April 16, 2008

• Waynesville, MO – Spring, 1961

  The episode that comes before this one can be found HERE.

  It is difficult for me to remember much detail about this time of my life.  I don’t mean that remembering is painful.  I mean that I don’t remember much.  I can remember the little house we lived in.  I have a mental snapshot of it, as I approached off the street, walking on a gravel driveway.  It was a small, square, Ozarks vernacular stone building set among several others just like it, in a cottage court about half a block south of Main Street, near the east end of the town’s business district.

  I don’t recall the inside of that little house, or anything I did there.  It’s a safe bet that one of the things I did to pass my time was reading, but I don’t remember a library in that town, and don’t recall any books I might have read at that time.  I must have cooked, but I don’t recall what the kitchen there was like.  My dishes and household goods had been left in the shed behind Uncle Frank’s and Aunt Katherine’s house in Sacramento, so we must have bought some cheap replacements.  Blanks.

  I also don’t recall eating in any cafes or restaurants in the town, but I probably did, at least a few times.  I remember that there were lots of bars and tattoo parlors in Waynesville, but I don’t think I ever went into any of them.  I never saw Fort Leonard Wood because it was out the opposite side of
  town from the way I arrived and left.  We didn’t have a car.  Al rode
  on an army bus from the post to town and back.

  Obviously, Al had been in at least one of the tattoo parlors in Waynesville, or closer to the gate of Fort Leonard Wood, several miles east of town.  One vivid memory I have is of his tattoos.  He had “Lynn” tattooed on one of his arms, but I think he might have gotten that done when he was stationed at Fort Ord.  Still fresh and swollen and backed with inflammation on his chest, over his right nipple he had “sweet,” and over his left nipple, he had, “sour.”  He unveiled them proudly the first night I was there. 

  I was not impressed.  If he’d had a big multi-colored dragon or something, I might have been impressed, but he had these small one color things, and my name was in a misshapen heart, both a cliché and poorly executed.  By that time, I knew better than to criticize, but I couldn’t generate enough enthusiasm to praise them, so he got pissed off at me anyway.  He was sober, so I didn’t get beaten up.  He sulked.

  At some later date, he had my other name done on his other arm, that time with a rose, all in black again.  The last time I saw him, about ’68, his pecs weren’t visible, so I don’t know if he’d done anything with the sweet and sour tats.  He still had the rose and the heart, but where my names had been there was just solid black ink.

  There was a little dress shop on the corner not far from where we lived, just across from the courthouse square.  That was where I bought the green satin dress I’m wearing in this picture.  I needed a new dress because Al’s best buddy was getting married and we were in the wedding party.  We were the wedding party.

  The selection I had to choose from in that shop was small.  The dress fit, but might have been more appropriate for cocktails than for a wedding.  I don’t recall wearing it again after that… not many cocktail parties in my life… not even one as far as I recall.

  Bob and his girlfriend Montie were from Cheyenne, Wyoming.  The guys were finishing up their combat engineer training at Fort Leonard Wood.  Al was to be transferred to Fort Lewis, Washington, for floating bridges training, and Bob was going someplace else.  I had been in Waynesville a while, maybe a month or more.  Bob and Montie had been engaged since high school, and decided to get married then even though she wouldn’t be able to accompany him to his next post.

  Within a few days of the wedding, the guys were to ship out for their new posts.  Montie was headed back to Cheyenne.  She consulted her parents, then invited Marie and me to go with her and stay at her parents’ house until Al settled into his new assignment and found us a place to live in Tacoma.

  Cheyenne in the summer was scorching hot days and cool nights under an immense open sky.  The Kinmans let Marie and me have their family rumpus room in the basement, where none of the day’s heat ever intruded.  Montie had a car, and she spent a day showing us the local sights.  Montie’s mother was nuts about my daughter and volunteered to babysit if I found a job there.

  I think of the job I found in Cheyenne as my first real job, because the live-in housekeeping job in Sacramento was that:  housekeeping, living in.  I read the classified ads, and Montie and her mom advised me about the various employers in the ads, and told me where things were.  Of the available jobs at the time, the one that looked best was a carhop position at The Owl Drive-in.   At least, I think that’s what it was called.

  I phoned, arranged for an interview, went out there, and got hired on the spot, to start that very night, working from 5 PM to 1 AM.

  to be continued in Cheyenne….
  

  • 6:07 pm
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