.  

It’s not that Mama went around running into cars, or paying off people with cash, but there was that desperate need to retain her driving rights. It goes back to being independent. She will be the first to say, “I have been driving for more than seventy years.” You can look it up.

When it came to renewing her license last time, Mama had problems with the vision portion of the DMV test.  It seems those pesky cataracts were being problematic, and she had had to go to her eye doctor for a statement that her vision issues were not severe enough to prevent her from operating a motor vehicle. She emerged triumphantly from the Ukiah DMV, license in hand, ready for action for another year.

This year, in addition to vision challenges, Mama had developed some technical difficulties with her left hand. I came in one morning in early October, to fill the woodbox and empty the compost. Mama was quiet, reserved, her face pinched in pain.

“Morning, Mama. What’s up? Are you in good shape for the shape you’re in?”

“Good morning. Not so’s you’d notice it. I’ve been better.”

I looked closer. It was chilly outside, the October air tinged with the coming winter.  The breeze carried with it the threat of things to come, as we readied ourselves for winter. Mama was hovering over one of the candles on the counter, fumbling with a wooden match, striking it against the box fruitlessly. She had the match in her right hand and was attempting to keep the box in place with her left hand. Something was not right.

I have found that when something is not right, it is generally wrong.

“Is everything OK? What’s with your hand?”

“I’m not sure.”

Whatever answer I was expecting, it wasn’t that one. “You’re not sure? It hurts though?”

She was still trying to light that candle.

  

“Here, let me do that for you.”  Mama had her hand in front of her at stomach level, looking somewhat claw-like, with her fingers closed in a weak fist. “I can’t seem to open my hand.”

“Yes, I noticed that. Does it hurt?” Jeff Foxworthy would have been proud. 'Here's your sign.' I could tell that it hurt; I just wasn’t sure how severe the pain was. 

“Yes, it hurts when I try to open my fist, or pick something up.”

“Have you ever had this problem before?”

“No, but Robert did. He dealt with something just like this and eventually, it went away.”

“OK, then. Why don’t you schedule an appointment, and we’ll get it checked out?”

“Well, I will, but that won’t be able to happen until after my driver’s license test; I can’t delay that.”

“Mama, don’t be ridiculous. We will have to postpone the driving test

if you can’t use one of your hands."

“Postpone? My driving test? Why? We can’t do that!”

“But Mama, how are you going to take the test if you only have one useable hand?”

“Never you mind [Mister]. I am perfectly capable of driving. I will come out of the DMV with a driver’s license.”

“Well. excuse me for asking, but are you going to drive one-handed or develop a third arm to help out?  Otherwise, I’m sorry Mama, but this just doesn’t make any sense. How can you drive a car if you can’t grip the steering wheel?”

“I can drive just fine, thank you very much. I only have to drive around Ukiah.”

“Ukiah has deer, rabbits and other things that get in the way of cars, like big rig trucks and lots of traffic. I still don’t know how you can drive a car, when you can’t light a match.”

“I can drive just fine [Mister],” she repeated.

Deciding that the best thing to do was to call on older brothers for assistance, I responded, “OK, Mama, how’s about I call Bro Brian and ask him what he thinks?”

Brian was the chief-of-staff of the Veterans' Hospital in Martinez.

She nodded enthusiastically. “That’s fine.”

I was a little surprised that she acquiesced so easily, but I suspected that it was because she already knew what his response would be, unlike me. I was taken aback when Brian responded to my concern by being sympathetic to her cause.

“I don’t think there is a problem,” he announced, after I had presented the situation to him.

“Not a problem? She can’t even close it, let alone clench or unclench her left hand. How is that not a problem?” On the one hand, I was happy to have Brian make the decision; on the other hand, I had been certain that he would side with me.

  

“Mark, listen. She can take this test, It’s not going to affect her to the point that she can’t handle the car.  She is as sharp as a tack.”

“Dude, you didn’t see her. She’s in a lot of pain. How is she supposed to drive a car? And what does being sharp have to do with being in pain?”  

I always hit the “Dude” button when I get worked up, though Brian stopped being a dude when he became chief of staff of the Veterans’ Hospital in Martinez, a hundred years ago.

He responded in a matter-of-fact voice. “The pain is not so debilitating that she can’t handle it for fifteen minutes during a driver’s test.”

That was that. I was relieved on several levels, especially after I spoke with Eric and got the same feedback.  All I was trying to establish was that someone who knew more about the nature of the ailment, was able to override my opinion so that fingers would not point to me later, as someone who should have stepped in.

The grand day arrived all too soon, and Annie elected to drive Mama down to Ukiah. Mama was so matter-of-fact about the whole thing, it was somewhat disconcerting. Here I was, apparently ready to shuffle her off to pedestrian land, when she still had “wheels” on her mind.

Later, Annie was to tell me in great detail about the day, it being one that mixed routine with adventure.  Because they had to travel all the way down to Ukiah, there were ample stops along the way. In Laytonville there was the first of two stops at the post office, on the way down to Ukiah and on the way back through.  Now, as she resumed her seat in the car, Annie asked what was next and was told that the gas company was.  They stopped long enough for Mama to run in and pay a bill before they went on to the pharmacy, where she picked up a prescription.

Without going into detail on every pause, let me just say that there were fifteen stops all together, the most noteworthy being the Willits Senior Center, where Mama stumbled. She tripped over the cement stop that jutted out on either side of the front of the car. She recovered sufficiently enough to shuffle along to the bank, Coast-to-Coast, Safeway, the Triple A outlet (to pay another bill), and then on to Ukiah, where the first stop was Food-for-Less.

“Maybe we should go have a cup of coffee and take a little break,” suggested Annie. “You need to conserve your strength for the driving test.”

“Oh, I’m not too worried about that,” said Mama, and Annie believed her.

Eventually, they made their way to the DMV for the eleven o’clock appointment. They parked out front, entered the glass door and stopped in front of the window. Mama presented her appointment slip and the woman motioned her to be seated, while they processed the paperwork.

Five minutes later Mama and Annie were directed off to the right, where the driving appointments were handled, to a desk where they found the driving examiner herself, seated. She was formidable indeed, with a desk that contained all of the embellishments one would have expected to find: computer, printer, in/out box, and a jumble of papers. 

Standing there in the in front of the desk, Annie and Mama presented an interesting spectacle. Mountain people was the term most frequently used. Annie was dressed in Levis, hiking boots and a heavy blue sweater, her long, perfectly straight dark hair hanging almost to her waist.  

Mama had on green polyester slacks and a flowery blouse, cleverly concealed by her voluminous tweed coat, heavy and blue, that reached down to her knees. She was dwarfed by the coat, her head sticking out, as though from a blue turtle shell, clinging to her back.  

She had donned her trademark black dress shoes, with the inch-high heels. Annie was terrified to see her in them, for the exact reason that the fall at the senior center suggested. Flat heels would have worked better, but flat was not her style.  

“Please take a seat right over there,” the woman behind the desk said, indicating a row of chairs to one side.  Already perched on one of the hard, plastic, bright orange chairs was a dapper gentleman, older in appearance, dressed nicely in cream-colored golf shirt with tailored, chocolate-colored trousers. His neatly trimmed mustache was salt and pepper-colored, and his rimless glasses made him appear more dignified than the jaunty yellow cap might have indicated.

The woman behind the desk, indeed, the driving examiner herself, was a study in contrast to Annie.  Whereas, Annie was a mountain gal, this woman was a city girl.  I could describe her as business-like, but only in a San Francisco setting.  Here in Ukiah, swank was more like it.  

Her perfectly coifed blonde hair was elegantly styled, without a strand misplaced. Her black wool skirt was impeccable, and the turquoise silk blouse, decorated with a brooch in the shape of a butterfly, was stunning.  She was slim and trim, and looked as though she belonged in a law firm, with a bevy of secretaries to serve her.

Alternately studying the paperwork in front of her, while glancing surreptitiously at Mama and Annie, waiting expectantly, she seemed to be searching about for a lifeline. She shifted in her gleaming swivel chair, rustled that paperwork around once again, before seeming to reach a decision.  

A few minutes later, Mama’s name was called out and she and Annie stood up and approached the desk.  Ignoring Mama, the woman gestured to Annie, saying, “Why don’t you bring the car around to the front here, so we can get started?”

“You want me to get the car?” asked Annie, momentarily surprised that it wasn’t Mama being asked.

“Yes, if you will.  I would like to take one more look at this paperwork.”

Annie snagged the keys from Mama and brought the car around front. The woman had busied herself in the few minutes it took to accomplish this, and now she gathered herself up to take the plunge. Standing up, she glanced to her left as Mama’s car came into view, and then abruptly sat back down.

   

What she saw was a product of the hill. It being fall and the rains still being held in abeyance, the little station wagon was an interesting sight. We are talking about a 1994 electric blue, Ford Escort Station Wagon, in need of washing. The little car was covered in a filmy cloud of dust.  

The side visible to us was the side that still showed the ravages of that incident with the errant pickup truck, and the oak branch jutting out of the windshield reservoir, presented the crowning touch. Not just the branch but the leaves and acorns too, were clearly visible from her vantage point. This desultory symbol, so innocent, in and of itself, was the final straw. 

The driving examiner sat back down with a whoosh, surprising for a woman so slight. Reaching for her phone, she hit one of the buttons, and spoke earnestly into the mouthpiece for several minutes. Replacing the phone, she looked up at Mama with a dazzling smile.

 

“Good news! I have determined that your driving test is unnecessary.”

For emphasis she shuffled through the paperwork one last time. Annie wondered what she had found there, that had not been present the first seventeen times, and the only conclusion she could reach was that it involved Mama’s car.  

“You simply need to have your picture taken, pay the fee and then you are set.” Meanwhile, she glanced past Mama, and smiled becomingly at the gentleman with the yellow cap. “Are you ready, Pierre?”

“Oui, Mademoiselle,” he said, doffing his cap and bowing ever so slightly, as he smiled broadly, revealing the best set of dentures that money could buy. “I’ll vill bring zee Bee-mare around zee frahnt.”

And as that little BMW convertible glided to a stop out front, the driving examiner allowed herself to be escorted around the tiny car, while Pierre opened the passenger door. The little smooch he bestowed upon her outstretched hand spoke volumes, and the last Annie saw, the car was shooting away without a speck of dust to be seen.

After only five minutes, Mama emerged once again, clutching both purse and newly acquired driver’s license, ready to prowl Mendocino highways for another year. 

Annie asked brightly, “Shall we see about a little lunch? How about if I drive?”  

Mama agreed, settling back into the passenger seat, after carefully removing and discarding the little oak branch, and the gesture, so casual in nature, made Annie think again.  

Was it possible that Mama had known more than she let on? Was there a plan all along? I’d hazard a guess but that would be all it was, a guess. From what I have seen and heard, I think Mama was following a road map all along, one that she drew up as the situation warranted.  

After all, if she wants to drive, she needs to be able to follow a map, and it’s always nice if you are the one who made the map because then you know where you are going.

Born to drive.

San Francisco Giants Baseball-#3: A Tale of Three Shortstops

A Tale of Three Shortstops

Orlando Cabrera is the newest San Francisco Giant trying to establish himself as a force in the drive for a second consecutive World Series title.  His post-season track record is eye-opening.  He has played on teams entering the playoffs for six of the last seven seasons, the past four in succession.

This strongly implies that Cabrera has some of the intangibles that managers look for when trying to bolster up a team for the stretch drive.  What it does not address is that the Giants must now decide how to rearrange our three shortstops.

Brandon Crawford has done everything on the field defensively that could be asked of him.  Where he has struggled is at the plate.  His .190 batting average would probably be acceptable, if we were playing out the string, as are so many other teams.  But we need more productivity at shortstop than Crawford can supply.  His range is as good as any recent applicant for the position has been able to provide, so that is a very bright spot, but he has never played at the Triple A  level, so he needs to go down and play every day, and take in some better pitching until he gets to a higher level.

What about Miggy?  Miguel Tejada has been a trooper.  When responding to negative media criticism, recently, Tejada pointed out that he has played second base this season for the first time in his career; he has also played thirty-eight games at third base, filling in for the Panda.

In all fairness to Tejada, I must point out that being willing to help the team, by being available to play various positions, is not conducive to furnishing stats that appear flashy.  I have said that Tejada brings intangibles to the game that cannot be measured quantitatively.  However, he has not had consistent enough playing time at shortstop to make a legitimate claim on the spot.

Sabean has brought Cabrera on board; this indicates that Orlando will be our starting shortstop.  The best thing that Tejada can do, is continue to make himself available to play where Bochy needs him most.  With Crawford and Emanuel Burris back down in Fresno, and Freddy still  not back, I think Miggy will see plenty of action.  If it is true, as Miggy says, that he only wants to help the team, then I think Miguel Tejada will do exactly that, utilizing those intangibles to help the Giants get back to the Show.

Military Madness (11)-The Barn-Black Friday

Military Madness:
The Barn-Black Friday

The Barn was the name we gave to the massive structure which housed the 199^th Personnel Service Company in Ascom, Korea.  Not all of the 250 members of the 199^th worked there, because the motor pool and the quartermaster's supply room were both separately located.  However, what remained of the 199th had to fit inside the Barn.  It was an L-shaped edifice, with the two parts resembling a pair of former gymnasiums, except for the low ceilings.  

The result was a sprawling complex, with personnel lined and stacked everywhere.  Semi-permanent room dividers were strategically placed to block vision, but not sound.  Upon entering the Barn, what you heard resembled more a filled  baseball stadium, while nothing is happening, a dull hum, with the occasional hoot or whistle audible.

The sounds of clackety-clicking type writers, antique xerox machines,  and coffee mugs being simultaneously set back down on desks by more than 200 personnel, was sort of soothing.  The noise volume ebbed and flowed around the barn at different times, not terribly unlike a lackluster attempt to get The Wave going at the ball yard.

Personnel Management Division orchestrated troop movement from Korea, to any base in the world.  If a guy were going to Fort Lewis, Washington, but was taking leave in Miami, Florida, then he had to have orders saying that, and we were the ones who cut those orders.  If you had an emergency leave, but were coming back, we cut the orders.  Aside from Finance, there was no more valued job to be had in Korea.  There were easier jobs to be sure, but not jobs that commanded such respect everywhere, not when you wore the 199^th company patch on your shoulder.

There were about twenty desks in our division, fifteen of them for clerks who each handled about twenty-five hundred personnel, loosely bound together through company objectives.  All medical personnel’s files were gathered under the same clerk's watchful eye.  STRATCOM and other communications units, belonged, when possible, to the same clerk.  There was another smaller personnel company down south, but we handled the bulk of non-commissioned men; luckily, some other company did the officers, because we sure didn't want to.

For example, as our company received rosters of troops all going to Fort Lewis, from many different sources in Korea, different clerks read the lists of names, and culled out the ones for whom they were responsible.  All associated paperwork requesting leave, or additional weight allowance to bring home household items, had to be available to the clerk handling the file of that individual.  Once an individual was within forty-five days of departure, his records were pulled, all associated paperwork was compiled, and orders were cut.  Everything, for the most part proceeded smoothly, in our paddock of the barn.

Things got tense whenever an emergency arose while a soldier was within the last forty-five days in-country.  Our division faltered seriously, at this absolute worst of times, and it made us look bad.  Everything was still fine during the normal forty hour work week.  It was the remaining 128 hours during the week, in which we were not at the Barn, that was magnified.

Emergencies came at any time, and the thirty-five thousand plus troops we handled, experienced their share.  So any time a family crisis arose after the time that this paperwork process had begun, the duty officer had to scramble about the Barn madly, and too frequently, blindly, searching for all related material.  

Precluded was any possibility of finding all paperwork in the same place.  This would lead to frantic attempts to contact the clerk responsible for that serviceman's deployment, at any given hour of the day or night,  while at the same time ransacking every desk and file cabinet that might contain what was needed.  Nothing like having our own meltdown, in the middle of our serviceman's crisis.  It might have combined to furnish lively drama, but it served to place PMD under an unwanted microscope.

I was one of those fifteen clerks with my own set of responsibilities.  No matter how efficient I was, I still looked bad, if one of my guys encountered home problems.  I had no control over a process that involved components beyond my desk.  So Sergeant First Class Thomas Kuhn, as PMD duty officer, bore the brunt of this pressure.  

Kuhn was a rare commodity in the Green Machine, an intelligent, compassionate man.  He motivated us, simply by working as hard as any of us, and devoting his professional life to facilitating the single most anticipated event, in any serviceman's thirteen month stay in the R.O.K, his departure.  Kuhn always seemed to take things personally.

After one of these particularly volatile events, compounded by missing paperwork associated with moving the serviceman's household goods back to the World, Kuhn was ordered into the CO's office.  There he was ground into garlic powder, by an unreasonable company commander, who didn't have a clue as to what the problem was. It left us feeling lousy to see a good guy stomped on.  We talked it over in the hooch one night, when the focus was not on music, so much as it was on the Barn, a strict violation of hooch protocol.

Carroll brought it up, I think because he still appreciated Kuhn's listening to us and requesting Carroll in the Barn.  Guys don't forget a good turn, especially in something as big as internal placement.  Thirteen months is a long time to spend in the motor pool, because no had your back.  He said, "MacGuire really reamed Kuhn a new one today.  What a chargee."

  

Addis put down the roach he had been trying to nurse back to life and said, "Nice talk, GI.  Yeah, the good sarge fights the war, but loses every battle with that pogee."

"Was that you, just now, with the potty mouth?"  I couldn't help asking that, though using Korean expletives was not the same as cussing in English.  The words sounded too cute to be offensive.

"No sweat-tee-dah," replied Carroll, "but what about Kuhn?  What's wrong that we have all of these disasters?"  Tim was quick at picking up the process, but big picture stuff was still hazy.  He was to find out that haze was as good as it got, unless things changed.

I said, "Blue can tell you that it's not PMD's fault.  All we can do is put everything together as it comes in, and work through the process.  It's just that the different steps take place around the office at different desks, so the paperwork gets spread out.  What we need is a central filing system."

Miller had been working over the chords for “Sam Stone,” and he interrupted to ask, "Who wants to tackle that?  It sounds like boucoup work for someone."

Orr jumped in, "What would you know about a lot of work, Miller?  All you know a lot about is nothing."

"Go dok-barro to hell, and don't pass go, my friend."  Jimmy was not pleased. The two initial letters of "my friend" actually stood for an overused Americanism, but not one essential for this narrative.

"Number ten!  I'm trying to think here, and you're making static.  Do you like to see Kuhn dangling? I'm sick of it."  I reached over to grab another Hamms.  "I think we need to consolidate the process in PMD, so that paperwork doesn't end up in several places.  That's where Kuhn gets bogged down."

Addis spoke up.  "Now your head's on straight.  That's exactly why it will never happen.  You're thinking good, Markus.  And that always makes 'em nervous."

"Yeah, but what I'm suggesting isn't going to create less work; if anything, it's going to create an additional slot, and more work.  But more is less, in this case.  If we do the extra work, anyone-and I do mean anyone-would be able to come in to PMD, go to one file cabinet, and access all paperwork dealing with servicemen under the forty-five day mark.  Even a colonel could do it.  Too beautiful for words."

Carroll spoke up.  "So Kuhn isn't going to have a problem with this?  And what about Eighth Army?  What are the Brass going to say?"

I spoke quickly, "Listen.  Last month, some bird colonel flipped his wig because one of his troops had an emergency leave, and it took three hours to get the paperwork together.  It turned out that the guy who needed to get back to the World, was a special assistant to this colonel, and so now I think we may have an ally. By the time the dust had settled, he could see that we weren't bozos, but that there was a flaw in the system.  He's just the guy we need to push this through."

The colonel's name was Kelley, and he was actually a personable guy.  We had obviously ignited a short fuse that was attached, like dynamite, to the welfare of his troops.  When something was wrong with one of the cogs in his well-lubricated machine, he blew a head gasket.  Criticizing Colonel Kelley would be the same thing as criticizing a ball player for expressing his frustration at striking out.  What would you have him do?  Doff his cap and smile?  No, you expect him to be mad.

The thing to do was go to this powerful figure, and present a logical solution to any future possible problems.  Because he worked at Eighth Army Headquarters, when I went to see him, I would have to wear shades to diffuse the light from all the Brass.  However, Brass had never intimidated me.  I had no fear of blowhards in army apparel, and that may have been stupid of me, but there was nothing about me that would draw one second glance from anyone, at this juncture of my military career.  

There had been times in the recent past, when I tended to delay haircuts, or maybe I chose to wear five days' growth of whiskers, but now I kept myself well within the traces of my redeployment sled, so as not to upset the balance. 

It was Addis who asked, "Are you OK with going up to Eighth Army and traipsing through all of that power to get to the Man?"

"Hell, yes.  I'll strut right into Eighth Army Headquarters, with my spit-buffed boots, and my starched fatigues, as well as anybody, and if I talk to Smitty at the admin desk, I can get into Kelley's office like that..." snapping my fingers, with one hand, and producing a joint with the other.  

That created the desired effect, and everyone broke into laughter, though the general consensus was that maybe I should keep the joint in my pocket.  "No biggee-dah.  I can restrain myself myself with the best of them.  Just so long as we can get this thing pushed through.  Then I'll have job security for the foreseeable future, and won't that be nice?"

Miller spoke up again, "You are one sick puppy, Dude, but whatever blows air up your skirt."  

Miller's comment washed over me like salve on sunburn.  I felt good about what was stewing in our PMD pot.  Already, I was on the proverbial treadmill, with demands that kept me at the grindstone for more than my weekly forty hours.  I was able to routinely supplement my desk time, with many hours of extra effort, while performing guard duty in the Barn.  

Though normally associated with Eleven Bravos on the DMZ, standing guard in the Barn had become standard operating procedure, ever since the local slicky boys had made the connection that a typewriter would fetch a surprising amount of wan, out in the ville.  The preferred style was simply a smash, grab and dash, as the slicky boys would break a window, grab one or more typewriters, and run.  If the guy on guard duty was even awake, it was still a toss-up as to whether or not he would hear the sound of breaking glass.

I remember receiving a cassette tape in the summer of 1972, that first summer away from home, that contained music from an album just released by the group, America, called “Horse with No Name.”  

"You know, I been through the desert on a horse with no name, and there ain't no way to deal with the pain; yeah I been through the desert on a horse with no name 'cause there ain't way for to feel no pain..."  Everyone felt the pain, they were right about that, and the music was fresh; even the name of the group predisposed me to want to like the music.  Was this a sliver of patriotism trying to pierce the armor of my nationalistic stoicism?  Not in this life or any yet to come.

Home was home; America was not so much the "Land of the Free," as it was the land of Bob's Big Boy, and Shakey's Pizza Parlor, and In-N-Out Burgers.  Unfortunately, as I listened to my new music, with an ear towards anything that I could introduce to the hooch as potential fodder for our singing/recording efforts, I was also listening for the tinkle of broken glass.  

The modus operandi for slicky boys, was that they worked in threesomes, with only one actually committing the break-in.  The concept was diabolically simple.  One peered though the grimy windows to determine the location of the duty clerk, signaled the second one, who then relayed the information on to the third.  He was primed to run, and there was very little to be done.

Emotions ran high at one juncture, when a clerk received an Article Fifteen, for having had the bad luck to have  been on duty when such an incident had occurred.    By the time he responded to the noise of the break-in, having had to scurry from one end of the "L" to the other,  all that had been left to do was call the MP's and sweep up the glass.  Whereas an Article Fifteen was nowhere near as severe as a court martial, it still produced a letter of reprimand in your personnel file, and it followed you wherever you went.

The highly incendiary action of trying to prosecute this clerk, brought the full force of the 199th's anger down on Eighth Army Headquarters.  It was like trying to prosecute the keeper of the gate, because an airplane dropped a bomb on the inside of the walls.  How do you protest injustice in the army?  The manual tells you to "follow the chain of command."

Anyone could lodge formal complaint, if he chose to proceed up the ladder in the established order.  We went to Kuhn, our immediate superior, and he took it to the Captain.  This was not a few members of the prosecuted clerk's hooch; this was 250 strong, and we threatened point blank to refuse to step foot in the Barn. 

Think of it as a power failure, and then think of Red Tailed planes heading back to the world, half filled.  Think of GI's waiting for orders back to Kansas, wherever that happened to be for them, and then imagine the resulting chaos.  It brought a smile to my face just picturing it.

  

Generally speaking, it is not wise to threaten mutiny in a military setting, unless the reason is so egregious as to merit a closer look.  Then, cooler heads prevail, because one outlet troops always had, and still do, is their congressional representative.  These icons of our political process, champion this sort of controversy, because they love the attention.  

How better to garner the spotlight, than to ride to the defense of some poor puppet, dancing to the beat of injustice?  Maintaining good public relations was paramount to the army, even though there was still a draft at the time, because so many Americans had family and friends in the service, and they followed all matters military in the media.

This particular situation, of the clerk in the Barn, was a no-brainer.  It was over before morning coffee break, when it crossed the desk of the Battalion Chief.  The way things worked in the army is that either everyone got the shaft, or no one did.  We performed the most outrageous of work details, without hope of any intervention, because everyone had to perform the same atrocious jobs.  Single out one guy though, as a scapegoat, and you had better prepare for a volatile response.

So, as I sat and listened to “Horse with No Name,” I also listened for anything out of the ordinary.  I didn't even put the cassette player on my desk, preferring to place it a couple of desks over, so as not to have the music interfere with my ability to hear well.  I went back over the idea of a central filing system.  

The amount of initial work was staggering, because I would have to take all of the existing files from the fifteen clerks, including my own, and combine them into a central system.  The bright spot was that once all of the consolidating was done, then I would only have to file paperwork for those orders cut on any given day, within the office.  They would also come to me in a steady flow, from first thing in the morning, through the end of the day.  I had high hopes, that this system would eliminate those rare blemishes on our record.

We followed through on the plan, and things fell into place, seemingly as a consequence of Colonel Kelley, a man who was not afraid to listen to an idea which would help facilitate future redeployment.  We set up a process where I, as the coordinator of our central file system, made two runs past Eighth Army Headquarters, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon, instead of the one pickup, which had brought everything available, but then ignored everything that came in during the next twenty-four hours.  

I brought all rosters, assignments and individual requests for adjusted circumstances in redeployment together, collated them and distributed them to individual clerks involved.  The difference is that now, everything came back to me so that I could file everything in a centralized bank of cabinets.  The next time that Colonel Kelley had to deal with an emergency departure from Korea, he could come to the Barn, and go straight to my station.  There, he could open a file cabinet which was organized alphabetically and grab the paperwork that he needed.

I got an ArCom for that little idea.  That was an Army Commendation Medal, and I knew only one other guy who got one.  This wasn't the same as a Good Conduct Medal, which was awarded to most guys, if you never got any citations, such as the one I would have been issued the time I had let my beard grow beyond appropriate standards.  

The ArCom was accompanied by a statement that read in part, "Specialist O'Neill's outstanding professional competence, mature judgement, devotion to duty, and exemplary military bearing earned him the respect of his contemporaries and superiors alike.  Specialist O'Neill's keen observation of the mission requirements led him to develop and effectively utilize new procedures within the Redeployment Section.  His section, as a result, has become one of the most efficient within the Personnel Management Division."  

I  was pretty proud of that award, because it was the result of a refusal to give in to the most unreasonable of conditions, that is, our presence in Korea.  As a team, those of us who had to work within the system, were still able to rise above the surface of the haze, and clarify an important part of the redeployment process.

Knowing what we did, and having our collective finger on the pulse of all that was important within the army mosaic, it is astonishing that we did not see BLACK FRIDAY coming.  No one did.  I have experienced some tough times, but only one BLACK FRIDAY.  Even blowing out my anterior cruciate ligament twenty years later on a Friday afternoon, ten minutes before the end of the day, could not compare with the immediate magnitude of this day.  

Finding out that the army had adjusted the length of time that a GI could get out of the Machine early, from one hundred fifty days to ninety was the content of the memorandum, which crossed SFC Thomas Kuhn's desk, late one Friday afternoon, with only twenty minutes left in the day.  He went to each of our desks, as he moved around the office, quietly asking us to gather round up front, so he could talk to us.  We did this so routinely, that even at that moment, we still did not read anything more into his request.

  

We started to notice, big time, when instead of standing in front of us and proceeding to outline whatever was coming at us, he leaned back against his desk, and slowly eased back until he was seated in the center, whereupon, he paused, while we finished prattling, and seemed to gather up his thoughts.

"Well, Men," (He addressed us in many different ways, from amigos to dickheads, depending on his mood, but he never addressed us as "Men.") and then he stopped, seemingly at a loss for words.  Kuhn?  Loss of words?  He was a speech major at the University of New Mexico, and he simply did not have to search for words.  He was only in the military, like everyone else, because he was drafted.  However, he had embraced the challenge, in those pre-computer days, and had proven that he could handle an important role in PMD, and had rapidly scaled the promotion ladder to E-7. 

"OK.  This ain't easy."  (Again.  "Ain't?")  "You all know how Uncle Sugar likes to make us all bend over; well, some are you are going to have a hard time sitting tonight.  If you haven't already got your extension paperwork, signed and delivered, to Eighth Army by close of business today," glancing meaningfully at the big OD green clock, "you are SOL.  O'Neill. Stop right there."  He'd dragged out the O, so it came out, "Ohhhhhhh'Neill."

I'd already been on my way to my desk for a last minute effort.  Then I too glanced at the clock, which I hadn't done in at least five minutes, which wasn't bad for Friday afternoon.  If I was already standing in the foyer of the Captain's office, paperwork in hand, I could still never have gotten to his desk and then made it to Eighth Army HQ in time.  I walked back over to my brothers.

"Sorry, O'.  I know you could have tried, but no.  OhhhKayyy.  At ease."  The rest were stunned and deathly quiet.  

"I didn't know shit about what was coming down, so you know that they kept a lid on it."  We knew, because Kuhn usually knew the latest scuttlebutt, before the rest of us, having his own chain of command, with the non-com staff at HQ.

"You've all been asked to do, and you've all done, more than you're fair share of work.  No one denies that.  Hell, it's the opposite.  You guys make the rest of these crackerjacks look like what they are."  He paused, to let the praise hang in the air, like a puff of smoke from a just-fired rifle. 

"Those of you not impacted, tread carefully."  He was addressing both three-year guys, and lifers, which comprised over half of the assemblage.  There was an ongoing, one-sided debate between the two factions, as to the worthiness of the army as a valid career choice.  We didn't bother to dignify the concept with a response.  

Kuhn was just informing them, bluntly, not to choose this time to spout off about their vocations.  Implied was the threat that any confrontation, initiated by someone to antagonize one of the impacted men, was going to result in Kuhn's personal interest.

What Kuhn was saying was that every one of us who was planning on leaving the military at the end of our stay in Korea, just got sixty extra days tagged onto our tours.  Here's the way my situation worked.  I came in-country June 11, 1972, so I was due to leave on July 10, 1973, to go back to the World for reassignment.  However, because my date of completion of service, was January 9th, 1974, that would have given me only six months left in the service when I arrived back in the World.  That's a pretty short time to make it worth while relocating a solder, training him in his new job, for all of maybe twenty or so weeks.  And any guy who is winding down his tour to within thirty or so days, is pretty worthless anyway.  

So initially, if I had filed the paperwork to extend my tour from July to August, I could have exited the army, one hundred and fifty glorious days early.  If I had filled out the paperwork.  I just didn't figure I had to worry about it, working where I did.  Who would ever have thought that the army would actually do something that made sense?  

Now I had to stay until October, so that I was within ninety days to exit.  Sixty additional days tacked onto my sentence for the crime of taking my position in the 199th for granted.  Even the 199^th could not overcome the power of the Army.  It wasn't the extra sixty days that hurt; it was the fact that had I filled out the paperwork in a timely manner, I could still have gone home on the original plan.  It was such a steep price to  pay for such a small lapse.

He went on.  "We've gotten through some rough times, and we'll make it through this."  He was right on both counts, but being right did not take the wrong out of it.  Everyone thought about the individual reverberations.  There was the pending graduation, already planned for, that now would be viewed through photographs.  There was the already accepted position back at the firm where one guy had done his internship, prior to being caught up in the draft. There was the due date of the birth of a child.

Someone simply said, "Why?  I mean, why now?"

Kuhn snapped back, probably snippier-sounding than intended, "'Why’ doesn't mean squat to the army.  Why now?  Because someone got a burr up his backside, and actually made a decision.  Again, I'm sorry. This is a tough one."  Coming from any other lifer, the words would have sounded hollow, indeed.  Coming from Kuhn, presuming as he did, that we would recognize the futility of raging, the words sounded sincere and heartfelt.

I had good company that night, as I stumbled back into the hooch; they staggered in from every direction.  There was no ville-hopping, because that would have implied, and possibly created, festivity, and there was none to be had.  There was no locker lift-off, because that always made us laugh, and there'd be no laughter tonight.  

United as we were in the struggle against the daily grind, none of us was prepared to absorb this additional hit of emotional battery.  The multiple levels of pain, heaped on top of fresh scar tissue, combined to plunge us into the depths of depression.  

Reefer helped, as it helped everything, but as always, for the ultimate comfort drug, we sought out music.  For once, our guitars took a back seat to the masters.  We had an unlimited amount of music, and we played it on stereo  equipment that was not only the highest quality available, with the close proximity to Japan, but very inexpensive, with no sales tax.

Quality of sound was not on our mind, however, as we chose carefully, the music that would console us.  We went around the circle.  Not all of us were uniformly impacted, because some were three-year guys, slated to return for reassignment stateside, but everyone grieved.  We started with George Harrison.  As much as most everyone appreciated the music of the original Beatles, we turned to the work of the individual artists for consolation.  

“All Things Must Pass” stood out for its universal theme loving life, and living for love.  Just now, it presented us with a gangplank to crawl out of the sea of momentary despair, and begin our slow ascent, back to at least the point of equilibrium we had earlier established, before this most recent blow.  

“Beware of Darkness”  warned us to "Watch out now, take care; beware the thoughts that linger, winding up inside your head—the hopelessness around you in the dead of night.  Beware of sadness.  It can hit you; it can hurt you."  I wondered if George Harrison experienced waking up at night and crying, because it sounded as though he sang from experience. 

Trying to minimize the hurt, led me to the song "All Things Must Pass,” so that when I pondered shedding my own tears in the darkness, I heard "...a cloudburst doesn't last all day...it's not always going to be this grey.  All things must pass, all things must pass away...None of life's strings can last, so I must be on my way...and face another day."

Those words were supplemented by many more.  In “Carry Me,” David Crosby and Graham Nash sang, "When I was a young man I found an old dream was as battered and worn a one as you have ever seen.  But I made it some new wings and I painted the nose, and I wished so hard up in the air I rose, singing, 'Carry me, carry me, carry me above the world...'"  The words tried to do what the reefer could only partly do tonight, carry us.  We were starting to defrost.

Then we put on “Daniel”, ever the mood brightener, despite the sad parting being presented.  To gain meant pain.  We all knew that, when it came to forming friendships in the Machine.  The time eventually arrived when all of the accumulated wealth of camaraderie and support, collided with the reality of separation.  

I remember hearing Elton John's music, and thinking how different, and how frequently poignant it was.  Not our usual fare, it became so, through Daniel, who was "traveling tonight on a plane, I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain..."  That image of traveling via the red tail, always hung on a wall in a side gallery of our minds, and we incorporated it as part of our musical regimen.

Where did we want to go, besides home?  I wanted to return to Big Sur.  Like everything else, I had taken it for granted, until I could no longer partake at all.  Then I turned to a most unlikely source.  Not that the Beachboys, of all artists,  didn't provide a nostalgic sound from California, but their new generation of music incorporated some of my most cherished dreams, those involving migration to Northern California.  

They devoted almost an entire side of “Holland” to Big Sur, in a stirring tribute to a place so beautiful, it roused my spirits just contemplating being there.   As I listen to the words again, it's hard to cull out those lines which most perfectly impart the emotion I would feel upon hearing the trilogy of the “California Saga.”

Beginning with “Big Sur,” we heard "Cashmere hills filled with evergreens,  flowin' from clouds down to meet the sea, with a granite cliff as a referee...Under Big Sur skies and that's where I belong...Big Sur I've got plans for you.  Me and mine are going to Add ourselves to your lengthy list of lovers, and live in canyons covered with a springtime of green..."  

From “The Beaks of Eagles,” they sang, "From the eagle's beak, we know that nature's balance is undone.  And it is the birthright of man, to unify and live his life as one.  A whisper of the word will let you soar with your soul."

Finally, from “California,” "On my way to sunny California, On my way to spend another sunny day...Water, water, get yourself in the cool, clear water, The sun shines brightly down on Penny's place...Have you ever been south of Monterey?  Barrancas carve the coast line and the chaparral flows to the sea...And have you ever been north of Morro Bay, the south coast plows the sea, and the people there are of the breed, they don't need electricity...in the open air, one big family, the people there love to sing and share their new found liberty."  

These songs filled me with a sense of belonging to a part of the world, where conventional norms ceased to apply, and we developed a new set as we went along.  How accurate this was going to be, I could not foresee, except to say, that our success encompasses three generations, spanning four decades.

As we started to emerge from the blackness late that night, we turned to Cat Stevens and jumped on board his “Peace Train.”  "Now I've been crying lately, thinking about my world as it is.  Why must we go on hating?  Why can't we live in bliss? Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train...Oh peace train take this country, Come take me Home again..."

By this time we were beginning to get some feeling back into our souls; the numbness, the sense of frustration was starting to melt.  There was never going to be an end to it, until we boarded that Red-Tail about which Elton sang so eloquently.  Like any fresh wound, the initial shock and pain had begun to deaden, and we now looked for immediate medication to ease the throb.  

We were already taking in music intravenously, so we now fortified our tenuous attempts to recover through the process of the "Illegal Smile."  I have mentioned that Miller brought this album back from Japan on a recent three-day pass.  We could get contemporary music in the PX, but we had deduced that there was only one shipment per month, and then only one of anything. 

We could also buy new Korean-manufactured albums, but they were only good for one or maybe two playings at the most, before they started snapping and popping.  The idea was to buy the album, record it on our good equipment during the first play-through, and then relegate the album to the hooch library. Tonight, as we listened to Prine, we listened to “Illegal Smile” as usual, and then we went on to listen to the entire album. 

Earlier, when I was expressing my disdain for country music, I was thinking more of the "twang, twang, my baby, left me, I lost my job and my dog died" kind of country music.  I also recognize and appreciate that there are some very moving country singers out there.  I can't hear Patsy Kline's "Crazy" without acknowledging that there is very little I listen to that can match the soul and pathos of her words. 

 I love listening to The Marshall Tucker Band, though country rock is a shift in perspective.  So John Prine, who is very much a crossover sound, lends impact to his music through his lyrics.  His range of topics was so extensive, and the themes he chose to expound upon, so relevant, as to vault his music into the forefront of our attention.  Every song struck personal notes with different members of the Fellowship.

Addis was from West Virginia, and he was awfully proud of his heritage and his community. He described to us a picture of a working class populace, with blue collar values, who toughed out an existence, originated by his great-grandfather and the others who had dug the original mine shafts.  A few years ago, during a reunion of some of the Fellowship, Addis had taken his old friends around his hometown.  

He had shown them the highways and byways of his neck of the woods, and he had been pleased to do it.  It was as though he was saying that Cali had a lot going for it, and Colorado was truly majestic, but when it came to civic pride, we couldn't touch him.  He'd listen to Mr. Peabody's Coal Train to hear Prine sing,  "Let me take you back down to Muellenberg County, down by the old coal yard where Paradise lay.  Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking, Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away."  See, he didn't know where the Paradise that Prine sang about was located, but he knew about coal trains, and how they functioned in Gauley Valley, West Virginia.

  

As we listened to the music and thought about places we wanted to be, I guess we all came to the same conclusion.  Two years was a long time but, at the end of two years, it would all be over.  No matter how those two years played out, and an extra sixty days in Korea did seem long, there were still only twice times 365 days, and we were most of the way through that.