 
Just A Misdemeanor Or Two

Published by Smashwords

Copyright 2012 by Lavall R. McIvor

License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1:Teenager At Last

Chapter 2: My Playground

Chapter 3: Big Boy's School

Chapter 4: We Own You

Chapter 5: Welcome To The Real World

Chapter 6: Sweat Mosquitoes And Snakes

Chapter 7: Freedom And Insanity?

Chapter 8: A New Understanding

Chapter 1: Teenager At Last

10:40 AM, Bill was running as fast as his one hundred sixty pound body could move on thirteen year old legs. Hampered by the twenty pound watermelon he was cradling in his arms, he ran on with a slight smile on his wrenched face over the uneven soil. The old man, wearing a straw hat and dirty coveralls that seemed to be falling off his skinny body, ran in pursuit of Bill and yelling at the top of his lungs in a booming voice that should not come from someone of his small stature;

"Stop you little thief or I'll give you what for!"

The old man's yelling only seemed to energize Bill as he now had a crazed look in his eyes and was making a low pitched animal like grunt as he trudged along stumbling over the recently plowed field. Suddenly the old man's yelling subsided and the morning air was punctuated instead with the deafening report of a shot gun, ka-boom!

The watermelon, as if magically transformed flew high into the air above the now screeching Bill as he grabbed at his backside. Bill never broke stride, although he was now running in a hopping manor towards the fence-line by the freeway. Gravity finally overcame the flight of the melon as it came crashing back to Earth, splattering its bright red, sweet guts in a small cloud of dust on the parched soil.

Bill's screeching had now changed to a high pitched yelp as he scrambled over the fence, sounding more like a crazed dog than a human, he didn't slow down as he raced across the freeway, oblivious to the belching of a big-rig that was hard on the brakes.

It has been said Bill spent three days soaking in the tub, trying to dissolve the salt pellets that were imbedded deep into his buttock. At least that is what I was told, I never actually confirmed the story with Bill. My group of friends and myself knew for sure that; 'Wild Bill is crazy as a loon', and we avoid him like the plague.

When Bill was ten, his fourth grade teacher actually tied him to his desk with a piece of rope, in hopes of restoring order in her classroom. She would smack him on the back of his knuckles with a ruler whenever he started mouthing off, and if that didn't shut him up, she gagged him with one of her slightly used handkerchiefs. The teacher had complained to the principle several times of Bill's disruptive behavior but she was told to; 'deal with it', so she did.

As I later found out, she wasn't a bad person, just frustrated by the situation she was put in. But I must admit, she scared the hell out of us 'normal' kids. You have to consider things were much different in the 1960's and almost anything a teacher did to us was OK, and just about every teacher had their 'kid-be-good' paddle and some teachers were always looking for an excuse to wield it as a way of relieving their 'suffering'!

I think about half the kids in this small southern Oregon town of twenty two hundred had at some point of growing up poached a tasty morsel from the old farmer's field. Springtime brings strawberries and in the summer months melons, corn and many different veggies. The fall harvest consisted of gourds and pumpkins. After the tale of Wild Bill's misfortune spread through the community of delinquents however, most stayed away from the old man's fields, which were now known as the 'killing fields'.

Summer rolled on and before I knew it school was back in session. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of Bill since his encounter in the old man's fields, even though he only lived a block and a half from me. The rumors had flown all summer, some thought he had been hauled off to the Juvenal detention facility or that he had actually dyed from his wounds. But to my relief and somewhat displeasure, he was there for the first day of school. He did seem somewhat subdued, for him anyway, but I was not going to try talking to him or even look him in the eye for fear of releasing his wrath.

A year earlier when I was twelve, I was walking home from school when I saw Bill about fifty feet in front of me. Somehow he sensed someone was behind him and he stopped in his tracks and turned to glare at me. His cold black eyes looked lifeless, as if there was no one home in that bubble head of his. I almost stopped, but I decided he was not going to intimidate me, although he really did. I kept walking towards him and when I was within five feet of him I heard what sounded like a low growling noise that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The only thought going through my mind was; 'Is this a person or some crazed animal? Is he going to go for my throat?'

His black eyes seemed to ask, what are you looking at, why are you in my presence, how dare you infringe on my territory. I had stopped about three feet from him, and knowing how unpredictable he was I was ready for anything. Without saying a word, suddenly he swung at me as I simultaneously swung at him. His blow landed directly on my chest and my blow landed square on his chin. I felt as if my heart would burst, the pain went straight through to my back, but I didn't let him see my anguish. Apparently the crazy kid could feel pain also, because he took one step backwards and glared at me while rubbing his chin. Without saying a word he turned and walked off. My chest was sore for two days, but I felt that I had accomplished something, maybe he would leave me alone from now on.

Bill would have been held back in the fourth grade, but Mrs. Cane said she couldn't do another year with him and just passed him to get rid of him. Bill had been known to fly off the handle for no reason at all, and it didn't matter if it was a boy or a girl. He always had that crazed look in his eyes and most people gave him a wide berth, not wanting to feel his unpredictable wrath. Back in those days I wasn't sure what was wrong with him and why he acted as he did, but looking back now I know he was just a tormented soul, there wasn't much mental health help in those days.

This is my eighth year of school and I can hardly wait to go to High School next year. But then again I'm at the top of the heap now and when I start High School I'll be back at the bottom again. I suppose at some point in your life you stay at the top, that is if you actually get back to the top. I guess life is like that, you start at the bottom and reach the top only to start at the bottom once again until you die and then I guess you start at the bottom again.

As I told you earlier, corporal punishment in school was a fact of life. My first year of school was my introduction to corporal punishment, yes that's right, I got my first taste of the teachers paddle in first grade, even though I was innocent. I later found out corporal punishment had nothing to do with guilt or innocence, it was just a way for the teachers to let out their frustrations on the little 'brats'. I know for a fact that some of these sadistic bastards actually enjoyed wielding the paddle, you could see it in their faces, that little grin of satisfaction they derived by watching you squirm or yelp with pain from the stinging blow.

My first grade class consisted of four grades in the same room in the little rural town of Hugo. We lived about ten miles from the school, so I had to ride the bus to school. Sometimes after I had gotten off the bus at our driveway, some of the kids would stick their heads out of the window and holler goodbye, I would run beside the bus and wave and yell goodbye back to them.

One day as class was starting the teacher called me to her desk. She stated in a very terse voice that I was never to run alongside the bus again. I tried to explain to her I was only waving goodbye to my friends, but before I could finish my explanation, she grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me violently;

"Did you hear me? I said you can never do that."

I was almost in a state of shock, I had never seen this side of my teacher, she was very scary and I'm sure I had tears in my eyes as I went back to my desk.

Several days went by without incident and then one day as the bus was pulling away, one of the kids threw a book out the window that I had inadvertently left behind. I ran over and picked up the book and thought nothing else about it. The next morning in class the teacher called me to her desk once again as she said;

"I warned you, bend over."

Before I could get a word out of my mouth she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me over her knee and whacked me about four times with a sturdy wooden paddle. As much as the paddling hurt, I was more embarrassed by all of the class watch me get paddled and subsequently crying. I don't think I have ever gotten past that experience, or will ever forget it.

My next encounter with the paddle came in the fifth grade by my first male teacher, Mr. A. Mr. A, as we were instructed to call him, was a good friend of my fathers and was told by my father to give me a whack whenever he thought I needed it. Now I must say my father never once spanked me, but I guess he thought it was OK for his friend to whack me. I'm sure my father did not realize his friend would be whacking me at least once a week for the entire year.

My father was the Assistant Chief with the rural fire department and Bud, what my father called Mr. A, was a volunteer fireman and that is how they had met. Over their years of friendship they became hunting partners. During one of their elk hunting trips Bud was dismayed to find that some other hunters had found his secret hunting spot. Wanting to get rid of these outsiders, Mr. A devised a plan one morning while coming back to camp. He turned his hat cockeyed, pulled his shirt half out of his trousers and drug his rifle by the barrel as he and my dad passed the intruders camp.

My dad said;

"You guys see anything this morning?"

"No." was the reply, "How about you guys?"

Bud said;

"I I got o-o-of-of-off a so-so-son-sound sh-shoo-shot." in his best stutter voice.

"A sound shot, what is that?"

"I-I her-heard a-a-a sound, a-a-and I-I shot, d-d-didn't get no-nothing though!"

The two invading hunters looked at each other without saying a word and kind of waved goodby, their camp was loaded up and they were gone in twenty minutes.

"Now that's what I call teaching." said Bud as he did a little dance, "No more neighbors for us to worry about."

I remember one time our family went over to Mr. A's house for dinner. Mr. A had two young boys, one in diapers and the other was about four. The four year old was running around the house screaming constantly and the other was just sitting on the floor with an obvious load in his diapers that stunk up the whole house, but Mr. A just ignored them as if they were not even there and all was fine. Later I'm thinking what is going on here, if I even look around the classroom at school I get whacked but good, and he has these two less than perfect kids, one of them actually reminds me of 'Wild Bill' and the other smells like the garbage dump, but maybe he won't whack them in front of other adults I thought, that was the only plausible explanation I could come up with after my experiences in his classroom.

One Friday as school was about to let out Mr. A looked at me and said;

"LaVall you haven't given me any reason to whack you this week, but I can't let you go home for the weekend without one."

That's when I figured out they didn't need a reason to whack you, it was just something they felt obligated to do, part of their job as a teacher.

My last encounter with the paddle came in the eighth grade by the shop teacher, Mr. Murphy. He was giving a presentation on basket weaving or some other stupid thing and I was goofing off with Keith. Mr. Murphy stopped talking and looked directly at me and said;

"Remind me to paddle you after class."

My blood pressure went sky high as I was singled out, even though I was not the only one goofing off, do I have a sign on me somewhere that says; 'whack this kid ', how come I seem to always get singled out for a whacking? Being the shop teacher, Mr. Murphy had a reputation of designing and wielding the perfect paddle, made out of the finest hardwood with holes so it would not be restricted as it exceeded the sound barrier on its way to the target, my butt.

I spent the next forty five minutes contemplating my misfortune and even debating if I should bring it up after class. But that thought soon left my mind as I contemplated what would happen if I didn't mention it to Mr. Murphy. The time finally came and when I told him he owed me a whacking he said;

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."

I was thinking, I wonder if he really did forget, or if this was more of his way of torturing me. He said;

"Bend over."

Reluctantly I did, and long before the paddle actually got to me I heard the tale tale sound of the air rushing through the holes of the perfect paddle. Now I must say Mr. Murphy was no amateur, he swung with both hands, like he was swinging a baseball bat, and his aim was perfect as the hardwood sounded like a gun going off as it made contact with my buttock. The blow almost knocked me over and the heat was immediate, as I was sure there would be flames coming from my rear.

My next class was PE, and as I was dressing down everyone had to come over to gawk at the brilliant glow from my butt. One little woos, Jim, asked;

"Does that hurt?"

I just looked at him thinking; 'What do you think you dumb ass? My butt is a throbbing glowing red orb, of course it hurts!' It was very uncomfortable sitting in my next three classes that day, and I made a promise to myself to never goof off in Mr. Murphy's class again.

That was the last time I got paddled at school, I guess after eighth grade the teachers think we are getting too big, and we would fight back, and they are right! My mother would occasionally feel the need to whack one of us kids, her favorite weapon was whatever was at hand, but she soon became extremely fond of the spatula as her weapon of choice. When I was twelve she got pissed at me once and grabbed the spatula, but I was getting big enough now that I decided I wasn't going to take it anymore and I took the spatula from her before she had a chance to use it on me. She had a very surprised look on her face and she didn't say a word, just turning away shaking her head. That was the last time she tried wielding a weapon on me.

Now I must say I do not condone any form of 'corporal punishment', but I must also say it did have the desired effect on me, I rarely made the same mistake twice, although it seemed I had no problem coming up with a new reason to get whacked.

I'm the middle of four kids in our family, my little brother is three years younger than me and still trick-or-treats. My oldest sister is four years older than me and having just graduated from High School she is hardly ever around. My other sister Betty got married when she was fifteen and dropped out of school. She lives across the street from us with her husband Don and baby daughter. I spend a lot of time over at their house just hanging out.

My parents were divorced when I was ten and I have only seen my dad a couple times after I turned thirteen. My mother works two jobs, at the dry cleaners during the day and in the kitchen of a restaurant until twelve or one in the morning. So as you can see, there is very little supervision of myself and my little brother, I pretty much run a-muck, although it is my responsibility to cook dinner during the week as my mother is only home from about five till seven in the evening before she goes to her night job.

My brother-in-law Don is quite a character to say the least. He started dating my sister when he was seventeen and she was fourteen. In the 1960's we still had the draft, and when Don turned eighteen he was drafted into the army. Army life did not sit very well with him, and after just two weeks of basic training he went AWOL (absent without leave).

The military police tracked him down at his parent's house and packed him back to Fort Lewis in Washington State. But even after spending two weeks in the brig (military jail), he took off again as soon as he was released. This time he hid out in a four by six foot shed in our carport, coming out only when my mother was not at home. It was the middle of winter with the night time temperature dropping into the teens. When he was able to get out of the shed, he was as white as a sheep and trembling like a bowl of jello, I actually found it very entertaining.

Don and my sister played this game of hide-and-seek for about ten days. My older sister and little brother knew what was going on of course, but we all kept our mouths shut. I was surprised my oldest sister Yvonne didn't nark on him as she always tried to be the responsible one and always ratted my misdeeds out to my mother.

As with all good things, it came to a halt when one of our nosy neighbors spotted Don going into the shed one day. She told my mother and my mother called the police and the police were more than obliging by taking him to the city jail that had a grand total of two cells. After he had spent five days in the city jail, the MP's once again came and got him. This time he spent a month in the brig, and not wanting to change his habits, as soon as he was let out off he went yet again. But this time the MP's knew his haunts and they were actually sitting in our kitchen playing cards with us when Don came to the door.

As the MP's were taking Don back to Washington on the Greyhound bus, as they had done so many times before, he disappeared while the bus was on the road. He had asked to go to the bathroom and had managed to wiggle his way out of the one by two foot window in the bathroom. He later said he just hung out there until the bus slowed going up a hill and he dropped off, only receiving a few scratches. I wish I could have been there to see the looks on the faces of those two MP's when they found the bathroom empty. The MP's soon caught up with Don once again and after another stay in the brig he was finally discharged as an undesirable from the Army, with them saying he was not compatible with military life. Don and my sister married soon after and had a baby girl.

Somewhere around the thirteenth year, hormones begin to infest a boy's body, with sometimes embarrassing moments, sometimes there is an 'arousal' for no apparent reason. Invariably there will always be a boy or two who is reluctant to stand up when a class ends, and eventually he will sheepishly exit the class with his books held to his lower front after all others have left.

I very distinctly remember the first time that happened to me. I was in algebra class and there it was for no apparent reason. How does solving for, 2X26/2B=13, equal this! That was the first time I learned you have no control over the thing, it definitely has a mind of its own and I don't know where its little mind resides.

At this age, all boys are completely and totally at the mercy of their newly acquired hormones and their body's unpredictable reactions, and one only looked at the girls knowing there was a chance for embarrassment at any moment. The problem was compounded because all you can think about at this age is the girls, so you're damned if you do and tormented if you don't.

One boy, who shall remain nameless, found that he could not go through the day without 'relieving' himself. So during the lunch break he went into the restroom and proceeded to satisfy the rampaging hormones coarsening throughout his body. As you may have guessed, his physical antics were caught in mid stroke by a couple of other boys. This poor kid almost instantly acquired the nick name of "Whippit", that stayed with him throughout High School, as his adventure in the boys room spread throughout the school's populace.

At first he was horrified to have been 'caught', but surprisingly after a couple weeks of tremendous embarrassment and torment, he sort of wore his new moniker as a badge of honor. I must say he was a much stronger and more confident individual than I am, I don't think I could have ever come back to school after that kind of embarrassment.

It is interesting to note that as you age past thirteen, you slowly begin to get in touch with the 'little mind' that controls the thing (I'm still not sure where it lives) and with practice you can actually talk to it and say;

"NO, don't you dare do that, not now!"

Now that doesn't always work, but it is better than letting the thing run amuck. I found the best way of discouraging the little guy was to think of the worst agony I could think of like running the last lap of a mile run in PE class, think about anything except girls.

So all I can say to the young ladies is, unless you want to humiliate your young fellow male classmates, never look them in the eye, you may end up seeing more than you want to.

My thirteenth year was not all fun and games, I got a rude awakening on the 22nd day of November while in wood shop. The school secretary entered the classroom, she had tears running down her face as she announce that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas Texas. My mouth fell open, I thought that assassinations were just stories of the past, like when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, surely something like this can't happen in today's world, after all, this was the man who stood up to the Russians in the Cuban missile blockade.

In 1960 candidate John F. Kennedy was coming to the neighboring town to give a speech at the city park. My mother wanted to go see him and asked if I wanted to come along. I had no idea who JFK was, but I had nothing else to do that morning so I said; "Sure", just really wanting to get out of the house.

I couldn't tell you one word Mr. Kennedy said that day, with his eastern accent I was just fascinated to hear him talk. I remember thinking what a handsome man he was, with that large bush of hair and his broad smile. He was dressed immaculately in a tailored blue suit and an almost blinding white shirt. His words came across as if I were listening to a foreign language from his animated facial features. When he concluded his speech he came off the stage and shook hands with the crowd. I squeezed past some of the people and stuck my little hand out. He didn't shake my hand, but just patted the back of my hand with two little taps. After that day I didn't pay much attention to politics, my whole world revolved around our little town and my neighborhood, but I was happy when the person I had briefly met became President of the country.

We watched the TV on the evening of JFK's assassination and saw all the grief and national shock of that day's events. When we finally saw Lee Harvey Oswald being moved in the basement of the police station two days later, and then him being assassinated by Jack Ruby, I again thought; 'How can this be happening right on TV, in today's world?'

President Kennedy's assassination brought the reality to me that there was a connection to the rest of the country, that I was a part of the larger picture, not just living in my little world in a small town in southern Oregon isolated from the rest of the world, and that fateful day in November changed my outlook on how I viewed the rest of the world and reality for the rest of my life.

Although the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in the assassination, many believed at the time that either the Russians or the Cubans were behind the plot. Publicly President Johnson agreed with the Warren Commission's findings, but privately he confided he thought;

"Kennedy tried to get Castro, but Castro got him first."

Many in today's world believe President Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy of different people, possibly because of Kennedy's attempt to change many facets of the government and end our involvement in the then young Vietnam war. We may never know the truth, as the official records were sealed for 75 years and even when they are opened we may not get the truth.

As I have written this section, I looked at the calendar, and find it very ironic that it is the 22nd of November 2011, forty eight years to the day that President Kennedy was assassinated!

Chapter 2: My Playground

The ponds were the result of excavating gravel for the interstate highway of the late 1950's. The excavation left two very deep holes of over one hundred fifty feet deep. The largest hole was over twelve hundred feet across and the smaller one was about six hundred feet across. Over a period of several years the holes started to fill with rain water, and in 1961 the adjacent creek overflowed and subsequently finished filling the ponds.

In the summer of 1963, myself and a few friends 'claimed' the ponds as our private domain. The cool refreshing water is a lifesaver during the hot 100 degree plus days of summer and we soon found the fishing to be terrific also, sporting perch, crappy, giant carp and large-mouth bass. Someone had apparently freed some of their unwanted gold fish in the ponds also, with some of these brightly colored fish getting eighteen inches or longer.

One summer morning I had nothing to do, so I grabbed my fishing pole and a can of night-crawlers I had procured from the lawn the previous night and I headed to the ponds to try a little fishing. Though the sun was only up about an hour, it was already getting warm. I hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night because it just never cooled off and I decided if no fish bit within a half hour I would abandon my pole and swim instead.

I reached into the can of slimy worms and came out with a feisty night-crawler of about eight inches, so large in fact that I squeezed in the middle until there were two pieces of the slimy wiggling worm. I impaled the worm on my hook, much to the protest of the creature, who I'm sure would say; 'hey that hurts knock it off', that is if I could understand worm talk. I flung the tasty morsel out into the still water with a ker-plunk as it sank beneath the surface and I sat down. My butt had just barely hit the sandy little beach when the pole was almost pulled out of my hands. Wow, big fish I thought, it must be one of the giant carp I had seen bathing in the morning sun near the surface. The first thought that came to my head was, I only have six pound line on my pole, I have to be very careful or it will break.

I had caught a few carp in the pond previously, and even though we did not eat them, an old man that lived near us was always willing to give me a half dollar for each carp we brought to him. Apparently he had a different pallet when it came to fish then we did, we considered carp to be a trash fish, full of bones and not fit to eat, even though food was a scarce commodity at our house. But not this old man, his eyes would light up whenever he saw me coming towards his dilapidated old shanty, a couple of times he didn't have the fifty cents, but always said I'll give you double next time. I would just smile and say; 'Don't worry about it, this one is on me.' As far as I was concerned, getting anything for a trash fish was just a bonus and it kind of made me feel good watching the old man's eyes light up, I could actually see him drool as he contemplated the evening's meal.

To my shock and disbelief after a twenty minute battle with the behemoth, it broke the surface of the flat pond in a furry of splashing water creating a small brilliant rainbow in the morning sun. The giant fish was not a carp as I had thought, but a brilliantly colored bass.

"It must be twenty inches long", I gasped out loud, knowing no one was there to hear me, but hopeful that if I said it out loud it would make it real and would be a permanent record in the ages of all time.

I had caught a few bass in the pond but the largest was only about twelve inches, nothing even close to the size of this fish and I didn't even know a bass could get this big. After another five minutes I had worked the fish within a couple feet of the sandy beach when it lunged one last time and my line snapped as I fell back on the sand.

I just sat there for a couple minutes reliving the battle with this giant bass, thinking no one would ever believe my fish story, even I was beginning to have doubts about the size of the 'fish that got away'. I finally bated up my hook again and cast my line back into the calm water. Within a couple of minutes I got another strike, just as violent as the first. After about fifteen minutes I landed this one, and to my shock and surprise it was the same exact fish, with my broken line dangling from its enormous mouth. The fish wasn't twenty inches long, but a whopping twenty eight inches long and twenty six inches around the gills, a giant of a fish. I didn't know it at the time, but that was a state record fish and I wasn't smart enough to know it, oh well, I still had the best fish story ever. Over the next two hours I caught three more bass, the smallest being sixteen inches long, an absolutely unbelievable morning of fishing, one that I was never able to replicate in all my days of fishing.

I almost ran the whole way home with my heavy catch and I got busy cleaning the fish on the front lawn. Our cat 'Kitty' (we were not very creative with names) had kittens about two months ago and had been living under the house to escape the heat. Apparently Kitty had been watching me clean the fish, and the smell must have been very enticing because I kept hearing a kind of strange 'ah-ah-ah' sound. I had no idea what that sound was, only that it was something I was not familiar with or had ever heard before.

I noticed a blur from the side of my eye and before I could turn my head, in a flash I finally made out Kitty as she bit into my trophy fish, and at what seemed like lightening speed raced under the house with the fish. The fish was bigger than the cat, how could this skinny cat transport the humongous fish at such a speed, was our cat really a 'supper-cat'? I leaped at the cat as she disappeared under the house, more out of instinct than an actual chance of catching her. The whole incident couldn't have taken more than a couple seconds, I had no idea a cat could move that fast carrying such a gigantic load!

I sat there stunned, that was the second time that day I had lost that same fish, now no one would believe my 'fish story'. From under the house I could hear the feast going on, with sounds of Kitty and her kittens gorging themselves on my trophy fish. Oh well I thought, they got a good meal and there was still three large fish left and my family would have a good meal tonight too.

It is no easy trip to the ponds, the most direct route is one block east to a fenced field and then to the Freeway with the ponds directly on the other side, with the ponds directly adjacent to the 'killing fields'. Sounds easy enough, but there is one obstacle, the theomorphic crazy horse that occupies that fenced field. I really hesitate calling the 'beast' a horse, it just does not look right. I can't put my finger on it, its mange looks like sisal rope, its legs are too short and those eyes, those eyes are a glaring piercing red, the creature scares the heck out of us. The absolute worst part is the behavior of this beast, I'm positive it is intent on killing anything or anyone that invades its domain. The creature will chase us across the field, intent on stomping to death anyone who is unfortunate enough to get caught. We all agree the beast is not of this world, a Demon from Hell for sure.

We usually sneak in the tall grass adjacent to the field, getting right up to the fence line and looking for the beast. If the creature is at the other end of the field we scramble over the fence and make a mad dash for the other side. One time Danny, who is two years older than I am and my brother-in-law's cousin, stuck his head up at the fence line only to see the beast looking directly at him on the other side of the fence. Danny ran back and forth along the fence line trying to get some distance between himself and the creature, but to no avail. The creature matched his every move, just waiting for him to make a run for it. Later, Danny said he could hear a sort of demonic growl as he maneuvered the fence line, making the hair on the back of his neck stand strait out. After a few minutes of this back and forth maneuvering, Danny gave up and said he would see us in a little while as he had to make the half mile walk around the beast domain.

As Danny started to walk off he noticed some old vinyl LPs lying in the tall grass. Apparently someone had chucked them there as so much garbage. Still very frustrated at his long walk to the ponds, Danny picked up a couple of the old records and threw one like a ninja star at the beast. To everyone's surprise and shock, the demonic beast caught the vinyl in mid air and ate it, completely! Now we all believed the beast had magical powers, but to eat such an indigestible thing as a record really gave us the heebie-jeebies. The creature could probably fly if it wanted to, like I said, its not of this world.

On one occasion, the beast nearly caught me as I raced across the field. I could feel the hot breath of the creature on the back of my neck as I raced at what seemed to be superhuman speed. I don't know where I got the energy, but somehow I made it to the fence line on the far side of the field. In a single move, like an Olympic athlete, I hit the fence post with my left hand as I felt the creature's slimy lips biting at the back of my right arm. I threw myself over the barbed wire without a split second to waste, landing with a thud in a cloud of dust on the dry hard ground.

My first thought was to thank God for sparing my life with the beast a mere one foot on the other side of the fence. I laid there just trying to catch my breath, smiling wildly at the horrible creature, which I now know was a mistake. My smiling taunt only infuriated the beast, my smile quickly turned to terror again as I realized the magical creature could get me if it really wanted to. Now trying to scoot away on my butt from the fence to gain some distance from the creature, I was as terrified as when I was inside the confines of the demonic creature, knowing if the beast had caught me it would have surely spent the night consuming me at its leisure.

The beast was so upset at my escape and taunting, it was emitting a shrill scream that made me grab at my ears. Its eyes were the brightest red I had ever seen, like the fiery depths of Hell burning within and it was drooling at the mouth, drooling its devilish nectar on the ground. I was actually shaking now as I expected the beast to explode at any second and take me to the very gates of Hell with it. Then my spirits lifted as the beast turned away from me, maybe it had given up and I would live for another day.

But the beast didn't walk away from me, instead it kicked its hind legs high into the air causing me to sink deeper into the hard ground as a means of escape. It emitted a long, loud, wet, frothy fart that seemed to go on for a minute or two. How do I know it was wet? My face was saturated with the most ungodly smelling flatulent that could exist on this world. Worse yet, my eyesight was almost completely blocked out, I could barely see through the burning blur.

Gagging and spitting all the way, somehow I made it from there to the ponds, oblivious to the traffic of the freeway. When I hit the water I scrubbed at myself for several minutes, but the truth be known, I didn't feel clean for a week and I could still smell the devils wrath, it must have been embedded in my sinuses. For a month after I had nightmares of the horrific event that nearly cost me my life. I imagined the beast stomping me down and then dragging me to its lair as it spent the night slowly consuming me. I could see my epitaph in my mind's eye.

"Here lies what is left of a fine but ignorant young boy, who mistakenly thought he could take on the Devil and win. Ha Ha Ha!"

We did learn over time that the creature was not out at night but rather in its little red barn at night, or as we called it, the Devil's lair. I never let Don know about my close encounter with the beast or the resulting nightmares, I knew he would only tease me and call me a baby, and I could do without that.

The ponds were not all fun and games though, one hot July day I was there with my little brother and a friend. We used to play a game of grabbing a large boulder and seeing who could go down the farthest. On this particular day I had a boulder I could hardly hold as I leaped out into the pond.

I wanted to go down as far as possible, so I held the boulder for quite a while as I submerged. I noticed the water had gone from a comfortable warm to cold and dark. I finally looked up as I let go of the boulder and was horrified to see only a flashlight sized light at the surface of the water. I immediately knew I was in big trouble being so far down and already needing to breathe.

I kicked my legs as hard as I could trying to get back to the surface, but when I was probably still 15 or 20 feet from the surface, I could hold my breath no longer as my lungs were burning. Try as I might, I could not help but finally inhale a large quantity of water into my lungs. As I did so I realized in my mind I was going to die, but there was nothing I could do about it but accept it as my destiny. I remember being very afraid of death, I didn't want to die and I was feeling sorry for myself, and how stupid I had been by going down so far, but it seemed there was nothing I could do but accept it as my destiny. My kicking legs slowly quit moving and I went limp as everything went dark.

I have no conscious memory of what happened next. It was two days later that I have memory of, and it was at that time I asked my friend if he had pulled me out of the water. His response was;

"What are you talking about?"

I got a similar response from my little brother, so I just let it go, not knowing if that event had actually happened, or if I had just had some kind of blackout or a hallucination. For years after that experience, I have often told my brother that I drowned that day, as I have no conscious memory of ever coming to the surface. His response was always the same;

"Yeah right, you drowned and this is all a dream as you are dying!"

Sarcastic, but that was as good an explanation as anything else.

Chapter 3: Big Boy's School

Being a Freshman was as bad and as good as I thought it would be, starting at the bottom again, being the low life on campus but at the same time finally being in the big boys school. As a Freshman I found it was as if you didn't exist at all, when I walked in the hallways between classes the upper class-men would just bump you against the lockers lining the hall as if you were not even there.

I have always been on the short side for my age, just five foot six to be exact. Now most of my classmates were going through their growth spurt and my growth spurt was a whopping one inch, to the towering height of five foot seven. Even my best friend Keith was approaching six foot now and he had made some new friends of his same stature. There was one kid in my class that shot up to six foot seven, I could barely see his head from my vantage point. I'll bet he didn't get bumped around in the hallways.

There was one senior who always went out of his way to knock me into the lockers as he always said;

"Out of my way Freshman."

He was a skinny guy of about six foot tall, and he previously lived on the same block as me. During Christmas break I rode my new ten speed bicycle to the outdoor courts at the school to play some basketball and that jerk was there. I had barely gotten off my bike when he came over and said;

"No Freshmen allowed, beat it."

At the same time as he spoke he shoved me backwards causing me to fall over my bicycle and I crashed to the ground onto my new bicycle. The rage instantly engulfed me and I came up swinging. I kicked his skinny butt all over the place for about five minutes and had him on the ground. Finally I regained my composure after I saw he had a fat lip and a bloody nose. I stepped back and he got up off the ground, and to the jeers of his friends he left the courts. After that day I got a reputation as the Freshman who wouldn't take any crap from the upper class-men and I wasn't pushed around in the hallways near as much after that.

I guess that encounter changed my mind set and I probably became a bit of a bully after that, especially towards my little brother and his friends. I would torment and physically abuse him and his friends and for that I can say now I am truly sorry, but you can't go back and change the past.

I had an old leather jacket I liked to wear and one day my brother and one of his friends, Bill, had apparently had enough of my bullying and they jumped me in the living room, pulling the jacket over my head as they both wailed on me until I got free and then they then ran like the dickens screaming like little girls. My brother's friend would not come within a half block of me for a couple weeks after, expecting that I would clobber him. I laugh about that now, it was pretty funny with them getting a little revenge on me. I only hope my brother understands now that I am very remorseful for my actions, and I hope he can forgive me for being his tormentor growing up.

September has quickly turned into October with cool nights and the smell of burning leaves in the brisk morning air. I'm already thinking of all the fun that comes with Halloween night, it is a pretty big to-do in our small community of delinquents. There isn't a lot for us kids to do in the Fall months except maybe go to the big town of Medford and watch a movie, that is if we can scrounge up the twenty five cents it takes to get in.

Us bigger kids have outgrown the door to door trick-or-treat ,we actually learned we could raid our younger siblings candy to satisfy our sweet tooth, much to their dismay. Instead we congregate in the small downtown area for Halloween night, to the chagrin of the three city police officers. Most all High School and Junior High kids attend this unsupervised party. Most all of us wear some kind of costume or mask to hide our identity from the overwhelmed police, who become default babysitters for most of the town's kids on this one night. The favorite weapons of choice are; smoke bombs, firecrackers, stink bombs and water balloons, it is complete mayhem.

October has waned and it is now the twenty eighth, just three days until Halloween. On one of my recent trips to the ponds I noticed there were a few large pumpkins left in the old man's field. I wondered if the old farmer was going to just let those few pumpkins lay there and rot or if he had left them there as bait for one of us delinquents. I thought about it all day at school and I finally formulated a plan. Logically I thought, if I were to go over there in the evening, surely the old farmer would not be there waiting with his shotgun at night.

After school that day I went over to my sister's house and presented the plan to my brother-in-law. He thought it was a good plan and he said he was in. Even though I was glad he agreed to go with me, I sometimes wonder why a nineteen year old acted like he was my age. I'm not complaining, but sometimes I think I am more mature then he is.

"So you want to go along?" I asked

"Yeah" he replied, "It sounds like great fun, and besides maybe Betty will make us a pumpkin pie."

"Oh yes" my sister replied, "Pumpkin pie sounds good."

One of my friends, Craig who is older than me by a year had expressed an interest in coming along also.

"Do you think it will be safe? I mean the butcher won't be there will he, maybe we should go about midnight so we don't get shot! I don't want to get shot!"

Laughing I said;

"Don't worry Craig, the old man is never out there after dark, besides I don't think he even cares about the few pumpkins that are left out there or he would have gathered them up."

Craig lives in a duplex right behind our house, and to be honest, if we were not neighbors we probably would not be friends. He is what you would call a woos, kind of nerdy and frankly a little strange, but since I've gotten to know him I guess he is alright, certainly not much different than the rest of my friends, and besides he has a sister that is a year younger than me that I sort of like.

We all decided to go about seven that evening and I raced back across the street to start dinner so it would be ready when my mother came home from her day job at the cleaners. I inherited the job of cook when Betty got married and moved out. I've gotten pretty good actually, a real gourmet cook. I usually come straight home after wrestling or football practice and cook up whatever is in the refrigerator. After a quick survey of the contents of the frig; IE milk, butter, eggs, bacon, I decided we were having breakfast for dinner that day. The best part of being the cook is that you can sample as you go. There never seemed to be enough food to go around, so by being the cook I was usually not very hungry by the time dinner actually hit the table.

My oldest sister Yvonne graduated from high school last year and she never did any cooking, as a matter of fact, she avoided the kitchen like it was the plague. She was either working during the day, or off playing some sort of game. She is what you would call a tom-boy, playing softball or bowling, or whatever sport was in season. But I didn't mind, it kept her out of my hair anyway. She tried going to the local college after high school but found it was too expensive and much more difficult than high school, so she dropped out and found a part time job.

After a dinner of bacon, eggs and fried potatoes my mother had a short rest and then was off to her second job about six forty five. Craig had come over about six thirty and frankly looked like he was going to pass out. He was as white as a ghost and was sweating like a pig. I was sure he would back out of our little expedition, but to his credit he just sat there quietly until my mother left. I asked him if he was still in, and he said nervously;

"Of course, let's go."

After waiting for five minutes, to make sure my mother was gone, we went over to my sister's house. My little brother came with us and wanted to go along, but my sister Betty said;

"Absolutely not, mother would kill me if anything happened to you."

Don said;

"Lets go, it's dark already."

There was a full Moon and it was easy to see our way over to the old farmer's field. When we got to the demon's fence I couldn't help but be nervous, I still had vivid memories of my near death experience with the beast. I still didn't feel comfortable talking about it yet, and besides I knew Don would rag me about it and I could do without that. As Don was climbing over the fence I surveyed the field to make sure the creature was nowhere in sight before I leaped over and ran at breakneck speed to the other side of the field. When Don caught up he said;

"What's the hurry, we have all night."

I just shrugged my shoulders and continued across the freeway. When we got to the ditch at the edge of the old farmer's field, Don and I peeked our heads up to make sure no one was there. Don and I crawled a ways and when we were sure the old farmer wasn't there we stood up and approached the pumpkins. When I finally realized Craig wasn't with us I looked back to see what looked like two raccoon eyes peeking over the lip of the ditch.

"Come on." I said, "You're not going to get a pumpkin from over there."

Craig replied;

"Roll me one, roll me one."

That was enough to set Don off, he said;

"You big pussy, what a chicken, there isn't anyone here except us."

I didn't say anything, I knew Craig was just waiting to see if we got shot. Finally Don and I got to the pumpkins and I picked up two medium sized pumpkins and Don got a really big one. We carried them back to the ditch and I gave one to Craig. Don and I were laughing at Craig's terrified look on his face as we suddenly heard the sound of a vehicle, we looked behind us to see the old farmer's pickup on the other side of the field. Before Don or myself started to move, I said;

"Run!"

But Craig was already gone in the night. It took Don and me about fifteen minutes to get back to the house, there we found my sister tending to Craig's skinned up forearms. Apparently he had tripped going across the freeway and smashed his pumpkin when he slid on the gravel alongside the pavement.

"What the heck happened to you?" I said.

"I wasn't going to get shot!" he exclaimed.

Don and I both started to laugh at him again, but my sister had that discerning look on her face and we both stifled our laughter as she gave us that 'look', you know what I'm talking about, that 'look' that only a woman can display. I'm not sure when women first acquire the 'look', maybe they are born with it and it just comes out with the release of those female hormones. Trying to mend the fences Don said;

"It was no big deal, the old man's truck was on the other side of the field, and he didn't even know we were there, so boohoo."

Craig decided he should go home and tend to his wounds and try to come up with a story to tell his mother about his skinned up arms. My sister immediately got to work in the kitchen making the pumpkin pie she had promised us. Don and I settled in on the couch watching one of the two TV channels we could get with the rabbit ear antennae. "Gunsmoke" was on, one of the top shows on television at the time. We talked about our adventure to the killing fields and burst out laughing when we got to Craig's reluctance to come out of the ditch and his; "Roll me one, roll me one." After my sister heard the story she also had to laugh, not having gotten the real story from Craig.

After about an hour my sister emerged from the kitchen with a deliciously smelling pumpkin pie. I don't know what kind of spices she put in it, but it smelled great.

"Cut me a big piece." Don said.

"Not yet." my sister said, "It has to sit for about a half hour to set up and cool."

Finally it was time and we all got a nice slice of the great smelling pie with whipping cream on top. We all dug in and savored the wonderful taste on our pallets. As I chewed, I thought; 'Boy this is really good, the trip to the killing fields was well worth it.'

I chewed and chewed and chewed, but it wasn't going away, in fact it seemed to be getting bigger all the time. The now growing wad in my mouth had the consistency of rubber bands, and as I looked at the others they were also still chewing with a puzzled if not distressed look on their faces. Finally I reached up and pulled at the wad in my mouth and I pulled long strands out, some eight inches long.

When my sister saw me pulling the string like material from my mouth she burst out laughing, with her 'wad' landing in the middle of the floor. Soon we were all laughing uncontrollably, so hard in fact my stomach and cheeks actually hurt. We must have laughed for fifteen or twenty minutes, not being able to say a single word. Don was finally able to say;

"What the heck did you do to this pie Betty?"

That set us off again for another ten minutes of uncontrollable laughter. My sister eventually said;

"I just ran it all through a sieve, I didn't know it would come out like this."

To this day I still love pumpkin pie, but I always use my fork to pull a little from the slice and try just a very small sample before I dig in.

Transitioning to the teenage years is a big deal to any kid, and I was relishing it. October the 30th and I was with Don on the way to the store to buy trick-or-treat candy. Don made sure to get a couple bags of a candy he liked, in the hopes there would be some left for him. I had gathered up all the soda bottles I could find at home and planned on buying some candy with the money, but then I spotted some balloons so I grabbed a bag of one hundred for twenty five cents instead of a candy bar, thinking they would come in handy for Halloween night's shenanigans.

On our way back from the store we passed a church that was undergoing renovation. There were open ditches with the little A-frame barricades marking the open holes. Don got a funny look on his face and said;

"You know, we could use those barricades."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, we can make our own little obstacle path with them." he replied.

I just shrugged my shoulders, not really knowing what he had in mind. We circled the block and after making sure no one was around, we collected all of these little a-frame barricades that would fit in the back seat of the car. We had no idea how to turn off the little yellow blinking lights, so here we go down the road with the whole of the inside of the car lit up like a Christmas tree with randomly blinking lights. I have often wondered if anyone saw this strange car going down the road with those little blinking lights flashing from inside. By the time we had traveled the eight blocks back home I was nearly blind, all I could see for twenty minutes after was the blinking in my eyes, I have no idea how Don was able to stay on the road.

When my sister saw our ill-begotten bounty she was less than thrilled and let Don know in no uncertain terms she was not happy with our booty. After having gotten a lecture from Betty and the 'skunk eye' again, Don assured her we would take the barricades back later. Still disgusted with our actions, my sister went back into the house as she slammed the door behind her.

Don and I spent the next twenty minutes setting up the barricades at the intersections around the block leaving one end open, thus setting up our trap. It was about seven o-clock and fog was beginning to roll in, helping with our deception. Within five minutes we had our first victim, as the vehicle entered the trap we ran over and closed the hole with two barricades we had laid in the ditch. As our victim got to the next corner he had no way to go except to turn left and so on at the next intersection, until eventually he arrived at the same point where he had entered our trap. Moving much slower now, he again headed down the block to the next corner, at this corner he stopped and got out of his car. He kind of scratched his head and looked around. Realizing he was just going around in circles, he grabbed a barricade and threw it to the side of the road. Don and I both chuckled as the distraught motorist squawked his tires and drove off.

Once again we set our trap and waited for our next victim. Soon a pickup truck entered our obstacle course and this poor guy went around three times before he finally stopped at the intersection where he had entered the trap. Don and I were laughing uncontrollably and the man could hear us, but didn't know where the laughter was coming from. The man carefully moved the two barricades to the side of the road and slowly drove off.

Don was right, this was great fun and I could hardly wait to set the trap once again. After about fifteen minutes we saw the headlights of another vehicle headed into our trap, but this one stopped at the intersection and we saw the tell-tell sight of overhead lights come on the police cruiser. Don said;

"Oh jeez, it's the Fuzz."

We could see the officer looking around, trying to spot the perpetrators of the prank. Don, frantic now, reached back behind him and opened the front door, we both crawled inside not wanting to stand up and be spotted. We peeked out the window to see the officer loading the barricades into the trunk of his car and Don said;

"I sure hope he doesn't come over here, I never want to go back to that stinky little hole they call a jail here."

My sister once again gave Don that 'look', this time Don was only able to exhibit a sheepish look on his face as he acknowledged her displeasure once again.

Finally it is Halloween day; I can hardly wait for nightfall and all the fun and games that will come with it. Keith, my best friend since seventh grade was able to talk his strict parents into letting him spend the night at my house. I'm not sure if he is the bad influence on me or vice versa, but we both enjoy living on the wild side and are always getting in trouble. Keith was unable to come over for the 'Great Pumpkin Caper' because it was a school night, so I told him all about it the next day. He thought it was hilarious when I told him about the scare from the old farmer, and he laughed even harder when I told him about Craig's reluctance to actually go into the field.

Myself, Keith, Danny and Craig make up the gang of four. We decided we would use the balloons I got at the store for water bombs. The downtown area of our little town consisted of one main street, with side streets coming off of it. Pine street was the only street in town that had no stop signs, as a matter of fact there were no signal lights in all the town. At the corner of Fourth and Pine was the police department with its 'stinky little jail' and right next to the police department was the city fire station. The buildings from Fourth to Third street were connected buildings all along Pine street, with an alleyway to the rear. Having explored all of our little town, I knew there was a metal ladder attached to one of the buildings in the alley and there was also a facet close by.

The bulk of the kids gathered at this part of town for our Halloween rampage, and by seven in the evening a good sized crowd had formed. When I told the guys what my plan was, all were excited to get started, that is all except Craig, he wasn't too excited about climbing the two stories to the roof on what he called;

"That rickety old metal ladder that will probably come loose from the building resulting in severe injury or death!"

We all laughed at him and he finally said he would give it a try if one of us climbed it first. The only thing I hadn't thought about was how to get the water balloons up to the roof. After a little exploring in the alley we found a long length of old electrical wire and secured about a half dozen 'bombs' in Craig's jacket. He protested, saying he was going to freeze by the time we were through with it, and if his jacket got wet he would have to go back home. Anyway, after about fifteen rounds of filling and lifting the balloons to the roof we were ready, that is all except Craig, he had stayed in the alley filling the water balloons and he wasn't sure he could actually climb the ladder. Finally I climbed back down and told him I would be right behind him and if he did fall, at least he would land on me and I would cushion his fall.

After what seemed an eternity, Craig finally breached the roof but he refused to actually stand up, instead he crawled across the roof to the front of the building which had a false front that was maybe about three feet high. It was easy for us to peek over the ledge and see our targets below without revealing ourselves. When a group of kids got close enough, we would lob a couple of balloons at them with the desired results. They would all scatter, trying to figure out who had nailed them, and more importantly where the balloons were coming from. Craig still wouldn't get close enough to the ledge to actually see below, so every now and then he would just lob a water bomb over his head blindly.

This mayhem went on for over an hour without us being discovered, and we were having the time of our lives watching the recipients scatter every time we nailed them. I'm sure we would have been severely beaten or killed by some of the older kids had we been discovered.

Well the inevitable finally happened, Danny had spotted a kid that had been picking on him at school and he raced across the roof to the Fourth street side to clobber him with a balloon. While doing so he had run across the roof of the police station and fire department. Someone inside must have heard his footsteps and the next thing we knew, it started to rain. But how could it be raining, it was a clear sky with no clouds in sight. Pretty soon we were getting drenched and we finally figured out the fire department had rolled a truck out into the street and was hosing us down, trying to wash us off the roof. We all scurried to the ladder and raced away in the dark alley, even Craig was down and outrunning all of us.

After getting back to my house we all got some dry clothes and had a good laugh over the night's hi-jinx. That was the best Halloween ever, one I never duplicated after, or will ever forget. I guess I learned a very good lesson though that Halloween, there are consequences for all misdeeds, and that was the last time I ever went into the old farmer's fields.

That same Fall Keith and I decided to go deer hunting in the hills across from his home. We worked our way about a half mile up the hills through the thick brush. We soon came across an old logging road and decided to take this less obstructed route. Along one side of this road was a little creek down the bank from us. I thought I heard something, so I told Keith I was going to slide down and see what it was.

After I slid about ten feet down the steep bank to the bottom, my feet were right at the edge of the creek which was about four feet across. Straight across from me was a black bear, the bear looked as surprised as I was and it stood up on its hind legs as it simultaneously let out a roar which scared the hell out of me. Without even thinking, I pulled the trigger on my rifle and the bear reeled around and took off through the brush. Soon Keith came sliding down the bank and asked if I got a deer. I could barely talk as I said;

"B-b-bear!"

"Bear." he said, "Did you hit him?"

I was shaking trying to regain my composure as I was thinking I had dodged death again at the jaws of another beast. If the crazy demonic horse wasn't going to get me, then it would be some other wild creature that devours me, I did know I didn't want to be dinner for some beast, that was a most frightful way of leaving this world. I could only say;

"I don't know."

Keith then said;

"My dad says you can't let a wounded bear go, it will turn crazy and attack anyone within earshot of it."

Keith was always coming up with these little anecdotes from his father and I was starting to get a little tired of what his dad had to say, I would rather just go back home and thank God I had once again cheated death and let things be, but for some reason I said;

"OK."

We went through the thick brush the rest of the morning and saw no sign of the bear, and finally to my relief, Keith said;

"Let's go home, we aren't going to find that old bear."

After arriving back at Keith's house, we told his dad the story and he thought it was very funny. I could only sit there and wonder if he really knew just how close I had come to meeting my maker, it seemed it was just a big joke to him. Keith's mother overheard our conversation and said;

"I still have some bear meat in the freezer, I can cook some up for dinner so you will know what you're missing."

OK, I'm thinking that bear must be very good the way they are all going off about it, I can hardly wait to try it. Boy was that an experience, I nearly barfed on the first bite of the bear roast. How are these people eating this crap I thought. That was the skankiest thing I have ever had in my mouth, and at that moment I made a promise to myself that I would never shoot at another bear as long as I lived. If I met one in the forest, I would simply turn around and let the nasty beast be on its way.

That adventure wasn't the last time I went hunting with Keith, the following Spring we decided to go pheasant hunting over by the ponds one weekend. I had a single shot four-ten shotgun and Keith was going to spend the night and he showed up at my place with his dad's sixteen gauge pump action shotgun.

It was about ten in the evening and my mother was gone to her second job. My little brother was sound asleep in our bedroom and my older sister as usual was gone somewhere. Keith decided he wanted to show me his father's shotgun, so he opened the slide, announcing there were no shells in the magazine. All the time he was telling me about the hair trigger this gun had and when he pushed the slide back closed there was a deafening roar as it went off. Fortunately the barrel was pointed up, but I could feel the force of the blast that came within an inch of my face. As if magically transformed, my little brother levitated about a foot and a half strait up from his bed, exclaiming in mid air;

"I'm going to tell!"

I was very surprised that I could actually hear him, my ears were ringing like the bells at the church on a Sunday morning. Keith was hopping up and down as the butt of the gun had come down on his foot. Then I heard the distinct sound of bee-bee's falling on the roof of the house. The neighbor's lights began to come on, so we turned ours off. In the darkness Keith said;

"There must have been a shell lodged in the chamber, I think my big toe is broken!"

I could give a rat's ass about his big toe, I just kept thinking how close I had come to having my face blown off. After about ten minutes the neighbors lights went back off and I turned on the bedroom light. Looking up, right next to the light fixture was a fifty cent sized hole in the ceiling. I knew from the sound of the bee-bee's falling on the roof that there was also a hole in the roof. I got a ladder and found a fist sized hole in the roof, and the only thing I could find to patch it up with was some plastic sandwich bags. My only thought was to hope my mother never looked up and saw the hole in the bedroom ceiling, because in my mind, I knew I was never going to tell her about it.

Surprisingly, my mother never did spot the hole in the bedroom ceiling, and believe it or not the roof never leaked. I had to bribe my brother with candy and money for about six months to keep him silent, that was when I finally got some 'dirt' on him and made a pact with him that I wouldn't rat him out if he did the same for me and forget about what he called the 'shotgun incident'. In later years Don often said;

"You are the blackmail-ingest people I've ever known."

After not getting much sleep that night, the next morning Keith and I went across to the ponds to do some pheasant hunting. After about an hour of seeing nothing, a pheasant suddenly flew up from Keith's right side. He swung his shotgun around following the bird, bringing the barrel right in front of my face and he fired. Again I felt the rush of the blast close to my face and I said;

"That's it, I'm out of here."

"What's wrong?" Keith asked.

"What's wrong, what's wrong? That's twice in twelve hours you have almost blown my face off." I replied, "I'm going home."

We walked back to my place without saying a word and Keith called his dad as soon as we got back to the house to come and get him. The next day I had gotten over my near death experiences and I called Keith, but he refused to take my phone call. He wouldn't talk to me at school either and after a week or so I got it that he didn't want to be friends any more, apparently I, had hurt his feelings.

A few months later at football practice my emotional hurt of losing my best friend had turned to anger at him for abandoning me for something he had done. He was playing offense as a running back carrying the football and I was playing on defense. On one of his runs someone had gotten a hold of him by one ankle. I saw him squirming like an animal with one leg caught in a trap, trying to get away when he saw me coming at his defenseless body. I lowered my head and I burrowed into him as hard as I had ever hit anyone. When I got up and started to walk away I looked back and I could see I had physically hurt him as he laid on the ground in agony, and I did feel a little remorseful, but not enough to say I was sorry.

Everyone remembers their first best friend, and like myself and Keith many have lost touch or grown apart over the years. I have had many good friends throughout my lifetime, but I have never had as close a friend as Keith was, we were inseparable and confided all of our innermost thoughts to each other, and as a teenager you are still coming to terms as to what life is all about with many questions.

Eventually my anger at Keith passed and once again I wished things had transpired differently, but that's life and we learn as we age from past life's experiences. I never saw or talked to Keith after high school. Sometime later in life I learned Keith was severely wounded in Vietnam, I felt badly for him but I was just thankful he had not dyed. I have often wondered how his life has turned out and even after forty five years, I still miss his close friendship.

My first driving experience came in the summer of my fourteenth year while working in the pear orchards. It was harvest time and the orchard owner asked me if I could drive a tractor.

"Of course." I lied.

"Well then go to the barn and get the red tractor with the flatbed trailer." he said.

So off I went thinking how hard can it be to drive a tractor. I climbed aboard the tractor and just sat there for a minute or two trying to figure out how to start it. I finally spotted the key and turned it expecting the tractor to come to life, but nothing. I looked for another minute or two and spotted a button that said 'Start'. As I pushed the button, the tractor lurched forward, it was in gear. I moved the shifter around until it was in neutral and pushed the button again, va-varrom, as it started up. After grinding off about five pounds of gear tooth, I got it in first gear and released the clutch. Piece of cake I thought, I'm driving like a pro. By the time I made it back to the orchard I was driving pretty good, at least that's what I thought, and by the end of Summer I really was driving the tractor good.

That Fall some new neighbors moved next door to us, and the man had a race car. After watching and listening to him rev up the motor off and on for a week, I went over and introduced myself.

"You race stock cars? I said, as I instantly felt my face flush as the man gave me a quizzical look like; 'What are you dense kid, can't you see this is a stock car?'

"I mean, I see you race, I've never been around race cars before, I've never even been to the race track before."

"Yeah, I race cars." was his reply, "It's a way of letting out pent up energy, maybe you can come to the races with us this weekend."

"Sure." I said, "What time?"

"Come over about four." he replied. "You can ride with me in the truck to the track."

So Saturday came and I went over to his house about three thirty, not wanting to be late. When we got to the track, he drove into the infield and I helped him unload the car. I started to head to the grand stands, and he said;

"You can stay in the pits if you want, maybe help me with the tires."

I really felt excited about that, looking up in the stands and all the people watching the cars in the infield, it kind of made me feel privileged to be one of the few in the pits. Gordon had a good time trial and was third fastest, which put him in the trophy dash. He was leading the race with one lap to go when another driver hit him in the rear end and sent him flying off the edge of the clay track.

When Gordon came back into the pits, I was pretty irate;

"That guy hit you for no reason!" I exclaimed.

"Not to worry." Gordon replied, "I'll get even with him in the main race."

And he did get even, clobbering him coming out of the fourth turn, sending him spinning in the infield as many pit-men had to jump out of the way of the careening car. Many of these bashes and crashes ended up in a fist fight after the race, and tonight was no exception. I was sure I would end up in the midst of the carnage, but it was mostly just a little shoving and cursing.

Gordon made a couple hundred dollars that night, and after the races he told me we were going to go out for Chinese food with some of the other drivers. I soon found out that going out for Chinese meant eating a little food, and them drinking a lot of beer.

About 1 AM everyone decided it was time to go, and Gordon tossed me his car keys saying;

"Lets go Jives."

I told him I didn't have a license, he just shrugged his shoulders and said;

"I can't drive, I can barely walk."

So I climbed into the driver's seat of the 1959 Plymouth and thankfully it was an automatic. Driving through town I passed a cop car sitting on the side of the road and was sure he would stop me, but he just looked the other way as I drove by. After a harrowing ten mile drive home, we finally arrived without incident. After that night Gordon often had me driving his car, saying each time;

"You wreck it, you bought it!"

I spent that whole Fall and Winter driving and never getting stopped.

There were a couple other guys from my class that were involved in the local stock car circuit. One of my classmates, Jim Plummer, took up drag racing at the local drag strip. He was gaining national fame in later years when he was killed in a racing crash. The local drag strip was renamed in his honor for several years after his fatal accident. One of the local stock car drivers achieved national fame racing Indy cars, but Art Pollard also dyed a few years later while practicing for the Indy 500.

When my sixteenth birthday arrived I decided I had better get my driver's license and get legal. My brother-in-law Don had a new Dodge sedan that was an automatic and I figured that would be the best car to take the test in. At the DMV an old guy with a cigarette dangling from his mouth that looked like he could expire at any moment, was my evaluator for the driving test. I did everything perfectly, parallel parking, using the turn signals and mirror, but at one intersection in town, as I was entering the intersection the light turned yellow and there was no way of stopping without ending up in the middle of the intersection, so I went on through.

"That's it, you trying to kill me?", he exclaimed as he put a large exaggerated check mark on the form, "Back to the office."

Arriving back at the DMV I asked how I did, he gave me a puzzled look and matter of factually said;

"You went through a yellow light, you could have killed us both, you fail you idiot!"

Now his attitude and remarks were pissing me off and I said;

"What are you talking about you old goat, there was no way I could have stopped!"

The old man just shook his head, mumbling something about 'kids' as he walked off. When I had to tell Don that I had failed the test he really gave me a bad time, like I knew he would. A week later we went back to take the test again, and when the same old man came out he said in a loud voice so that all in the room could hear;

"I'm not taking that smart mouthed little punk out, no, no, no way."

Finally after a few minutes of embarrassment at being singled out by this old fart and everyone looking at me, another younger evaluator came out and said;

"Lets go."

As we prepared to go out the door, the old fart yelled;

"Hope he doesn't kill you!"

After an uneventful driving test, the examiner proclaimed;

"You pass, I don't know what Bob's problem is with you, but you did very good."

As I went back into the DMV I was hoping to see the old fart and rub my new license in his face, but he was nowhere in sight. So now I was legal and Gordon and I went to the wrecking yard of one of the other race car drivers and loaded up a rusty old 1957 Ford Fairlane. After a month of sanding and painting it turned into a clean two tone blue beauty. Gordon and I then put one of his race car engines in the car and it turned out to be a real hot rod also. When we had completely finished the car, he tossed me the keys and said;

"You wreck it, you bought it!"

In my class for several years was a guy we called Jim the woos. He was a skinny kid about five foot four and everyone picked on him, including me, for as long as I could remember. If a person is physically or mentally different, he is just an obvious target from upper classmates as well as kids in his own class. I never physically picked on him, but rather wielded verbal abuse, well that is except for the occasional dodge ball game, he just seemed like the obvious target. I never really gave the verbal abuse a second thought then, it was only later that I understood verbal abuse is as bad or worse than physical abuse.

Jim gained a bit of respect from me in my Freshman year, We were playing baseball in PE class, with Jim playing right field. One of my classmates hit a long fly ball right at Jim. He held his glove high above his head and we all thought he would make an easy catch. But his glove missed the ball completely, with the ball hitting him squarely in his left eye. His eye immediately swelled shut and he was helped off the field by the PE teacher.

Jim was out of school for three days and when he did come back his eye was still shut, with a blue and purple circle the size of the baseball encompassing his face. When it came time for PE the teacher said he could sit out the rest of the week, but Jim insisted on participating. Now most of us would have taken the week off, so I really had to admire his insistence on participating. We were playing baseball again and it was Jim's turn at bat. The first pitch was a curve ball that he jumped back from at the plate. The coach told him to;

"Stand in there, you won't get hit."

So when the next pitch was a fast ball thrown inside, Jim just stood in there and took it right in the go-nads. He went down like a sack of potatoes and most of us laughed a little until he pulled his hand out of his shorts with blood on his fingers. You could hear an audible gasp as everyone finally realized the seriousness of the hit, and each of us could only imagine what that must feel like. Later the coach confided to us that Jim had actually suffered 'permanent damage'.

As school started one year I noticed I had not seen Jim the first two weeks of school. While in the lunch line I saw Jim's little brother who was now a Freshman. I asked him where his wimpy brother was, and this kid almost instantly got tears in his eyes as he said;

"Jim drowned at the lake this summer."

Before I could utter a word he turned and left the cafeteria very quickly. I felt as small as a bug, I wanted somewhere to hide, how could I have not known that Jim had drowned, and worse yet how could I have been so insensitive to Jim's little brother. I tried to imagine what he must be going through and how would I act and feel if it was my brother. All of my teasing and bullying of Jim rushed through my thoughts and I was very remorseful for any pain I had caused him in his brief lifetime. Jim's death haunted me for several years, but as with everything else in life, I was learning you can't go back and change things of the past, you just have to live with your actions and hopefully learn from the experiences and not make the same mistake twice.

I was on the JV baseball team in my Sophomore year and one of our non conference games was with Bute Falls varsity. Bute Falls is a logging town of about four hundred people, about forty miles up in the mountains. The baseball field was little more than a pasture with bases and enough bleacher space to hold about fifty people.

When their team came onto the field my mouth literally fell open. These guys could not possibly be high school students, about half the team sported full beards, they reminded me of the bearded guys on the cough drop boxes, in my mind none of them appeared to be less than thirty years old. I thought; 'How long have these guys been going to school, are they trying to draw a pension here?' Their uniforms were a rag tag assortment of sweat pants and mismatched shirts. The pitcher was one of the 'bearded old men', for some reason he instantly reminded me of Moses, and he had a large bulge of chew poking his left cheek out.

When the third inning came up, it was my turn to bat. As I came to the plate Moses yelled;

"Move in, move in, light weight at bat."

I did feel like a little kid standing there, not only short in stature but also very cognitive of the little bit of peach fuzz I had been cultivating on my upper lip for the past year. Moses had one eye closed as he squinted his one open eye at me from the side. I almost burst out laughing, as all I could picture now was a bearded Pop-eye looking at me. Finally after giving me the 'eye' for a minute or two, Moses spit a brown wad on the dusty field and did an exaggerated wind up and delivered the ball straight at my head. I had to fall backwards to avoid being decapitated. I dusted myself off as I got up and I could hear Moses chuckling. Moses then spat out another large brown wad of spit that raised a small cloud of dust as it hit the ground. He went through his routine again with the ball coming behind my head this time as I dove over the plate. Again I heard Moses chuckle and now I was getting pissed, he was trying to hit me and I wasn't going to take it.

I had learned in batting practice that if I stood with my feet together and the bat strait up, I could hit the ball directly back to the pitcher. So I took my stance and just hoped he would throw me a strike. The pitch came straight over the plate this time and I connected firmly with it. The hard hit line drive went straight at Moses, hitting him right in the chest. As I was rounding first base I saw Moses still lying on the ground with the ball directly in front of him. I got a double out of it and that was the last we saw of Moses that day as he was eventually helped off the field.

I found out later that Moses had two broken ribs, and we didn't waste any time getting out of town with a win, 2 to 3. It seemed some of the town's people took exception to us not only beating their team, but taking out their star pitcher also.

Besides myself and my group of cronies, there were several other characters in our little town, one of which was Leon. Although Leon was my age, he usually hung out with younger boys like my little brother and his friends. Leon lived almost exactly one block from our house. About the only time I was with Leon was when I needed a ride.

At fifteen he had assembled a vehicle out of three different cars, a 1949 Mercury, a 1950 Ford and a 1951 Ford. Some of the parts matched up good, while others left something to be desired, with a lot of 'bailing wire' being used to hold everything together. Leon never had a drivers license, but his dad never said anything to him about not driving, at least as far as I know.

One hot summer day I found occasion to get a ride from Leon to go to the river. There was an old bridge over the Rogue River in Gold Hill and it was the gathering spot for several teenagers in the summer. Now I have to say, I was not yet a skilled driver but Leon's driving scared the heck out of me. On occasion we would be in our actual driving lane but that was the exception not the rule, I think Leon thought all of the road was his to drive on and any one else on the road be damned. Fortunately there was little traffic on the narrow road that day, but those who did encounter us had no problem blasting their horn as they maneuvered around us.

After spending most of the day testing our manhood by leaping off the thirty foot high bridge into the narrow deep part of the river, we decided about 6 PM that it was time to head back. I had almost forgotten about Leon's lack of driving skills until we had gone about a mile down the road. Once again we were rarely on our side of the narrow road, usually somewhere in the middle of the road. As we were entering a tight right hand corner, I saw that although Leon had both hands on the steering wheel, the wheel was now not actually attached to the vehicle any more.

I wanted to scream; 'Put it back you idiot, put it back', but no words would come out of my mouth as once again I saw my life flash before my eyes. I was thinking that I had survived the demonic beast in the field, an encounter with another beast in the woods and almost getting my face blown off, twice, and now I would die at the hands of a simpleton idiot who's piece of crap car had come apart in his hands.

As if he was on a circus ride, Leon started to laugh, he was having a blast at apparently my expense. After what seemed an eternity, Leon had applied the brakes and we slid to a stop at a ninety degree angle to the road in the ditch. I turned and looked at Leon, I didn't even have to say anything, he instinctively knew what I was thinking and the laughing stopped, he said;

"Oops, I'll just stick it back on, it wouldn't have come off if I hadn't pulled on it."

"What do you mean it wouldn't have come off, isn't there a nut to hold it on?" I asked.

"Well no, the threads are stripped, and now it seems the spline is stripped also."

As the wheel now just spun on the steering column. Leon then got out of the car and opened the trunk and emerged with a pair of vice grips. He clamped the vice grips on the stripped spline of the steering column and announced we were ready to go. I decided right there and then I was going to have to kick his ass but good, I was pissed. I finally decided maybe I should wait until we went the eight miles back to Central Point, and if, if I survived the trip back, then I would kick his ass.

The trip back was even more harrowing then the ride to the river, the center of the road would be a welcome relief considering we were now going from ditch to ditch as Leon spun the vice grips back and forth. When we got within eye shot of my house I swung open the door and jumped out before the vehicle had come to a stop. I really can't say vehicle with a straight face though, I should say, without waiting for that piece of crap to stop is more like it. Leon just motored on and I realized I had forgot to smack him, oh well, I'll just kick his butt next time I see him I thought, he will know what it is for.

It was always a challenge for us to come up with money for gas or whatever and Leon was no exception to the rule. One night about eleven I was in bed and not quite asleep yet when I heard a loud explosion. I Jumped up and put on my pants and looked out the back door, I saw where there was a huge fireball on the next block. Being nosy like everyone else, I ran down the block to see Leon's father's new pick-up truck blazing, with flames thirty feet in the air. The fire trucks arrived about ten minutes later and doused what was left of the new Ford pick-up. The fire chief told Leon's dad that it looked like someone had been siphoning gas out of the truck when it went up, justifying his belief by the smoldering adjacent gas can and piece of garden hose laying a few feet from the truck.

Two days later I ran into Leon at school and I immediately started to laugh when I saw he had no eye brows and the front of his hair was gone. I had a hunch I knew what happened, but I wanted to hear it from him.

"Well, I was getting some gas for my car, just a couple of gallons, I figured the old man wouldn't miss it and it caught on fire."

"How did it catch on fire?" I asked

"I, I guess I lit a match to see how full the gas can was getting." he said as he was kind of looking at the floor, "I've been staying at my cousins house, I figure the old man will forget about it in a couple of weeks or so, I sure hope so I don't like sleeping on the floor."

I just shook my head and chuckled as I walked off, I figured I didn't have to kick his ass any more, his dad was going to do the job for me, and probably do a better job of it also.

Many years after high school I ran into Leon several times at the race track and he just bugged me, he still had the mentality of a thirteen year old and I tried to avoid him whenever I saw him coming. One night he tracked me down as I was going the other way and asked if he could borrow twenty dollars, saying that he would pay me back the next week at the races. I said sure and didn't give it a second thought. The next week came and went with no Leon, as a matter of fact I have never seen Leon since I gave him the twenty bucks, probably the best money I have ever spent.

Although I had a few bad experiences with alcohol, as a teenager the memories of a bad drunk quickly passed and one was always looking forward to the next round of intoxication. One day Danny came over and said he had gotten a recipe for home brew.

"We can get everything we need at the Blackbird store for about five bucks." he proclaimed.

"Oh yeah." I said, "But how much beer will five bucks make?"

"Five gallons."

"Wow, five gallons, we could get drunk for a month on five gallons." I said.

So we pooled our money and headed to the store. From Danny's list we picked out a quart of barley malt, a pack of brewer's yeast and a container of hops. I was a little worried when we went up to the cashier, surely he wouldn't sell us this stuff.

"You boys know how to us this stuff?" the clerk asked with a sly look on his face. I started to panic, he was on to us I thought.

"No." Danny blurted out, "My dad sent me here for this stuff, I don't even know what he needs it for."

Again the clerk gave us that look, as if he could see right through Danny's lie and he reluctantly rang up the magical ingredients as I felt my face flush and then break into a smile as I realized we were going to get away with it. My heart was racing as we headed back towards my house and I realized I didn't have a five gallon bucket to make this stuff in. I hadn't even thought about the bucket because I never thought we would have been able to buy the magical mix. I just blurted out;

"I don't have a five gallon bucket with a lid."

"We can swing by my place, I've got a bucket with a lid."

The bucket turned out to be a plastic five gallon pickle container.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"It was just sitting by the garbage cans at Polly's restaurant, they were just throwing it out so I took it."

Arriving at my house, I pried the lid off and was greeted by the pungent odor of dill pickles.

"Wow." I said; "This thing really stinks."

"It will be alright, we can just rinse it out with the hose." replied Danny.

Well I ran a lot of water through that bucket but it still smelled like dill pickles. We went ahead and added all the ingredients, following the directions of the recipe to the letter.

We covered the concoction as directed with a small hole in the lid, and then put the container in the shed in the carport to await the two agonizingly long weeks until the magical concoction turned into beer. A week pasted and I couldn't help but take a peek at the brew. As I pried the lid off there was still a slight smell of pickles, but it definitely had the aroma of beer. Great I thought, it really is going to work.

Finally the two weeks had past and Danny came home with me after school to sample our home brew. As I pried the lid off once again, the smell almost knocked me to the ground. It was absolutely horrible and upon a closer look, the top of the concoction had a half inch layer of mold on it.

"What the hell is this crap?" I said; "What happened?"

"It must have been too cold." replied Danny; "The directions said to keep it at sixty five degrees, I thought it would be alright in the shed."

"Well I'm not drinking that crap, if it doesn't kill you I'm sure you would go blind, I heard that somewhere about bad moonshine."

Not knowing what to do with the nasty mess we decided to just dump it in the ditch between our house and the neighbors. It reeked, so I got the hose and watered it down but that didn't help much, the water just spread it out and it still reeked. For a month after dumping the concoction the smell only seemed to get worse, especially when the sun was on it. My mother would come home from work and always complained about the smell coming from the neighbors house. As with everything else in my life, I would just shrug my shoulders and pretend I had no idea what it was, I never told my mother about any of my shenanigans until years later.

After wasting two weeks and five bucks, Danny and I were still determined to acquire some alcohol. A short distance from Danny's house was an old run down two story house. The wood exterior was almost bare as it hadn't seen paint for several decades. An old man and his adult son shared the dwelling, the old man, Peanuts, the only name we knew him by, and his mildly retarded and illiterate son Ray. Peanuts lived on the second floor and Ray had one small room on the first floor. The rest of the interior was just a shambles of broken glass and dust, anyone coming to the front door would surmise no one had lived there for thirty years. There was no electricity, although they did have running water.

Ray's little room was stuffed full of comic books, and even though Ray couldn't read, he would just study the pictures and make up the story from page to page. He would on occasion get a part time job doing manual labor, and as soon as he got a paycheck he would go on a drunken spree until he was broke again.

Peanuts seemed to be a normal person, that is if a normal person could live like he and Ray did, he would often tell stories and we didn't dare interrupt him. His favorite stories were about the 'Great Depression', or as he called it; "The evil times of money." He would tell the same stories almost word for word, he was definitely living in the past and enjoyed anyone that would listen to him.

Danny and I approached Ray and asked him if he would buy us some beer. He kind of looked at us as if he understood he wasn't supposed to, but he then said;

"What's in it for me?"

Then we knew we were in business, Ray was going to get us some of the evil brew. Danny said;

"If you buy us a case of beer, we will give you enough money so you can buy yourself a case of beer also."

Ray thought about it for only a couple seconds and said;

"Deal."

We gave Ray twenty bucks and he grabbed it with great enthusiasm and a big smile on his face as he took off across the railroad tracks towards the store. Danny and I were excited at the prospect of getting the brew and were already making plans to have a little party at the ponds.

An hour went by and then another hour and Danny and I started to think we had been very stupid giving Ray twenty bucks, it was only a ten minute walk to the store from Ray's place. We decided he was probably at the Corner Club getting plastered at our expense. Just when we had almost given up hope of seeing anything for our money, Ray came swaggering back across the railroad tracks carrying two cases of beer, no not just beer, but rather Colt 45 malt liquor, what we considered 'super beer'.

Danny and I were elated, almost like a couple of little kids that had just gotten ice cream. We grabbed our booty and wrapped it in a couple of paper grocery bags and took off on our bikes to the ponds. We were planning on having our party in two days on Saturday and decided we should bury our booty in the sand until then. But before we did bury it, we decided we should have one beer for the road. Even though the beer was warm, it still was very good and we rode off anticipating our weekend adventure.

Saturday finally arrived and myself, Danny and Craig took off for the ponds about 7 PM. Danny had told his parents he was tired and was going to bed early. He subsequently snuck out of the house by climbing out his bedroom window.

We built a little camp fire and proceeded to dig up our booty, which was surprisingly cold. We all started indulging in the immaculate malt liquor and by 8 PM we were all pretty well drunk and acting like a band of drunken idiots. At one point Danny broke into a dance of sorts jumping around the campfire like a crazed beast hollering some sort of a chant. He eventually lost his balance and fell backwards onto the hot coals of the little fire. He came up yelping and promptly jumped into the cool water of the pond to wet his behind. We all had a good laugh about it, and Danny dared me and Craig to jump into the fire, which even though we were drunk we knew better of it and we declined.

It was a very dark night with no moon and for some reason we decided to walk around the gravel pit area that was maybe 20 acres in size with 6 or 7 large piles of gravel. All of a sudden the front end loader that was about 600 feet away came to life and its lights came on. The operator of the gravel pit had driven into the area without us knowing it and was going to load a truck.

We scattered and ran blindly away from the sudden action taking place. I remembered there was a pile of gravel in the direction I was headed, but with it being so dark I could not see a thing. As I kept running I began to lift my legs higher and higher with each step expecting to start up the side of the pile at any step. Finally between the alcohol and lifting my legs so high I came falling down and slid into the gravel pile with the left side of my face. Boy did that hurt, even the alcohol couldn't stop the pain.

After a while I made it across the freeway and not seeing Danny or Craig I just headed home. I arrived at the house about 11:30 and was surprised to see my mother home from work already. She said;

"LaVall, what did you do to your face?"

I looked in the mirror in the front room and saw the whole side of my face was a large scab already with chunks of rock stuck to it. I just told my mother I had fallen down, no big deal I said. My mother then said;

"Well I called Danny's parents a little while ago and asked to talk to you, and Danny's dad said you weren't there, that Danny was in bed. I told him he had been at our house and you had left with Danny. He said hold on for a minute and when he returned he said you're right, Danny isn't here either, I'll send LaVall home if he shows up here. So where have you been?"

"We were just out dinking around." I lied.

My mother gave me that 'look' that I always got when she knew I was lying, but she said nothing else except;

"Well go clean your face off and go to bed."

Danny rode his little brother's stingray bicycle all the way except the last half block to his house, and then carried it so his parents wouldn't hear him coming on the gravel road. He carefully put the bike down by the back door and went up the steps. He gingerly turned the door handle and opened the door to find his father standing there. His dad didn't say a word but rather punched Danny square in the jaw, knocking him off the steps to the ground. Danny was grounded for two weeks after that, and since then he always blamed my mother for getting his chops busted.

One other occasion a bunch of us decided to rent a motel room at the, Bear Creek Motel, and have a party there. I remember thinking they would never rent a room to a teenager, but it seemed all they could see was the money. There must have been ten or twelve of us in this little motel room having the time of our lives. We were in the middle of a row of rooms and I'm sure the people next to us were freaking out at all the noise we were making.

After a few hours of complete mayhem, some, including myself, were getting very drunk. One of the older heavy set boys, Tony, fell backwards and went through the front window of the room, crashing onto the sidewalk in a thunderous crash. Almost as soon as he had hit the cement the manager of the motel was there hollering;

"I'm calling the police! Somebody is going to pay for that window."

We all scattered in different directions into the dark, almost knocking the motel manager to the ground as he made a halfhearted effort at grabbing someone. The bunch of us had come in three different cars, but somehow all were gone before I could get in one and I found myself alone on South Pacific Highway, just wanting to put some distance between myself and the irate motel manager.

Nothing left to do but start walking I thought, so I headed north towards Central Point. After I had gone about a half mile I heard someone call my name and I looked across the street to see Craig, who had also been left behind. We had a little laugh about Tony going through the window and then pretty much walked in silence the six miles back to Central Point.

Arriving at the back of my house, I saw the lights were on inside and was thinking; 'Oh my god, mother is home.' Craig pealed off and went towards his house and I reluctantly opened the back door to find my aunt Lois, uncle Thole and grandmother had made a surprise visit from Coos Bay. I knew I reeked of alcohol and I was trying to keep my distance from them, but my aunt immediately came over to give me a hug. She then stepped back at arms length with an eyebrow raised, giving me the 'look' and in a sly voice said;

"LaVall."

I immediately knew she knew, but she said nothing else. Then my grandmother came over, but between the heavy odor of cigarettes and lilac powder or perfume emanating from her, her smell easily drowned out the smell of alcohol on me, so I kind of stayed close to her until I finally said good night and went to bed.

The last year and a half of high school I had lost interest in attending. I had started hanging out more and more with my older stock car racing friends and school was at the bottom of my list of priorities. School had always been something you were supposed to do as a child and now it just seemed to be a burden, not fitting in with my life.

About the middle of my Junior year I started missing one or two days a week and slowly progressed to missing two or three days a week. I never took a book home, but found I could get enough out of a couple days a week at school to get a passing grade. I was always surprised my mother would write me a note for missing the previous day of school;

'Please excuse LaVall from school yesterday as he was sick.'

She could have just mimeographed the notes because it always said the same thing. Sometimes if the weather was nice, I would go over to the ponds and fish instead of going to school. I was glad I didn't one morning as I was still in bed about 9 AM when there was a knock at the door. I got up and put on my pants and opened the door. Standing there was a city cop and my heart jumped up into my throat as I wondered why he was there asking for me and he said;

"LaVall, why aren't you in school?"

"Sick." I lied.

He just looked at me for a minute and then said;

"Sick huh? OK."

He then turned and left, I thought why would they send the cops to see if I was home or not, it didn't make any sense to me. In my Senior year I was called out of class one of the few day's that I did attend and told to report to the vice principals office. I was wondering what I had done now and I was a little nervous when I entered his office.

"LaVall you are missing a lot of school, you have missed thirty two days this semester, what's up?"

"I've just been sick." I lied as usual.

"I just cant believe you are sick this often, looking at your grades you are passing, but try to get to school more often."

"OK." I said and then left his office thinking I would make a little more of an effort to come to school the rest of my Senior year, and I did, missing only an occasional day or two.

Graduation is finally here and I can't wait to get away from the mundane routine of going to school and finally being free. Then reality hits me, I'm going to be drafted into the military now. I was sure after hearing all of Don's stories about the Army that I would do all I could to not go in the Army, maybe the Navy or the Air Force I rationalized.

Chapter 4: We Own You

Over the last year and a half I had put on about forty pounds, all the way to 196 pounds. And on my small stature of 5' 7'', I was heavier than I had ever been. After hearing all the stories of how hard basic training was, I decided I needed to lose some weight before going in the service. I spent the entire Summer working at Ben's auto wrecking yard doing manual labor, for free. Ben was part of the racing crowd I hung out with and where I had gotten my car and he had no problem accepting my free labor.

I tore car fenders off, removed wheels from vehicles and broke down the tires, doing this without the benefit of any tools except a couple of tire irons and a hammer. By the end of August I had lost forty pounds and was back to where I was used to being at 156. I figured I was ready for the service now, and the first of September I went into Medford to the shopping center where the recruiters offices were. As I walked past the Marine recruiter I looked inside and I saw a bull dog of a man wearing a uniform that was so starched up I'm sure he could not walk, let alone sit down. I then entered the Air Force recruiters office and the middle aged man that met me was very pleasant.

After giving him a copy of my birth certificate and high school diploma, he had me take a written test, what he called a placement test. I was a little surprised, I thought I was all done with taking test after high school. After I had finished he said; 'We will be in touch', as he reached out and shook my hand. That was the first time a grown man had wanted to shake my hand and I suddenly felt grown up.

Two weeks later I received a letter from the recruiters office stating I had been accepted into the Air Force and I was given a greyhound bus ticket to Portland Oregon on the 18th of September. I also was told to report to the YMCA where I would spend the night. So now my journey was beginning, how bad can it be I thought, the Air Force sure beats being drafted into the Army.

The 18th of September arrived and I was up at 5 AM packing my suitcase with half a dozen pairs of pants, shirts, underwear and toiletries. I hadn't really noticed before, but all of my underpants had holes or were torn somewhere, and my socks weren't much better. Oh well I thought, nobody can see my ragged underwear anyway.

My mother was still in bed as I prepared to leave with my sister in her VW bug to the bus depot. I went into her room and told her I was leaving, she had worked the night before and wasn't ready to get up yet, as she got very little sleep as it was. She rolled over and half awake she said;

"OK LaVall, write when you can."

That was it, my send off was a matter of just rolling over in bed and telling me to write. I was thinking; 'You know I'm leaving for the military, not just going across town.' I guess she was ready to get me out of the house and I probably couldn't blame her for wanting me out, I wasn't there half the time anyway.

Yvonne went in with me at the bus station and the bus pulled into the depot about 5 minutes later. I grabbed my bag and said goodby to my sister as she turned and left the bus station. It seemed no one was too excited about my leaving on this adventure, but it was rather something they just acknowledged as an everyday event. So off I went with no fanfare as the bus headed towards Portland.

It seemed the bus stopped at every little hole in the wall to Portland and the trip took about 7 hours, arriving in Portland at 3:30 that afternoon. I was wondering how far I would have to walk to get to the YMCA, but as I went out the front door of the bus depot, the YMCA was almost next door to the Greyhound station. The man in the YMCA acknowledged my arrival with;

"What's your name?"

I told him and he made a check mark on a clipboard as he said;

"Your room is 415, dinner is between 5 and 7, breakfast is at 6 AM, we will give you a wake up call at 5, don't be late or you go without, at 7AM you go to the conference room." As he pointed towards a door at the far side of the room and handed me two slips of paper that said respectively, Breakfast voucher and Dinner Voucher

I took the elevator to the 4th floor and found my room. It was a very small room with a small bed and a dresser that had a Giddions bible in the top drawer. I didn't unload my suitcase but rather just put it on the well worn wooden chair in the corner of the room. I looked out the little window to the street below, the sun was already low in the sky and I was surprised to see how busy the street below was, not just traffic, but many people on the sidewalks, something you didn't see in Central Point.

Growing up in Central Point I had only ever seen one black person, a boy that played football for Klamath Falls high school that was in our conference, and here half of the people on the street were black. I didn't know anything about blacks, only what I had seen on TV during the race riots in the south and the marches and speeches of Martin Luther King. They had seemed the same as the white people I had grown up with, but they also seemed to speak a different language that at times I found hard to understand as to what they were saying.

I looked at my watch and it was 5:05 and I decided to go down for some dinner. It was a cafeteria looking room with the food line of steaming pots. I gave the dinner voucher to the woman at the cash register and got a tray and started through the line. I got what was called, Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes and gravy and corn. The Salisbury steak was actually a thin hamburger patty with onions and mushroom gravy. I scrapped the mushrooms (because I don't eat fungus) to the side and ate the rest. The mashed potatoes didn't taste right, like they were in actuality the freeze dried potatoes reconstituted, not very good. The corn also resembled the reconstituted freeze dried variety. I ate enough of the dinner to stave off the hunger in my belly, but I thought I would have to eat a large breakfast to make up for the less than good dinner, besides how can you screw up breakfast?

I didn't sleep much that night as I was wondering how the next day would go, trying to get comfortable in the hard lumpy bet and all the noise of the traffic on the street below didn't help either. I don't think I had barely closed my eyes and the phone was ringing, my wake up call. I made the trek down the hall to the 'community' bathroom for a shower that was occupied by three others at the time. I dressed and took my suitcase with me to the cafeteria for breakfast, planning on having a feast.

Wow, if I though dinner wasn't very good, breakfast consisted of powdered scrambled eggs, one each of leather bacon that was more like jerky and a little sausage that looked and tasted like something Kitty had left behind with no flavor, milk that I'm sure was reconstituted powdered milk and a piece of dry toast. I don't think I can live on this crap for 4 years I thought, if this is what military food is going to be like I'll starve to death.

The cafeteria soon cleared out as everyone went into the conference room and took a seat. Precisely at 7 AM two men came into the room, one wearing an Air Force uniform and the other wearing a Marine uniform, reminding me of the bulldog of a man in the over starched uniform in the recruiters office in Medford. We were told to form a line in front of the chairs and the oath was administered to us;

"Do you swear to uphold the constitution of the United States of America, do you swear to protect the peoples and land of the United States of America...." so on and so on.

We were instructed to state our name and swear to what we had been asked to repeat, upon which time the Air Force officer said;

"Congratulations, you are now the property of the United States government."

I was thinking; 'Property, what does that mean, property?' My thought was soon answered as the Officer said;

"All that you do and say is at the direction of the military now, we own you."

After he had said that, the Marine officer stepped forward and went down the line of young men and picked out twelve and said step forward as I point to you. The twelve stepped forward one after the other, one on either side of me as the officer said;

"You twelve are now Marines."

I was shocked, how can a person go to Portland being sworn in after being accepted into the Air Force and then told they were not Airmen, but rather Marines. Then the concept of 'property' entered my mind as I finally understood they could do with us what ever they wanted to, we were just property.

One of the twelve started to cry and the Marine officer immediately got right in his face, with his nose appearing to be pressing on his cheek.

"You shape up or I will kick your ass right here and now, you hear me you little baby. We'll make a man out of you or we will bury you, it's your choice, do you hear me?"

I was terrified for this young kid and felt sorry for him, but in reality I was just thankful it was him who was picked and not me, I didn't want to be a Marine trudging in the jungle of Vietnam, that was the whole idea behind my going into the Air Force in the first place.

We were then all given our orders as our names were called out and then 'marched' outside where a blue military bus was awaiting us. We were driven to Portland International Airport and boarded an airplane for San Francisco. At San Francisco we were split up as the twelve new Marines went to a different boarding area and the rest of us boarded an airplane for San Antonio Texas and Lackland Air Force base to begin our basic training.

We arrived in San Antonio about 11 PM and were put on another of the blue buses and drove for a little while and taken to the base intake center. We were ushered into a large open room and given the speech welcoming us to Lackland. We were then taken to the chow hall and given a meal that was much better than anything I had eaten in Portland, either that or I was just so hungry by now that anything would have tasted good. Forty minutes later we were lined up and were assigned dorm numbers and subsequently got back on the blue bus and deposited at another building and went through a line getting five sets of fatigues, one set of dress blues, one pair of boots, one pair dress shoes, one hat, five t-shirts, five pairs of boxer shorts and toiletries which consisted of two bars of soap, one toothbrush, toothpaste and a small pack of tissues. We were then hustled back onto the blue bus and deposited at another building where we got our 'military' hair cut. One of the barbers had a sarcastic sense of humor as he would ask each;

"How would you like it?"

As the recruit started to say something like; 'Just a little off the top', the barber would buzz all the hair off in a matter of seconds. One guy who had long hair actually started crying when his head was buzzed and the barber just laughed his ass off. We were then loaded back on the bus and deposited one after the other at different barracks.

When we entered our barracks we were lined up and told to put our clothes away in the small locker/closets behind our beds. We were told we had twenty minutes to do this and take a shower and then the lights would be turned out. I could hardly wait for the lights to go out, I hadn't slept in two days and I was dead tired, it was 3AM when the lights were turned off.

This was the first time I had been with so many in a single room, and I found it difficult if not impossible to get to sleep with all the snorts, farts and noise in the room. After almost begging myself to go to sleep, suddenly light was illuminating the inside of my eyelids and a shrill whistle was ripping through my ears. It was 5AM and the drill instructor was rousting us out of bed for a day of 'instruction'.

The drill instructor ordered us to come to attention at the foot of our beds. He then went to one boy and told him to open his locker, which he did after fumbling with the key for the padlock. The instructor looked inside and shook his head. He then pulled everything off the coat rack and dumped the drawer's contents on the floor. He then went to the next and did the same thing, he repeated this action until he had dumped everyone's clothes on the floor.

"I'm going to show you once how to put your cloths away, only once and then you will have fifteen minutes to do the same. You don't have your mama here to do it for you, I'm your mama now and I don't do anything for you."

He meticulously folded the socks, t-shirts and boxers as he placed each in a specific position in the drawer. He then hung the fatigues and the dress uniform on the hangers, spaced two fingers apart. He stepped back when he was finished and said;

"Fifteen minutes girls, and put all of your civilian clothes and dress blues in your duffel bag so we can get them cleaned."

After fifteen minutes he ordered us to attention at the foot of our beds and the routine of looking and dumping started again as he proclaimed;

"Are you an idiot, did you actually go to a school of instruction, did your mother do everything for you, you little idiot?"

"Sir, no Sir."

We did this same routine maybe seven times until everyone's lockers were deemed acceptable to the DI. Finally we were told to get dressed. Boxer shorts, white t-shirt, fatigue shirt, fatigue pants, blue belt, white socks, boots and fatigue cap in our back pocket. Then we were inspected to see that all had the shirts tucked in just so, the cap folded just so, the boots laced just so.

9 AM we were told to form a double line in the front of the barracks and then double-timed to the mess hall. We went through the line in the mess hall and we all set at adjoining tables. We were instructed to sit at attention and not allowed to eat until all were seated, and then only given fifteen minutes to eat, because;

"You girls wasted my morning loading your lockers, you waist my time I take your time."

After a double time march back to the barracks we were all assigned jobs in the barracks. My assigned job was 'floor sweeper/duster'. After one hour of cleaning, the DI put on white gloves and proceeded to check every little nook and cranny in the barracks. When ever he found any sign of dirt or dust he asked; 'Who cleaned this spot?' The person would step forward saying;

"Sir, I did Sir."

"Well because of your screw up, everyone else will have to pay the price."

We would then all be ordered to do twenty five pushups and re-clean the spot he had missed. This inspection/discipline went on for several hours until it was 1:30 in the afternoon.

"Well you did it to me again, you have wasted my time, form up outside and we have thirty minutes to go to the mess hall, eat and get back here."

After lunch we didn't go strait back to the barracks, but rather to the drill field where we were instructed on how to 'properly' form up and march in circles. This is all starting to seem silly to me, what does all of this have to do with being in the military, we are not learning how to survive in war. Sometimes the DI would just have us stand at attention for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. I thought; 'Why do we have to double time everywhere, just to stand and do nothing, what's the big rush?'

Another thing that bothered me was these boxer shorts. They would climb up your ass and pinch off the life in your balls, I was sure that a woman must have designed these things as no man would ever design this monstrosity, they were pure torture. I would give anything to get my tighty-whities back, holes and all or just go bare butt, but I knew anyone who dared do this would be at the mercy and ridicule of the other troops, and I couldn't imagine what the DI would do to you, make you march around naked or something stupid like that I thought.

We went through this same routine for two weeks and it was not only getting old, but I wanted out of here, I was not enjoying military life, IE being told when to stand, sit, walk, eat etc. and I couldn't see myself going through this for four years. I understood now why Don had gone AWOL so many times, his actions now seemed rational to me, especially when I got my ass chewed out.

At the start of the third week of basic one evening when we were cleaning the barracks, I had to go to the bathroom, now! It seemed the 'chicken surprise' did not like being in me and it wanted out immediately. I went to the door to the latrine and the 'latrine queen' told me it was off limits until it was inspected. I told him I couldn't wait, that I needed to go now! I pushed past him and used one of the toilets with great relief.

The next morning I was summoned to our DI's office on the second floor, and after seeing and hearing of some others disciplined for minor infractions, I wasn't sure why I was summoned but I knew it wasn't good to be called into the office of the dictator. I knocked on the door twice announcing my name, as we were instructed to do, and was told to enter. The DI was seated and the 'latrine queen' was standing at attention to the side of the DI's desk. When I saw the latrine queen I knew why I was there, the little punk had ratted me out for using the toilet, I just glared at the little weasel and then focused my attention on the DI.

"I understand you used my facilities when they were off limits. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Sir, I couldn't hold it Sir, I had to go Sir."

"Well that is unacceptable, your not a little baby that poops whenever he wants to, do I need to get you some diapers, do I need to wipe your butt for you? You like the latrine so much, you are now the new latrine queen, you like it in there so much you can now spend your evenings in there cleaning it up, and it had better be clean or you will be sleeping in there also. Do you understand me Airman?"

"Sir, Yes Sir."

"Dismissed Airman."

I was not used to being chewed out by anyone, and as I left the office I had a tear in my eye and was furious at the little wimp who had turned me in for this punishment. I glared at him as I was leaving the office thinking I was going to smack him but good when I got the chance. The DI saw me looking at the little weasel and said;

"If you so much as touch Airman so and so you will find your butt in CC."

I now understood why they had taken all of our civilian clothes the first day of basic, because if I had my clothes I would have been out of there. I knew I wouldn't get past the front gate in fatigues, they had us trapped, little more than prison I thought, and the words of the Officer who had sworn me in came back to me;

"You are now the property of the United States Government, we own you."

I was thinking; 'This must be what it is like to be a slave, no rights, no respect, just being ordered around at another's whims'. I started to understand the race riots I had seen on TV, that no one should have to live this way. I was not only homesick, but for the first time in my life I had an understanding and appreciation of the hard work my mother had done just to feed and house myself and my siblings, she sacrificed much for her children without the benefit of or help from my father.

After a week and a half in the latrine, I actually found I liked working in the latrine better than chasing a particle of dust around in the barracks, and besides I could use the latrine anytime I wanted to now. The urge to split from basic subsided about the start of the forth week, and I knew it had to get better after basic as I had seen others wandering around the base with no supervision, wearing their civilian clothes, not having to march everywhere they went.

KP, was something none of us were looking forward to after all of the horror stories we had heard from members of other squadrons that had already done their KP duty, but the time came in our forth week of basic for KP. We were assigned to KP for three days and the first day my job was replenishing the milk containers in the dispensers. The second day I was assigned to replacing steamer trays when the food got low, and the third day I pealed potatoes and onions. All in all, I didn't think KP was bad at all, I had been the head cook at home for five years before my military service began, and it was only different by the quantity of work that had to be done. Of course I did see the ones who were assigned to 'pot and pans' were working their butts off. They had to wear these rubber bib overalls, and whenever I saw them, they were sweating like pigs.

Probably the best part of basic was the obstacle coarse and the 'gas chamber'. Our squadron had such a good time on the coarse we asked if we could go through it again. We did learn we had to help our fellow Airmen as our squadron was scored on all completing the coarse, not as individuals. This was just another example of teaching teamwork to us, that we were no better as a squadron then the weakest link.

Another fun part was at the rifle range, something I was well familiar with. You had to get a perfect score to be classed as an expert marksman and I only scored 59 out of 60, one short of expert. I was sure the Airman that had counted the holes in my target had miscounted, but there was no recourse.

Week six and we have two days till graduation when I am called once again to the DI's office. I wasn't looking forward to it after my last experience there.

"Airman McIvor, I must say my latrine has never been as clean as it has been the last three weeks. You can give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done."

I was flabbergasted and felt proud, I had never heard the DI compliment anyone during basic training. I never thought though my first 'pat on the back' would be for cleaning toilets.

The DI did congratulate all of us for making it through basic on graduation day. We actually lost three recruits during basic, one left when his mother dyed and two others were deemed 'unsuitable' for military service, I don't know what happened to them, I figured they were discharged as Don had been. I was surprised by how nice and cordial the DI was now, he spoke to us as if we were real people, like you talk to a friend. It was only then I figured out basic training was not about learning anything about military tactics, but rather to 'break your spirit' and get you to follow instructions and orders without hesitating, just to be reactive no matter what you were told to do, working as a unit instead of as individuals. I thought it would have been much easier if they had just told us that up front.

We were given our civilian clothes and our dress blues to wear at the graduation ceremony, and then everyone was given their orders stating when and where they were to report to for technical training. My orders said; Aircraft Avionics Technician, Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois; DELAYED. I'm looking at the orders and I don't have any idea what DELAYED means. I went to the DI and asked him what this meant. He said; 'Oh, you are an alternate for another tech school if someone washes out.'

"What is that?" I asked "And where do I go in the meantime?"

"It says here you are an alternate for 'nuclear weapons technician'. You are to report today to the standby barracks."

I got my duffel bag and trudged over to the assigned barracks. I was thinking while walking there; 'nuclear weapons technician', I don't want to be working on nukes, but maybe I look like I'm expendable; 'Oh yes that's right, McIvor is glowing, no big deal, we can get another flunky to do his job.' I sure hope no one washes out.

I check in with the barracks sergeant and I am assigned a bed and locker. I soon discover I am also assigned barracks duty, cleaning floors. I am also told to report to Corrective Custody at 4 PM for duty there. CC, I've heard the horror stories about some that were sent there, I wonder if any of the stories are true, I guess I'll soon find out.

CC, the building looks like all the other barracks on base, a long two story building with only a few windows on the first floor, painted in the same flat white paint, indistinguishable from the surrounding buildings except for the one little sign in front; 'CORRECTIVE CUSTODY'. As I go to the door I am greeted with a steel grated outer door and a buzzer. I push the button and withing a couple seconds a buzzer sounds and I pull the door open and go in. I hear the distinct sound of a click as the door locks behind me.

I am greeted by a large man sporting more stripes on his shoulder than I could imagine anyone having.

"You're Airman McIvor?"

"Yes Sir, reporting for duty Sir."

Without another word spoken I am led into the barracks and up the stairs and find a desk and a floor to ceiling chain link fence with a single gate in the middle with rows of bunks beyond, there are maybe 35 beds beyond the fence.

"Your job is to sit here and monitor the prisoners, if someone needs to use the latrine you take them in one at a time, only one at a time, they will be back from chow soon. If there are any problems you come and get one of us downstairs. Got it?"

"Yes Sir."

The multi-striped sergeant then turns and leaves the room, leaving me to just sit and watch nothing. About 4:30 pm I hear a ruckus behind me as I jump to my feet. Soon a single line of 'prisoners' file into the room led by a sergeant who unlocks and opens the gated door. The smartly dressed detainees march into the fenced area one at a time and come to attention at the foot of their beds.

"OK ladies, get to work, and it had better be clean when you are done, you have thirty minutes."

"Sir yes Sir." echoed from the room as all responded in unison.

I just stood and watched as all the young men went to work cleaning what I perceived to already be a spotless room. Soon, one of the two drill instructors or jailers, or whatever you want to call them entered the cell and chastised one of the young recruits for not; 'Putting your back in it' while cleaning a garbage can.

"Get in it."

"What?"

"Don't you question me Airman, you address me as Sir. You understand? I said get in it, now!"

The young recruit reluctantly climbed into the galvanized garbage can as the Sergeant went over and forced the young man's head down into the garbage can with the lid, then he sat upon the can's lid proclaiming;

"I had better feel you working in there, or you will be sleeping in there tonight."

A banging noise came from the can as the recruit, who almost completely filled the can scrubbed the inside of the can with the piece of steel wool he was given. After maybe three minutes the Sergeant got off the can and removed the lid. The young man was gasping for air as the lid was removed, probably close to passing out from his ordeal.

I stood silent and was in a state of shock; 'How can a person do that to another human and then laugh about it? What kind of people are these to treat another like this?'

The torture of these individuals went on for another 45 minutes, at one point a young man was made to lay prone on the floor with a towel under each hand and another individual was directed to pick up his legs and run him around the floor as a human buffer. I just could not conceive how a person could treat another in this manor. These young men must be the scourge of the free world, committing such heinous crimes that this type of punishment and humiliation was appropriate I rationalized.

At 10 PM the lights were turned off and all went to bed. About fifteen minutes later I sat in the darkened room and one of the young men came to the gate saying he needed to use the latrine. I let him out and led him to the latrine.

"So what did you do to be in here?" I asked.

"I spilled my tray in the chow hall." was the reply.

"What?" I asked "That's it?"

"Yeah, my DI didn't like me from the get go, he was looking for any excuse to get rid of me, I told him it was an accident but he said; 'That was no accident, you need to learn your place boy.' So here I am, this is worse than going to prison in the real world, first chance I get I'm splitting."

I didn't say anything and I returned him to the cell. I found out over a period of a couple weeks that most all that were here were here because of very minor incidents, non of the vial persons I at first thought they were. I later figured this confinement was for the few who's 'spirit' the DI's had not been able to break, these were just men that would not bow to the humiliation of being treated like a dog for training. Not much different than myself the first three weeks of basic training.

Another six weeks have passed and I am finally leaving Lackland Air Force base and heading for tech school in Illinois. Apparently no one washed out of the nuclear program, to my relief, so I am going in the middle of Winter to the land of Lincoln. Chanute Air Force base is next to the small town of Rantoul, only about 50 miles from Chicago. Leaving San Antonio's warm weather to stepping into the frigid air in Illinois was a shock. The wind was blowing hard and the fresh snow was whipped into a blizzard. What a change I thought, going from sweating to freezing in a matter of a few hours on the airplane.

I was very surprised to see my quarters, it was a four story new brick building, quite a contrast to the old WWII type buildings of Lackland. There were about two hundred two man rooms and I found the change from barracks living to actually having a separate room with only sharing with one other to be a big improvement.

The chow hall was better than Lackland also, the food was not only better, but consisted of a larger variety. The base has a theater, a library and gym facility, and we soon learned we could order pizza for delivery to our dorms. Yeah, military life was getting better with each move, more freedom and allowed to actually have some time to your self, to do what you want to do, not just that of someone telling you when and where to be at all times.

Tech school at first seemed to be taught in Greek. I was thinking; 'I'm never going to understand this stuff; transponders, relays, synchronous instrumentation, gyroscopic horizon indicators, air data computers...., what the?' Did they get my placement test right, did I really belong here, let alone to be considered as a nuclear weapons technician, somebody must have screwed up, they got my placement test scores mixed up with somebody else, some really smart guy got my lousy scores by mistake and is now a janitor or a cook. I was thinking maybe I had done myself a great disservice in high school by missing so much class time. But about the third week of classes a miracle happened, it all just started to click into place and I actually understood what the instructor was saying. I understood how the instruments of the aircraft worked and from then on it was just learning the different systems on various aircraft.

Coming from the relatively mild climate of southern Oregon, I found the bitter cold of Illinois to be almost unbearable, but Winter soon turned to Springtime it seemed almost overnight. The cold was suddenly replaced with humidity that made breathing a chore. I came to the conclusion people only lived in this horrible climate because they didn't know any better. If any had ever traveled to the West coast they would never leave after experiencing the much improved climate and topography of the West.

If an Airman wore their uniform, they could take the train to Chicago for half fare, and the prospect of traveling by train was an interesting prospect as I had never been on a train. So one Saturday, myself and two others decided to take the train into Chicago and explore the city. The train ride was interesting as it was a much rougher ride than I had anticipated with the car swaying from side to side and the continual clickity clack of the steel wheels on the tracks. I did find it a new experience that was somewhat romantic as I thought about all the movies I had seen with trains, The Orient Express for example.

The train station in Chicago was huge with more tracks than I could count, a real hub of activity with eight or more trains in the station that again fascinated me as the only train I had ever seen before was the freight trains running through the Rogue Valley. We found we had to get on one of the elevated trains to get to the downtown area. A single fare of less than a dollar let one ride as long as one liked, and it was evident there were several who had been just riding around continually as a way of getting out of the cold, street people I thought, as each had their little carts or bundles of what seemed to be all of their possessions.

When we got off the ell, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of a war protest march. The streets were overflowing with several thousand people chanting stuff like; 'End the war now. Nixon and his military machine are killing innocent people. Get out of Vietnam now!'

I was suddenly very conscious of being in military uniform in a hostile crowd of protestors. We had a few people aim their chants at us and we decided very quickly to move away from what turned out to be one of the largest war protest marches in Chicago history. I was thinking; 'I'm not even going to get out of the country and this war is going to kill me, right here in Chicago.' We made our way a couple blocks away and were soon away from the demonstration.

It was still early in the day and we decided we would find a restaurant and have some breakfast. We found a little cafe along one of the side streets and went in and placed our orders. I noticed we had gotten a few discouraging looks from some of the patrons who were probably sympathetic to the protest march just a couple blocks away. We ate our meal without incident and when the waitress brought our bill an old man hurried over to our table and grabbed the ticket.

"I for one appreciate what you young men are doing for our country, I was in the 'Big One' and I am very proud of you for your service to our country. This meal is on me."

Before any of us could say a word the old man turned and walked away with our ticket. It seemed he did not want our thanks for his deed, but rather he was expressing his loyalty and appreciation to all the men and women of the armed services to all in the restaurant. I was not only surprised but thankful that a complete stranger would do this for us in such a hostile environment.

I found this gesture from this man to be a very isolated incident though, as most all I encountered in later times had the same mentality as the mob we had encountered in Chicago. The next time I went into Chicago I went in my civies, not wanting to have myself pointed out as being in the military. Thinking back on it now, I find it disturbing we had to hide the fact we were serving our country in the military.

Tech school was finally over and I received orders to go to Dover Air Force base in Delaware, so in late spring I packed up my belongings and boarded the flight east.

Chapter 5: Welcome To The Real World

Dover was a MAC airbase (military airlift command) with many large transport aircraft including; C133, C141 and after a couple months the C5 Galaxy, at the time the largest aircraft in the world. It was a big deal when the first C5 came to the base, it had been widely promoted to the public and the roads were full of stopped cars and pedestrians when it first came into view. I was shocked at the size of this monstrosity as it came into view, the design of the aircraft was similar to the C141, that is it had the high tail with a large stabilizer wing, but this thing was like the giant parent to the much smaller C141. I was thinking; 'How can this thing fly, it is so large it seems to defy physics, and it seems to be moving too slow to maintain its airworthiness.' Beyond the sheer size of this beast, the low growling noise of the engines almost sent a shiver down my spine. I can hardly wait to get up next to this thing and truly judge the size of it.

Actually getting to work on the aircraft I had been trained for was an achieving and rewarding moment for me, to be trusted to work on these multimillion dollar aircraft, and I wanted to do my best and not screw anything up. I was also somewhat surprised to see we had two civilians working in our shop, I had no idea the Air Force contracted with civilians to work on military bases.

I didn't have to wait long to explore the C5, I went with a Sergeant two days later to perform maintenance on the beast. The closer we got the more extreme the aircraft appeared to me, it seemed to be the size of a football field and the engines were like 9 feet tall. I was thinking it won't take much to get sucked into the throat of those engines, something that had been pounded into our heads to be aware of while around jet aircraft, that you could be blown away if behind the engines or sucked in if in front of the engines. As impressive as the aircraft was on the outside, the inside was even more so, like a vast cave, humongous.

A couple weeks after we had accumulated several of the C5's, I went out to work on one and was surprised by its contents. I thought these aircraft we had on our base were used only for transport of supplies and troops, but I soon learned they were also used for transporting the dead from Vietnam.

It seemed the entire cargo hold of the behemoth was filled to the ceiling with coffins of the fallen. No one had told me we were the mortuary for all military services, that all the dead came through Dover. Up until that time I had not really understood how many were dying in Vietnam, it was just a number with little meaning, something you heard on the news that didn't really compute, but to see so many coffins on just one aircraft was eye and mind opening, these were no longer just statistics but rather the actual bodies of the dead. I felt deep sorrow for the lost and their families, I wasn't in my little isolated world in Central Point any more, it seemed the world was now in my face and I was confronted with the reality of war.

Travis, an Airman that worked in the instrument shop with me and had come from Philadelphia asked me one Friday if I wanted to get out of town for a day or two as he was going home for the weekend. I said sure, I wanted to see more of the East, and was also interested in seeing Philly. We loaded up in his 1965 Chevy and took off after work. It didn't seem like a long drive to Philadelphia and we were pulling into the driveway at his parents house early in the evening. Travis introduced me to his parents and then led me to the garage to show off his 1962 Pontiac he had been working on since before he went into the Air Force. He said it was almost ready to go but he needed a starter for it.

"Come on, lets go get the starter." he said.

So we got back into his Chevy and off we went. I expected we were going to a parts store, but we were driving slowly on residential streets and I was thinking there can't be a parts store around here. Then Travis said;

"There's one."

I looked and sure enough we drove slowly past a 1962 Pontiac. Travis went to the end of the block and turned around and parked across from the Pontiac. He reached behind the seat and grabbed a couple wrenches and said;

"Wait here, I'll be back in a minute."

I watched as he went across to the Pontiac and crawled underneath the vehicle. I couldn't believe what he was doing, sure I was a delinquent growing up but I would never do anything like that, I don't equate heisting a pumpkin or a watermelon with stealing a part off someone's car, but I guess stealing is stealing no matter what it is. But this just seemed so personal, to violate a single person's possessions by theft, then when I thought about it, I had done the same thing by stealing the old farmer's melons, taking money out of his pocket. Maybe I was starting to gain a sense of morality as far as stealing was concerned and the harm that would be done to that person whose personal possession was stolen, I knew I would not like anything like that to happen to me, I guess it was a feeling of empathy that I had never contemplated before.

Within 5 minutes Travis emerged from under the vehicle and ran to the car carrying a starter, he threw it in the back floorboards and we took off. Travis gave me a big smile as he said;

"That's how we get parts here, I wish I could be here tomorrow morning to see the look on that saps face when his car won't start, ha ha."

I just shook my head, I couldn't believe anyone would do something like that. That was the last time I went anywhere with Travis, I figured it was just a matter of time before his luck ran out and I wanted to be nowhere around him when it did.

I soon after bought a 1963 ford Galaxy, a real boat of a car, the back seat was the size of a full sized bed. One weekend I decided I wanted to go see Washington DC. I learned most everything on the East Coast is close to everything else, not at all like the West where every place seemed to be a very long distance apart. The closer I got to Washington, the faster the traffic was moving until I looked at the speedometer and I was going almost 90 mph. I didn't dare slow down as I would have gotten run over.

Arriving in DC I was impressed with the Capital Building, the White House and the monuments. What I found to be a disgrace was the ghetto that was within eyesight of the Capital. There were shanty shacks built out of plywood and cardboard just a couple blocks from the front door of the Capital Building. I was wondering what foreign leaders must think of our country when they saw this mess, surely a country as great as ours could have a respectable, clean looking capital.

Dover turned out to be on the job training, not just on the aircraft, but also more book learning which took up most of my free time. I finally completed the testing and was awarded the next level of competency for aircraft avionics. About 6 months after arriving at Dover my new orders came down, I was to be assigned to; 'Nakom Phanom Royal Thai Air Force base' in Thailand. I didn't even know where Thailand was, again I wished I had devoted more time to high school, especially geography. I went over to the world map on the wall of the instrument shop and finally found Thailand and after much searching eventually found Nakom Phanom, right on the Mekong river next to Laos which is sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam.

My orders said I was to report to the military liaison at San Francisco international airport on the 22nd of November, after 30 days leave. Wow, 30 days leave, that's an eternity I thought, I'm ready for a long break. I figured I could drive across country in 3 or 4 days. My leave started on the 20th of October and I wasted little time getting out of town. I drove for two days strait, only stopping for gas and an occasional bite to eat.

Traveling through Wyoming it began to snow as I headed up the mountains and I slowed way down as the road became very slippery as I had almost bald tires and no tire chains. Vehicles whizzed past me on my trek up the mountain, some blasting their horns as they went by.

I finally reached the summit and was greeted by 8 or 9 vehicles that had flew past me, all crashed off the road in the ditch. Everyone looked OK as I slowly drove past them with a slight smile on my face thinking; 'Blast your horn at me will you.'

I finally got back to level ground and it was smooth sailing until my car quit running close to a small town. I ended up having the car towed into town to a small auto garage. The mechanic/owner said it would be a couple days before he could get it running as he wasn't sure if it was the fuel pump or the carburetor that had gone belly up. I asked him if there was a greyhound bus station there, and was told;

"No, Trailways comes through here about an hour from now though. Are you leaving?"

"Yes, I'm going to take the bus to Oregon but I'll come back next week for the car."

The man gave me a look and said;

"If I spend money fixing this and you don't come back in 30 days I'll sell it!"

"Don't worry." I said, "I'll be back. Give me your phone number so I can call and see if it's fixed before I come back."

The old guy gave me the phone number looking at me as if he would never see me again. I then walked to the bus stop and when the bus showed up I jumped on and paid the driver for my trip. I arrived in Medford about 5 PM after having to change buses in Roseburg. My sister came and picked me up in her VW bug and ferried me home.

It was a kind of blase welcome home, no one seemed too excited that I was back. I did a quick survey as I entered the house and noticed there had been some changes. There was new carpet in the living room and a new bigger TV, and a new refrigerator and I said;

"Wow, how come you got all of this new stuff?"

My mother said matter of factually;

"Well since I don't have to feed you, I have a lot more money now."

I was thinking; 'I know I didn't eat that much, they were just waiting for me to get out of the house to spruce things up.'

Two days later I called the mechanic to check on the condition of my car. I was sure the old guy would charge me a bundle and I was told it was a bad fuel pump and the repair cost was $55. I said OK, thinking that was a fair price. I asked my brother if he wanted to go with me to get the car and he jumped at the chance to go on a little adventure. We went to the Trailways depot and got a couple of one way bus tickets to BF Wyoming. I liked Trailways better than Greyhound anyway, they served sandwiches and soda on the trip.

The old mechanic looked very surprised when I walked into the shop, I'm sure he thought he would never see me again. I drove for about a hundred miles and the road was flat and straight with hardly any traffic. My brother had just gotten his drivers license and I was still needing to catch up on sleep so I told him he could drive and I was going to take a nap in the back seat.

I dozed off quickly and was having sweet dreams when I suddenly realized my dream had turned to being on an old washing machine, wobbling and thrashing to an unbalanced load. Why was this thing so out of balance, maybe I could turn it off and reload it, I thought. My eyes slowly opened and I was awake, but the thrashing continued, what is going on?

I sat up in the seat and the thrashing was still going on, it was the car.

"Stop the car." I yelled at Leo, "Whats going on?"

Leo pulled over to the side of the road and I got out of the car to see there was only about half the tire left on the right rear of the car.

"How come you kept driving on a flat tire?"

"I didn't know there was a flat tire, I thought it was just a rough road or maybe just how your car drove."

I just couldn't believe anyone would keep driving with such a racket and wobbling motion going on. We changed the tire and I decided I had better drive. Leo still couldn't understand why I was so pissed, he kept saying; 'I didn't know, I've only been driving for a couple weeks'. The rest of the trip home was uneventful and we made it back late that night.

Since it was October and deer hunting season, I decided I was going hunting. I went up on the back side of Roxy Ann, a little mountain overlooking the valley. Within two hours I jumped a four point buck and was soon on my way back to the house.

"You don't have to spend any money on me for food." I proclaimed in a sarcastic tone, "I brought my own food."

The 30 day leave went by very quickly and before I knew it I was on an airplane to San Francisco. I must have wandered around for thirty minutes, which was no picnic packing my overloaded duffel bag, trying to find the military liaisons office. Eventually I had all my paperwork and I boarded a Flying Tiger airliner. I have never heard of Flying Tiger, I think it must be a private company contracted to the military for transport, maybe a quasi-government outfit.

Chapter 6: Sweat Mosquitoes And Snakes

My assigned seat on the airplane had me sitting next to a Lieutenant Colonel by the name of Cork. I was a little nervous having to be next to a high ranking Officer for the long flight to Thailand, but after a little conversation he turned out to be quite pleasant and to my astonishment he was also going to be my new squadron commander.

The squadron housing consisted of 2 long screened buildings with two man rooms, a common shower with ten stalls and a small combination bar/rec room with a couple pool tables. Part of the orientation was all of the different types of snakes we could expect to encounter; the king cobra, that could spit poison up to ten feet, and the other snakes, the banded viper and the brown viper, both of which were referred to as 'two steppers' because their venom was so toxic you may only go a couple steps before collapsing.

That turned out to be vital information as one day I opened my closet and saw something brown move in the bottom of the closet. I slammed the door shut and called the squadron. They said to stay out and they would send someone over. In about ten minutes an Airman arrived and asked;

"You got the snake?"

"Yes." I replied

He went in and a couple minutes later emerged with the snake in a bag.

"You know a lot of foot soldiers in Nam are dying from these things. There is a small hole in the floor of your closet, that is how this thing got in there. I suggest you cover that hole.", he said.

I just looked at him not saying anything, but I was still apprehensive on going back in the room. I found some cardboard and stapled a double layer in the floor hoping that would keep the nasty critters out.

The aircraft we had were a mix of old and new but they were all new to me; IE C130 transports, AC119 gunships, A1 skyraiders, CH3 green giants, C24 gooneybirds, C123 transports and the QU22B which was the USAF's first active duty drone, a pilot-less Cessna.

Our squadron's primary mission was search and recovery of downed pilots. The A1's were Korean war era, single engine prop aircraft, similar to the Corsairs of WWII. We had four different models, E, G, H and J, some single seat and some two seats. They have a 16 cylinder engine that uses 4 quarts of oil just on start-up. The fuselage was heavy armor plating with a front windshield that is 6 inches thick to provide some form of protection from ground fire for the pilots. They were used for close air support to keep the enemy away from the downed crewmen while the CH3 helicopters swooped in and picked the crewmen up from the ground.

As with any slow flying aircraft at low altitudes, the A1's were subject to small arms fire and surface to air missiles. We lost so many A1's and their pilots I lost tract of the actual number, but it was considerable over the period of one year. In just a 24 hour period once, we lost three A1's and a CH3 with a crew of three.

There were several instances of horrible crashes at our base. One particular A1 pilot had a string of 'bad luck' over a period of just three weeks. Returning from a SORTI with substantial battle damage, he was forced to eject from the aircraft before reaching the base and was subsequently rescued by an accompanying CH3. It is not a fun trip out of an A1 when you have to eject, the pilot pulls an ejection handle which deploys the seat and pilot via rocket propulsion. Many who have had to eject end up with broken legs and arms as they subsequently hit a part of the cockpit or dashboard on deployment. Captain Porter was fortunate to eject cleanly without injury.

Three weeks after that incident, I was watching as a group of A1's were leaving on a mission, including Captain Porter who had only just cleared the end of the runway when he declared an inflight emergency;

"My oil pressure is fluctuating, I'm coming back in."

He circled around the base and lined up to land, only one problem, he forgot to lower the landing gear. The controller was screaming at him;

"Your gear isn't down, pull up, pull up!"

Too late, the first of the aircraft to hit the asphalt was the center-line fuel tank. There was the sudden puff of smoke as the seat with Captain Porter flew high in the air. The fuel tank broke lose from the craft and skidded down the runway with the now pilot-less aircraft in close pursuit. The tank burst into flames and was headed right at an Air Force police officer who was manning a guard post at the edge of the runway. The guard post was little more than a hole in the ground with sandbags around and over the small hole. The MP went one way and then the other, not knowing which way the tank would end up. He eventually decided his best chance to survive was to dive back into the bunker as the tank skidded past him spewing fire along the runway.

Meanwhile, the A1 slid sideways on the full load of eight 500 pound bombs that were hanging from the wings, down the runway eventually coming to a stop in flames about 500 feet from its first impact with the runway. Off in the distance I looked back to the point of impact and saw Captain Porter coming to the ground safely with the parachute deployed.

The first 500 pounder went off in a couple minutes, making me jump at the very noise and concussion from it, even though I was about 800 feet away. Then the 50 caliber shells from the wing guns started to go off, making us all scramble for some kind of cover. Between the bombs blowing up and the 50 cals flying all around us, the 'show' lasted for almost two hours. When it was all over, believe it or not the tail of the aircraft was still sitting there, but that was all of the aircraft that was left. We ended up with 100 feet of runway completely gone, leaving just a big deep hole.

After that incident, we all referred to now, Lieutenant Porter, as 'Aborter Porter'. A couple months later I had occasion to take a newly arrived airman out to the flight-line so he could go with one of the pilots on a test flight. This airman was familiar with our stories of Porter, and I almost started laughing when I drove up to the aircraft and saw it was Porter, who was now delegated to only fly test flights. He greeted the airman with his name and was giving some instruction on what to do and expect on the flight when he said;

"And don't worry if we have to punch out, it's no big deal, I've done it a couple of times!"

I had to almost push the young airman to the aircraft, he had a very sick look on his now completely white, pale face.

On another occasion, a F100 was inbound with battle damage, trailing smoke as it came into view. When the aircraft was about three hundred yards from the runway we saw the pilot punch out. The aircraft veered to the left, right towards a one hundred foot high guard tower that was manned by Thai National soldiers. The two occupants of the tower had no chance except to jump from the tower as the ill-fated F100 crashed right into it. I don't know if the two occupants of the tower were killed or not, as the communication between the Royal Thai Air Force was not relayed to us. The pilot of the F100 sustained minor injuries from his ejection.

One day I observed a CH3 trailing smoke as it was coming in for a landing. I went out to the aircraft and saw substantial damage to the rear of the aircraft, so much so that it was amazing it could have actually flown back to the base. After the fire crew and an ambulance had left, upon further examination I saw the remnants of brain matter and flesh in the rear of the craft. The helicopter had been hit with a surface to air missile in the tail end. The victim was the 22 year old crew chief, the sight and smell of burned flesh almost made me sick, but that would not be the last time I smelled burning flesh. I could only imagine the pain and sorrow the family of this young airman would feel when they were notified of his death.

This was a completely different feeling than losing a pilot, with the loss of a pilot you don't actually see them, they just don't come back, and in many instances their fate is unknown. But as in the case with the crew chief of the CH3, the actual remnants of his mutilated body was very evident and disturbing, it reminded me of the coffins I had seen in Dover.

One evening there were alarms on the outside perimeter to the base and we almost immediately launched the AC119 gunship. The gunship has a 80mm cannon, two Gatling guns, and a mini gun all mounted on the left side of the aircraft. Aiming is accomplished by use of a NOS (night observation scope) operated by a crew member, although the actual firing is done by the pilot. With all the extra equipment on this aircraft, it is barely able to accomplish liftoff and usually circles two or three times to gain altitude before leaving the area.

The AC119 labored down the runway with no lights and was soon out of view, although the sound of the aircraft was very evident from its growling engines. About 5 minutes after liftoff there was a sudden explosion as the gun's of the aircraft were fired just outside the north end of the runway. The sky lit up like the Forth of July with an accompanying burst of explosions as the rounds covered a quarter mile area every six inches with just a six second burst. The craft then came back in for a landing and the next morning the bodies of six infiltrators were found.

These gunships, whether it was the AC24, AC119, AC123 or AC130 were a most deadly weapon, and were feared by the enemy only secondly to the B52's. We had many infiltrations by insurgents while I was stationed there, one time our ammo depot was blown up.

There was a little place called "Monty's Ice Cream Parlor" in the village of Nakom Phanom that had an outside balcony that actually hung out over the Mekong river. The local beer, Shanghai, was served in frost covered glasses, I discovered you had to drink quickly because it just wouldn't go past the throat when it got warm, and the alcohol content would vary between 15 and 40 proof so you could get very drunk on just a few of the brew. We would sit there in the evening and watch the B52's carpet bomb the Ho Ci Min Trail in Laos right across from us. You are familiar with thunder, consider this thunder goes on for an hour straight with out a pause. I can only say it was like listening and seeing a herd of buffalo with brilliant lights on their hooves, just incomprehensable as to what you were watching and feeling and I could understand the terror this had on the enemy combatants, your whole world blowing up around you from an invisible enemy above.

For several months I was only one of two Airmen in the theater to work on the NOS, also known as starlight scopes. There were two different types of scopes, the large one with a picture tube three inches in diameter and the small one inch rifle scope. The larger scopes were the ones used on the gunships and also used for taking night movies in combat areas and over the Trail. One time a shipment of missiles went missing in Vietnam and a subsequent film revealed our missing missiles were now in the hands of the enemy, moving down the Trail in the cover of darkness. Even after all the bombing by the B52's, the Trail was quickly repaired by the VC. I was always amazed at their diligence and commitment to their cause.

The test equipment for the NOS was kept in the most secure room in the squadron, the cryptographic radio room. One advantage having access to the crypto room was I could hide out after a hangover from the previous night as very few had access to this room. Another 'cure' for a hangover was to go out to one of the A1's and turn the oxygen to 100%, it is a most miraculous cure in just a matter of a couple minutes.

I had a chance to always listen to the aircraft radio encrypted traffic which was at times very harrowing. The one incident that stands out was a recovery mission when we lost two A1's and a CH3 trying to recover a F4 pilot who had been shot down with a SAM. We lost three men in that one incident, but also managed to retrieve the downed F4 pilot, it was a heavy loss but our pilots always knew we would do all in our power to retrieve them if they went down. I truly believe our search and rescue pilots were the cream of the crop when it came to pilots, these guys would sacrifice themselves to save one of their comrades, it doesn't get more heroic than that.

Part of my job was training the operators of the NOS scopes for taking movies and gun alignment. On one occasion I was to go to another base to fly with a AC130 gunship crew to train the scope operator. I was all loaded up and on my way to the flight-line to take a gooneybird to Udapow when my squadron commander called on the radio and said to bring me back to the shop. I was disappointed at not going on the mission and had no idea why I had been called back. I later heard from the squadron office clerk that the Colonel had said it would cut him short if I left, not much of a reason I thought, although I did not miss the flight in the gooneybird, instead of an up and down motion while flying, this thing went side to side, a very uncomfortable feeling.

I was in a state of disbelief and shock the next day when I was told the AC130 I was supposed to have flown on was shot down over the Trail with seven fatalities, no survivors. The interdiction by my commander had saved me from being on that ill-fated aircraft. That was not the only time my commander watched out for me though.

One of our 'special' A1's went down over Laos one night and the Colonel asked for volunteers to go on a mission to retrieve some top secret parts from the aircraft before they fell into enemy hands. This particular A1 had an anti SAM laser in the blue room, the operator could take control of the heat seeking missiles and redirect them via ECM (electric counter measures) or detonate them prematurely, although I'm not sure as to how it actually worked. I volunteered and was told OK, but I had to turn in my military ID and dog tags as our government had denied we ever went into Laos, and if captured our government would disavow any knowledge of us. I was given an M16, a 45 caliber pistol and all the ammo I could carry. Once again I was right at the door to the helicopter, which was going to deposit myself and two others on the other side of the Mekong river in Laos, with about a ten mile hike from there to the downed A1 when the call came to the pilot of the CH3;

"Mission canceled, return to the shop."

Once again my mission was foiled. I was looking forward to a tromp through the very jungles I had watched the B52's carpet bomb. It had been decided after a reconnaissance flight by one of the QU22B's that the enemy were all around the downed aircraft waiting in ambush, so instead they sent in two F4's and destroyed the aircraft and its secret cargo.

The next time I had an opportunity to go on a mission came about three weeks later. One of our CH3's had transmission troubles and was forced down at Quang Tri, right on the DMZ (DE-Militarized Zone) between North and South Vietnam. The base was a Marine/Army station with a squadron of Cobra helicopter gunships and a very short runway for fixed wing aircraft. The STAL's (short take off and landing) were very suited for this base with them being about the size of a Cessna, but with very long wings and I had actually seen one take off in as short as twenty five feet as it was on the taxi way between runways and hit a headwind and lifted off, the pilot just kept on going from there. Most of the STAL's were flown by Air America (CIA) all over SE Asia, and were used mostly for intelligence gathering.

My trip to Quang Tri was to be in a C123K because we had to transport a replacement transmission if needed. The K model has two wing mounted jets in addition to the regular two prop engines for assistance in takeoff from a short runway and even though the pilots were not to use them while in flight, many pilots had confessed they used the axillary jets to quickly leave a hostile area with an increase of about 100 mph in speed. On part of our flight to Quang Tri we used the auxiliary jets when we went over the Trail. The transmission pretty much filled the fuselage of the C123 with just a small seating area in strap seats on the sides.

The flight was uneventful until we came in to land at Quang Tri. As we approached I saw there was a road to the left of the runway with buildings beyond that and smoke rising from the runway. We came down very steeply and upon touchdown the props were put in full reverse to slow the aircraft on the very short narrow runway. We bounced and twisted as I watched the transmission, which was strapped to the floor, rise up and shift to the side towards me, right up against my knees as the aircraft's engines were screaming as we were trying to slow. At one point I thought; 'Wow, this is how I'm going out, crushed by a helicopter transmission.' I looked out the small window by my head and saw I was looking almost straight ahead at the runway, that's a view you're not supposed to have from the side of the aircraft! The smoke I had seen when we were coming in was what was left of a C123 with two crashed helicopters and another aircraft that had been pushed off the side of the runway.

Finally we slowed and the aircraft abruptly swung straight to the runway with only about 50 feet of it left. Now I had flown with this pilot before, he was an older well experienced pilot of about 50 years old and I couldn't believe he had made such a horrendous landing. We taxied over to a secure area and the engines were shut off. The pilot came down the ladder from the cockpit followed by a boyish looking guy in a flight suit. The old pilot said;

"You should give Lieutenant so and so an 'atta boy', that was his first short runway landing, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

I just sat there in disbelief for a couple minutes, how could this trusted pilot have let that kid put my life in danger so he could make a short runway landing. The thoughts of Leon driving that piece of crap car with the steering wheel in his hands flashed through my mind. I was thinking; 'Yeah, I'll give you an atta boy alright, right in the mouth that is.' I finally composed myself and was thinking maybe the old pilot was right about walking away from the landing, especially when I thought about the crashed airplanes and helicopters still smoldering along the runway.

I got my gear and was taken to a barracks adjacent to the flight-line that was similar to those from basic training. I later found out this barracks was the VIP quarters as most of the Marine's quarters were military tents.

It was getting dark and I went to the mess hall to get some dinner. The mess-hall was one of the prefabricated buildings with no flooring that looked like it could be taken down and moved very easily. At the doorway was a young Vietnamese boy with two small cages with mongooses in them and a little cardboard sign that said; '2 $'. After my experience with the brown viper in my closet I thought that would be a good investment, especially if I was here living in a tent.

The food in this primitive mess was the best food I had during my entire active duty enlistment. Australian steaks, lobster, all the side dishes you could think off and the most elaborate desserts you could imagine. I guess the military thought if we are sending these guys out in harms way every day we need to keep them happy and feed them well, the mess-hall was open 24/7.

I couldn't help but notice two Marines had followed me from the barracks into the mess hall and then sitting behind me. When I got up to leave, these two guys also got up and followed me outside. I turned and said;

"Are you following me?"

"Yes." one of them said, "It's our assignment."

"Your assignment?" I asked in disbelief.

"We are your body guards."

"What? Why do I need a body guard?"

"Don't know, we only follow orders." was the reply.

I was trying to figure out in my mind why these guys were assigned to me, must be some kind of mistake or mix-up I thought.

The next morning I gathered up my M16 and tools and went out to the helicopter to start checking the instruments to see if they were reading correctly or if the transmission was actually bad, still followed closely by my two 'body guards' that were directly behind me. After an application of power and check of the instrument and transmitter, I determined the transmission was bad and needed to be changed. The crew chief for the CH3 called for a crane so we could get it changed out, but he was told no crane was available for three days. So I gathered up my stuff and went back to the barracks.

The third day I was just killing time listening to the constant barrage of mortars and explosions when I heard a bunch of shooting very close by the barracks. I cautiously went outside around the corner and saw the old woman who had just been in the barracks making beds was lying on the ground shot dead with a satchel lying next to her. The satchel turned out to be full of explosives and she had been running towards the C123 that I had come in on. I knew that sometimes the enemy was the last person you would expect, but I just couldn't imagine this old woman who was just inside close to me dying like that. I have never been able to understand the motivation or logic of a person to basically commit suicide to harm others.

The forth day came and no crane so I went back to the barracks and was given a note saying to call my squadron. I went to the communications center and put in a call to my squadron's office. The clerk said;

"Colonel Cork asked me to see if you are alright, the mission was only supposed to be a three day trip."

"I'm fine. We are waiting for a crane." I said.

"OK, I'll let the Colonel know."

"Hey, before you go, do you know anything about me having body guards?"

"Yeah, the Colonel requested you have an escort while you are there."

"OK, thanks, that explains it." as I shook my head in disbelief.

The eighth day the crane finally arrived and the transmission was changed out. Upon completion I was on the top of the helicopter hooking up the temp sensor to the transmission when I heard a racket coming from my left. I looked over and saw two troop trucks coming down the highway in the middle of the base and a bunch of guys shooting from the vehicles. Then they started jumping off the trucks and there was a lot more shooting as I heard a bullet hit the top of the helicopter close to my foot. I didn't bother wasting the time to climb the ten feet to the PSP (corrugated steel flight-line), instead I jumped off and landed with my right foot in one of the indentations, spraining it.

I had thrown my M16 in the back of the helicopter, so instead of crawling back to get it I just grabbed the M60 window mount machine gun and got down on the PSP with it. I could see a lot of people running around and shooting, but I couldn't tell if it was the bad guys or our guys so I didn't fire. After several minutes the firing stopped and then I was thinking; 'Where are my body guards?'

I looked to my right and saw their two faces poking out of a sandbag bunker about 50 yards away, they finally came out and headed towards me.

"Where did you guys go, I thought you were my body guards?"

"Well, you had the big gun!" one of them said matter of factually.

I just shook my head and turned and limped away on my sprained ankle. As I was walking I felt a burning sensation on my belly and raised my shirt to see red stripes across my torso. The PSP was so hot it had given me burns similar to a severe sunburn.

I had occasion to talk to one of the pilots of the Cobra gunships, he said he had been drafted right out of high school and after six months training he was commissioned as a Warrant Officer and had been in country for four months. He told me, to my astonishment, there were only 12 out of the original 20 Cobra's left in his squadron with only two survivors from the downed craft, one pilot and one gunner. He explained there was no way out of the copters if they were going down and they just went down with it. To me it seemed these guys were hoping against all odds they would survive, but the deck was stacked against them. Even though this Warrant Officer was only a year older than me, he had the face of a very old man.

The next day we had to give the new transmission an ops test, IE load the chopper and hover to see if it overheated. A bunch of us got inside and were hovering about 100 feet off the ground and I noticed a small hole in the side of the aircraft, I was thinking; 'Was that hole already there', then another hole appeared right in front of me as I was looking at the first one and I finally realized we were being shot at and I hollered at the pilot to put us down. He couldn't hear me so I gestured shooting and frantically motioned down and he got the point and sat us back down on the ground. Upon inspection we found six bullet holes, we were just a sitting duck for a sniper off in the jungle from the base.

I was given the opportunity to fly back in the CH3 the next day, or take the C123 the following day, I opted for the C123 after my experience in the CH3. About 6PM the next day I received another urgent message to contact my squadron.

"Whats up?" I asked.

"The Colonel wanted to know what happened to you, you weren't on the chopper this afternoon."

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just decided to fly back on the 123 tomorrow."

"OK, I'll let the Colonel know, see you tomorrow."

I'm thinking this guy is worse than my mother. I only say that because a month earlier I was told;

"Write a letter to your mother today, that's an order Sergeant!"

It seemed I had neglected writing for a couple months and somehow my mother contacted the right people and was inquiring of my well being. I couldn't help but remember she couldn't get me out of the house fast enough, and now she is embarrassing me half way around the world, oh well, mothers I thought.

I arrived back at Nakom Phanom about noon the next day and was told the CH3 had twenty two hits from small arms fire coming back across the Trail yesterday. No one was hurt, but my logic was that I would have probably occupied that particular space where a bullet went through, well you never know, that could have been the case.

I was walking in the hallway towards the instrument shop and was greeted by Colonel Cork;

"Got a little hairy over there huh? That three day trip turned into ten days, I wasn't sure you were coming back."

"We had to wait on a crane and it wasn't too bad there. I couldn't believe what the jungle looked like where we have sprayed. It was just this baron dirt with these twisted branches, looked like some picture of what Hell must look like, unbelievable."

"Yeah that agent orange is some nasty stuff, well good to have you back McIvor." as he gave me a pat on the back.

"Thank you Sir, good to be back."

I didn't say anything about the 'body guards' or his 'mothering', I didn't want to embarrass him or more importantly, myself. Speaking of embarrassment, I was nominated by Colonel Cork as our squadron's Airman of the year and subsequently base Airman of the year and finally Theater Air Force Airman of the year. The last thing I wanted was to be singled out for anything, I just wanted to do my job and stay under the radar. It was a relief when I did not get the latter reward, I didn't feel deserving of any special recognition as there were many others more deserving. I did receive the Air Force Commendation Medal for; 'meritorious service beyond and above the call of duty', at the recommendation of Colonel Cork though.

When you stay busy time seems to fly, and working a minimum of 12 hours a day, my one year tour of duty in SE Asia was over before I knew it. I had received two promotions, first to Sergeant and then to Staff Sergeant. Colonel Cork had also received two promotions in that one year, as he was now nominated for Brigadier General.

I thought it was interesting that on Thursday I was in SE Asia and then Friday I was sitting on the couch at home. I was wondering what the grunts were thinking after being in combat fighting for their lives with death and misery all around them one day, and the next day they were to act as a normal calm person back home in the States. How does one adjust to such a quick life change?

After another thirty days of leave I was off to Davis Montham Air Force base in Arizona. This was a training squadron and our aircraft were the F4's and U2's. Shortly after I arrived at the base we phased out the F4's and brought in the Air Force's newest attack fighter, the A7, a subsonic single engine jet, not the best looking aircraft I have ever seen, but it flew well.

I was the graveyard shift supervisor and I was always getting grief from the day shift supervisor, Technical Sergeant Steven LaBaff. This guy was a real piece of work, he used his one more stripe to have me do half of his work, IE writing annual performance reports for his crew, shop reports etc. He was a lifer and had been in for fifteen years and was, to be blunt, a complete jerk. I put up with his shenanigans, but out of everyone I had contact with in the military he was the worst.

So when my active duty enlistment was coming to an end and reenlistment was offered me, I said no thank you, even though I was offered a $10,000 bonus, promotion to Technical Sergeant and base of my choice for a year. After a year and a half with LaBaff (hey, that rhymes) I just didn't think I could stand the chance of being stationed, or rather stuck with another like him. In civilian life you can tell them to stick it and move on to another job, but in the military as I was told; 'You now belong to Uncle Sam, all that you do is at the direction of the military. We own you!'

Just because this was a State side base, it was not immune to crashes. The A7 pilots were required to undergo all aspects of combat conditions in their training. One such aspect was doing a 'hot fuel', that is they are required after landing to taxi to the far end of the runway and get refueled with engine running. Something went wrong on one stop as the aircraft burst into flames while being fueled, igniting the entire fuel depot. The pilot had ejected when the flames engulfed his aircraft and he was unhurt, although one of the refuelers received third degree burns but survived.

One afternoon when I was off duty I was looking out my dorm window at the flight-line and saw a U2 coming in for a landing. The U2 only has two inline landing wheels and chase trucks follow the craft upon landing to attach outboard wing landing gear so the craft doesn't tip at slow taxi speed.

Everything looked normal as it approached the runway and then the left wing tipped to the side and touched the runway. This sent the aircraft cartwheeling from wing to wing down the runway breaking up and exploding. The pilot was killed in the crash.

A couple months after I had been at Davis Montham we had a SR71 Blackbird land. I had heard of this aircraft but I had no idea what it looked like. From the front it resembled depictions of flying saucers, the front just melted into the body, it was very impressive to get a close up look at this secrete spy plane. Upon departure the Blackbird was followed by two F4's about one hundred feet behind. When the Blackbird reached about 1,000 feet the afterburners were kicked in and in a matter of a couple of seconds it went straight up and disappeared leaving the F4's just seemingly hanging in the air by themselves.

Chapter 7: Freedom And Insanity?

After four years of active duty, I still had two years of inactive reserve, I was told to keep my contact information updated and I was not allowed to leave the country as I could be recalled at any time. I also had to sign a 'non disclosure' document with the threat of imprisonment for violation. I suppose at the time, some of the aircraft, avionics and radios the military were using were highly classified, so I had no problem with signing the document.

After a two day drive I was back in the quiet little town of Central Point Oregon. I took a month off just hanging out drawing unemployment benefits and finally decided I needed to go find a job. I went to work for Pacific Standard Transformer in White City, wiring and testing these large transformers you see on telephone poles. It was a pretty boring job and I quickly started looking for something else.

One of the racing crowd guys I used to hang out with, Jerry, was a foreman at Della Timber Products and he offered me a job. The work was mostly manual labor, but I liked it because I could just go in and put in my time without having to do much brain work.

After a couple months at the sawmill I started getting a desire to go back to Vietnam. To this day I do not know what my motivation was, it was just something I felt I needed to do, it was like this little voice telling me to go. Almost by magic, within a couple weeks I got a letter from a contractor for the DOD (Department of Defense) offering me a position in Vietnam as an avionics instructor to the South Vietnamese Air Force. It seemed the U.S. Government had gone back to the negotiating table with the North Vietnamese government and was pulling all of the U.S. Troops out of Vietnam the first part of 1973 and civilian contractors were needed.

Recalling I was not allowed to leave the country, I contacted the military and guess what, they had no problem letting me leave the country to go to Vietnam and to top it off, I would have a military rank of Air Force Captain although the government would disavow any knowledge of me, I had heard that same thing before when I was to go into Laos, so it wasn't much of a surprise.

When I told Jerry I was quitting so I could go back to Vietnam he said;

"What? Are you insane? Do you know how many people have dyed there? You already did your time there, why press your luck"

"I don't think I'm insane." I said, "It's just something I have to do."

Jerry just shook his head and said;

"Well its been nice knowing you, see you in Hell buddy!"

Arriving in San Francisco I met with the 'company' representative for Lear Siegler Inc., my official employer. I first was taken to the post office and the division of passports where I filled out paper work and submitted my photo. I was told to return in 2 hours. I then was put on a blue military bus and taken to a naval medical facility and received a series of nine injections which left both arms and my butt sore for three days. I got inoculations for stuff I had never contemplated, IE plague, yellow fever and others I still don't know for what. I was then taken back to the post office and my passport after only 2 hours was ready. Then I was bused over to the airport and a two hour wait for the boarding time. Everything happened so fast I couldn't have backed out if I had wanted to.

Before I knew it I was on a DC8 flying out of San Francisco headed to Manila in the Philippines. I arrived about 10 AM in the morning with a six hour layover for my flight to Saigon. I was surprised at how busy the Manila airport was, it was packed with news men and military personnel. I asked one of the many reporters what was going on and was told;

"The POW's, they are landing right now!"

I had no idea the first of the POW's from North Vietnam were coming in today. I hurried out to the tarmac as the first of two aircraft pulled up. After a few minutes the doors opened and the recently released men started debarking from the airplanes. Some were able to walk off on their own, but the majority of them were either in wheelchairs or on gurneys. All had huge smiles on their faces, but it only seemed to mask the torment under the smiles from the horrors they must have endured at the 'Hanoi Hilton'. Most all looked malnourished and very thin, it reminded me of the pictures I had seen in school of the prisoners released from the Nazi death camps. I felt very proud to be there upon their arrival, but at the same time I had mixed emotions thinking of the sacrifices they had made and what they had endured for our country.

About six that evening my airplane, a Flying Tiger stretch DC8, departed for Saigon after a two hour delay and upon landing it was dark and still very warm. I was greeted by the 'company' representative and then told;

"Well go find yourself somewhere to live and I'll see you at 7AM."

I was shocked, I knew I wouldn't have the support of the military here, but I had no idea I would be left solely on my own, but I was naive and should have known what to expect by the document I had signed in San Francisco stating the US government would not assist me and disavow any knowledge of me.

Myself and three others decided to go together to find a place to live. One was an ex-MP hired for flight-line security, another was a C130 crew chief and the third was a fireman. We found a rather nice two story house in an alley with a for rent sign on the fence. After rousing the old woman who owned the house we moved in. The house had a large master bedroom on the first floor and three upstairs bedrooms. We drew straws and I got the large bedroom, much to the chagrin of the other three. The old woman and her two sons along with her maid and daughter lived in a little row of shacks to the rear of the house. Our housing included breakfast and dinner, and to my delight the food was fantastic. Usually for breakfast I just got a fresh baked baguette cooked in a street cart along with the best butter I have ever had and a cup of coffee. The French cooking was the best thing they left there, and the French Vietnamese mix were very attractive looking people.

The first day I was introduced to the avionics head who was a Colonel in the South Vietnam Air Force. He appeared to be in his fifties, but I had already decided some of these people looked much older than they really were, as most had lived a hard life. He was a very pleasant man and I kind of equated him to Colonel Cork, both of which were smart and caring of their charges. After a couple weeks the Colonel started calling me 'VC', I finally asked him why he called me VC and he said;

"You always wear black, same same VC."

We both laughed, I hadn't thought much about what I had been wearing, but he was right, I just about always wore black or dark blue, which almost got me shot one evening. I had been out working on a C130 and it was getting dark and I was walking back towards the avionics shop, when in the distance I saw a military jeep coming towards me very fast with one MP standing with his hands on the mounted M60 machine gun. They suddenly slowed about fifty feet from me and just gave me a wave and a big smile as they turned away.

The Colonel and about fifteen others were living in a back room in the avionics shop, and I always stayed away from their dwelling as I did not want to intrude on them. After I had been there for about five weeks, the Colonel one evening said;

"We would like you to have food with us."

I accepted the Colonel's invitation and felt flattered that he would want me to join them for dinner, especially when I saw how meager their food supplies were, but they made sure I had more than my fair share. I was surprised to see their 'home', it was fixed up quite nice with the Colonel having his own cordoned off room. I thanked the Colonel for the meal and made my way back to town.

The next morning on my way to the base I stopped at a vender and bought all the vegetables he had and twenty pounds of rice. When I gave the food to the Colonel he was overwhelmed and couldn't say a word, he just gave me a bear hug that lasted for several minutes, I'm sure he held on for so long so I wouldn't see the tear that ran down his face. I assured the Colonel it was no big deal and besides I could afford it. It seemed at that time in the war even the high ranking military were not getting paid.

After I had been there a little over a month, two of the guys I was sharing the house with decided they had had enough and were leaving. When I asked why, I was told by one;

"The money is good, but I'm sick and tired of being a target every time I'm on the flight-line, I got shot at twice last week."

So myself and the other one left decided we didn't want to pay for the entire house and decided to find another place to rent. He found a small one room place and I also found a two room apartment not far from where we had been living. When I say two rooms, that's one small bathroom with a shower and a large open oblong room with a bed, desk, chair and a small refrigerator. It was on the second floor of this building that faced the busy main street, with a small balcony that hung over the sidewalk that was about 12 feet below.

There was a 10 PM curfew and the busy street was quiet at night except for the local thugs and VC roaming around. The only traffic was the military jeeps or White Mice, that was what everyone called the local Saigon police because they wore white uniforms and scurried around like mice. I never understood why they would wear white shirts, just seemed to me that made them a very obvious target at night, that's why I was so fond of wearing black as I was often out after the curfew.

I would sit out on the balcony at night and drink a beer, just watching what was going on in the neighborhood. This young boy of about 12 would come by almost every night, wearing the same red shorts and white t-shirt and ask in the little bit of English he could speak for a cigarette. The first time I hesitated throwing him down a cigarette because of his age, but then I rationalized with all the people dying around here, he may never grow up anyway. This became a ritual just about every night and one night he motioned for my lighter as he had no matches. I figured if I threw the lighter down that would be the last time I saw it, and I didn't have a spare. I said;

"You give back?"

He nodded his head yes, and against my better judgment I dropped him the lighter. To my surprise he threw the lighter back up to me and went on his way. This went on for about a month and one night about 11:30 I saw six people coming out of an adjacent alley and onto the side walk. They were all carrying rifles and were only about twenty feet from me. One looked up and saw me and quickly raised his AK47 in my direction, then this same 12 year old I had given cigarettes to grabbed the barrel of the rifle with both hands pulling it down, saying;

"NO,NO!"

The guy with the AK hollered at the boy;

"American, American!"

The boy said;

"He good, he good....!" and something else I didn't understand.

The big guy jerked the rifle barrel out of the hands of the boy and just scowled at me saying something I didn't understand, but I got the message, I could see the hate in his eyes and hear the anger in his voice. Finally he turned and the group followed him on down the sidewalk. The young boy looked up at me with a big grin on his face and gave me a thumbs up and then ran to catch up with the others. There was no way I could have gotten out of the line of fire if that boy hadn't intervened. It seems my act of generosity and friendship with this little boy saved me from being just another statistic of the VC in Vietnam.

There was an alleyway about a quarter mile from my apartment that had a lot of little shops and venders. One little hole in the wall of shops was a cafe that I liked and I went there quite often. I always sat in the front of the cafe so I could see who was coming down the alley. One day I was there with a friend and the front of the cafe was completely full so we ended up sitting in the very back, with just a solid wall behind us. I felt very uncomfortable in the back, a couple days earlier a nearby shop had been fire bombed with a Molotov cocktail, and if you were in the back there was no way out, like a rat in a burning trap.

As my friend and I sat there eating a little moped stopped out front and threw something in the front of the cafe. I instinctively pulled our table down in front of us spilling our food and drinks right on us as the grenade went off in a deafening roar, filling the room with smoke and screaming. I looked up from the overturned table to see the carnage. Several were lying dead at the front and others were seriously injured. So the one time I was forced to sit where I didn't want to, it was actually my salvation. If it's your time I guess it's just your time no matter what you do, and this day it wasn't my time.

About six weeks after arrival I was in the back of the shop working on some equipment when I heard a familiar voice and turned to see the Colonel talking to the last person I would have ever expected to see, my nemesis, Steven LaBaff. I couldn't understand what he was doing here, what are the chances the one person I really despised had come around the world and was standing just twenty feet from me. I considered just going over to him and bust his chops but I thought that would accomplish nothing.

Soon the Colonel and Steven came over to me and LaBaff said;

"McIvor, I heard you were over here."

"Yeah, you know this is a dangerous place to be Steven, people get hurt here Steven." I said sarcastically.

LaBaff didn't get the threat, but rather agreed it was a dangerous place to be, but the Colonel sensed my animosity and his expression towards LaBaff changed to a solemn look. Then LaBaff finally understood also and suddenly said;

"Well I've got to go, we are only here for two hours."

He turned and hurried out the door. The Colonel looked at me and I just smiled and then he smiled and nodded as he understood there was a history between LaBaff and myself. I found out LaBaff was with a small military delegation to meet with the base ops center.

After I had been in Vietnam for about two months I was walking on the street towards my apartment in the late afternoon. At a busy intersection a young man about my age came up and stuck the barrel of a 45 caliber pistol in my stomach and demanded all of my money. I was taken aback by his actions, but surprisingly I wasn't afraid, I got out my wallet and I had about the equivalent of twenty dollars on me and I offered him half of it. He gave me a look like; 'What is wrong with you, I've got a gun', and he pushed the barrel harder into my stomach and said;

"All your money and the watch too, or I'll shoot you."

I told him I needed some money also, and he couldn't have my watch because I needed it for work. I said;

"If you shoot me today you won't be able to rob me next week."

He shook his head and his eyes were saying; 'crazy American', but he grabbed the ten dollars I had offered him and he left the area quickly.

About ten days later I was approaching the same intersection when I saw the same young man who had robbed me. Instead of detouring around him I went straight towards him, looking him in the eyes as I did so. When he saw me coming towards him his eyes got big and I could see fear in his face as he recognized me. By his appearance and the military 45 he was carrying, I assumed he was probably a military deserter.

I walked right up to him as he had his hand on the butt of the pistol and I motioned with my left hand, 'down', and he hesitated pulling the gun out of his waistband as I said;

"If you keep pulling that gun out somebody is going to shoot you! Do you have family?"

He had a bewildered, puzzled look on his face as he motioned over his shoulder and muttered the name of a small village in the southern part of the country. I then got out my wallet and I had about forty dollars and I held it out to him as I said;

"Go home to your family, go home and live."

He got a funny look on his face that I cannot describe and his eyes welled up and he started to cry, I had not expected his emotional response and I was overwhelmed. I put my hand on his shoulder so as to say; 'I understand your desperation', as I put the money in his left hand I said;

"Go home, live."

I turned and walked away and I never saw him again, I hope he did take my advice and did go home and hopefully survived the atrocity that had besieged his country.

One morning I decided to walk to the base instead of catching a ride on one of the many moped taxis. At 6:30 the streets were already bustling with traffic and people scurrying about. I came to one of the main thoroughfares and had to wait to cross the street as a convoy of military vehicles rumbled by. The convoy was made up of several different vehicles; jeeps, fuel trucks, armored personnel carriers, etc.

Many people were stuck with me waiting for the long convoy to pass. As I was standing there I glanced to my right and saw a young street boy of about 10 with a dirty face and ragged clothing, looking like he was going to try to run between the vehicles. I was thinking; 'Don't do it, they will be past in a few minutes', but this boy seemed he could not wait and he darted into the traffic. My heart jumped up into my throat as I wanted to holler at him but it was too late as he was struck by one of the trucks and subsequently run over by the rest of the convoy, leaving just a spattering of blood and an unrecognizable little body on the asphalt.

All the people that were standing there seemed to have no reaction, their expressions didn't change, no one said anything. I wanted to scream at them; 'Whats wrong with you people, didn't you see what happened right in front of you? Don't you have any feelings?' I felt tear's run down my face as the unfathomable event was wedged in my mind, I had seen this young life horribly snuffed out right in front of me and nobody cared, are these people so numb to the loss of life that this boy's life means nothing to any of them?

I got to work and all that morning the events of that young boy's death kept playing over and over in my mind, still today it is something I have never been able to escape from. Sure I had seen much death and horror in Vietnam, but that boy's death has always haunted me, maybe it is because of the lack of compassion or empathy exhibited by the onlookers for this street kid.

Many children lived on the streets, either orphaned or abandoned by their parents, stealing when the opportunity presented its self and scouring the garbage for a scrap to eat. Most people had disdain for these children and that would explain their reaction to this boy's death, just one less urchin to deal with.

After that day I always carried a pocket full of 10 Dong coins and would hand them out as I came across these young people on the streets. I saw the same faces almost everyday and you would think I had given them a fortune as I felt the appreciation and saw the huge smiles from these poor souls. 10 Dong was very little money to me, but it was enough for these malnourished children to buy a days worth of food, something they rarely had. I now understood something I had never known growing up, it is more rewarding to give to others, giving to these poor kids was the best feeling I had ever experienced and I realized I had truly acquired the emotions of compassion and empathy. I still have one of those 10 Dong coins, I guess so I will never forget.

After several months it became obvious to me the fall of the South was inevitable. From my observations I saw that the VC owned the streets of Saigon, especially after dark. The terrorist attacks and almost continual explosions around the city were only being dealt with after the fact, the local police and military were defenseless against an enemy they could not recognize.

I had become friends with some of the Air America guys and had on occasion worked on their aircraft. They offered me a job working for them for about twice the pay I was now receiving.

One day they asked me if I would go up with them for a test flight as they were having trouble with the airspeed indicator. I said sure and we took off in the twin engine Caribou. Pretty soon it was evident we were leaving the Saigon area and I asked;

"Whats going on?"

"Well, we have a STAL down in the Plane of Jars, had a little fire and none of the instruments work."

I felt my eyes roll back into my head as I realized we were on our way to Laos.

"I can't do much without a wiring schematic and replacement instruments." I said.

"Oh we have a whole box of parts and a maintenance manual, we just don't know how to do it."

"Why didn't you just ask me, instead of kidnapping me?"

Laughing he said;

"Didn't think you would come."

The cockpit of the STAL was a suety mess, but the damage was not as severe as I had expected, I only had to replace three of the instruments and do a little wiring and was done in less than 4 hours.

"Wow, that's great, I'll get you a bottle of the good stuff when we get back."

We got back to Saigon about 11 that evening and I didn't want to disturb the Colonel that late so I made my way back to my apartment and the next morning as I walked into the shop the Colonel greeted me with a smile. I tried to explain what had happened but the Colonel interrupted me by saying;

"It doesn't matter, I'm just glad you're alright, when you disappeared yesterday we thought the VC had got you."

After much thought I decided it was not about the money for me and there was no use in my staying and I made arrangements to leave the country. When I told the Colonel I was leaving he seemed shocked and very distraught.

"Why are you leaving?"

Not wanting to be too blunt and tell the truth, I just said;

"I'm going home to go fishing."

"We have fishing, I can take you to a place where you can catch big, big fish, don't leave."

I just shook my head and said I had to leave, that I had already booked my flight out the following day. The Colonel could see through my lie of wanting to go fishing and then he just smiled and hugged me with a pat on my back as he said;

"We will miss you, it has been very good that you came to us."

It was very hard saying goodby to the Colonel and the others I had met there, they were some of the nicest people I have ever met. Saying goodby to the Colonel was like saying goodby forever to a family member as he had been like the father figure I had not had at home growing up, I also had a feeling of letting him down, abandoning him to his fate by leaving, but I knew I had to leave.

Chapter 8: A New Understanding

Arriving back in the Rogue Valley was like going to Heaven from Hell. People have no concept of what a wonderful lifestyle we have in this country compared to most of the world. The United States is like utopia, the opportunities for young people abound as compared to others in the world who are delegated to a life of poverty and misery, with no chance of the real freedom we take for granted.

I didn't understand the people that were always saying how bad their life was here, how they were so oppressed by the government that it was unbearable for them to live.

Simply by chance you were born in the most prosperous and free country on Earth, one should thank their lucky stars and quit whining about how bad they have it and show more compassion for the less fortunate in the world. One doesn't have to go far to see the disparity in this world, just cross the border into Mexico and you will see you have lost many of the civil liberties you take for granted in this country. Just across the border people are killed on a daily basis by renegades preying on the despondent and poor.

I heard a comment by an arms manufacturer saying; 'We make more money in one day of war than we make in a year of peace.' The Vietnam war was energized by and perpetuated by corporate greed at the expense of not only our young men, but also the high cost of lives of the Vietnamese people. Around 59,000 Americans and between 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 Vietnamese and Chinese perished in this 'Armed conflict', a tragedy for all of this world, and for what?

The suffering and misery of innocent people because of greed is intolerable. Can the loss of lives of so many be justified so the rich can get richer? Are the people of this world just pawns in the hands of the controlling faction? These stupid wars are brought on by man's greed and want for power, we are all of the same family, quit killing our brothers and show some compassion!

For years after my mother would say;

"Your different since you came back from Vietnam."

"What do you mean?" I would ask

"I don't know, your personality has changed, your just different."

I would just shrug my shoulders and not say anything, I was unable to communicate the horrors I had witnessed. How can any person see the atrocities and misery of war and not be affected. I know if I had not gone to Vietnam and gained the understanding of what this world is truly like, I would be a very different person today.

I grew up as a rotten, out of control, self centered delinquent in this little protected playground of mine with little compassion for others and I had no idea what the world was really like and how ruthless and uncaring many in it seemed.

Writing this memoir was a mixed bag of emotions, from my childish antics as a teenager to the horrors and animalistic behavior of man on his fellow mankind. The smell of burning flesh is something you never forget and it is imbedded in my mind, as are the other horrors I witnessed. Some of the most wonderful and sweet people I have ever met were in Vietnam and I have often thought of their fate when the South did fall.

It seems that therapy/counseling was not condoned by the military then and was not offered to the Vietnam veterans. I found my therapy in the bottle, that was my only escape from the torment within me and I consumed a considerable amount over the years, something I would not recommend to anyone. Since Vietnam we have been involved in many 'armed conflicts' in the world, were any of them worth the cost in human lives and the accompanying misery? I don't know!

++++++++++++
