06 September 2008

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Wake up to realize thirty-four years are the past...

My step-mother (who had default custody after my father moved out in '72) had by Fall of '73 moved in her boyfriend, claimed she and my father were divorced, that she had married her boyfriend, who came to the gas station I was working at and dragged me literally by the hair to the high school across town where he was a teacher. He forced me to register for my senior year, claiming that he'd adopted me and therefore had the right. I hope one day to have the time and money to have my high school diploma re-issued in my real name.

After graduation I went camping for three weeks with my boyfriend. We toured Yosemite and King's Canyon, where the flora and fauna triggered a whopping asthma attack in said boyfriend causing us to cut short our trip and start back down to Orange County.

While on the road that day we listened to the radio and so heard President Nixon resign. Having named my cat Leon Jaworski, I was hardly politically indifferent, but hearing Nixon quit his office brought me to the total awareness that I needed to grow-up and do my part. The boyfriend and I looked at each other and in that look were the words it would take us another couple of months to speak aloud-"Ciao baby, it's been real, but..."

Almost immediately after our unpacking his car my step-parents had me packing the family station wagon (a '73 Ford, go figure) for our tour of the Wine Country.

(Excuse me, even in '74, who the hell takes their 17 year old on a tour of the Wine Country?)

While on the road back to Southern California we stopped for lunch on Cannery Row, and while trying to ignore the fact that I would soon be back in a massive mobile death trap courtesy of their state of drunkenness, I watched the marine traffic through the huge plate glass windows over looking the bay.

A United States Coast Guard small boat raced out of the harbour, and in the seconds it took for that brave little vessel to clear my line of sight, I knew how I wanted to spend the rest of my life-knowing as I somehow did by then that while God proposes it is Man who disposes and I therefore needed to find a palatable way to provide for my-self.

You see, dear and gentle reader, I also knew the Wine Country Tour, the 25' Bayliner boat sitting in the side yard, the late model fully loaded Ford station wagon, both steps very fashionable wardrobes, the mortgage payments, and more, were being funded directly from my college fund...

The day after we got back I called the recruiting station up in Santa Ana. Because I was a week or so shy of eighteen the recruiter told me I had to bring a parent with me to be tested both mentally and physically, and I did have to endure the presence of the steps for those initial steps to the Rest Of My Life, but despite my near desperation to have it done I waited until the day after I turned eighteen to sign the recruiting paperwork.

The recruiter then told me to return to the station ten days later (with a small suitcase containing no more than two changes of clothing and the bare minimum of personal grooming aids) to be sworn in and leave for basic training.

SIXTH SEPTEMBER, 1974, SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA

"Raise your right hands and repeat after me..."

"...I solemnly swear to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

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Wake up to find thirty-fours years are The Past

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