Okay, first for the schmaltz alert. This post will get schmaltzy.

Like many, Gene Wilder’s demise dredged up memories. I associate specific music, movies, actors and events with epochal life moments. Gene Wilder is a large swatch of the moments because his rising fame coincided with VCRs rising and my long term assignment to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

Arriving in May of 1981, base housing wasn’t immediately available. We put ourselves on the wait list and then found an off-base residence in Kadena City. The apartment building was a fort-like three story cement structure with minimal windows and external doors. The owner/managers lived in a bottom residence, and American service personnel and their dependents occupied the ten apartments spread throughout the rest. Keeping with the local way, none of these domiciles were large, but they were well built. A water cistern was on the roof. With it and the stout walls, the building was great for enduring earthquakes, typhoons and droughts.

Typhoon watching was almost a sport. Armed Forces Radio and Television Services provided us with our news and entertainment, and we tracked the storms across the Pacific and through the various seas. Which base was it going to hit? Hickam in Hawaii, Anderson on Guam, Clark in the PI? Or was it heading our way in Japan, or north to Korea?

Whichever place it struck was a cause for intense business on the base. If it was heading for us, we scrambled to launch the aircraft out of the typhoon’s path while securing the base. If you were on duty when the typhoon struck, you were on for the duration. Otherwise, you stocked up on food, water and things to do, and settled in at home.

This all took planning. Lines grew everywhere, but especially at the Commissary where we bought our food, and the USO where we rented our movies.

That’s where Gene Wilder enters. As AFRTS didn’t offer exciting programming options and often went off the air during a ‘phoon, we bought a VHS player. A huge, toploading Magnavox unit, it cost a grand, weighed over fifty pounds and took up the top of our twenty-five inch console television. But with it, we could rent movies from the USO. Thus we could sign out ‘Blazing Saddles’, ‘The Producers’, ‘Young Frankenstein’, ‘Silverstreak’, and ‘Stir Crazy’, along with movies like ‘Blues Brothers’. ‘Absence of Malice’. ‘Body Heat’. ‘Pennies from Heaven’. ‘Eye of the Needle’. The offerings were not broad, and it was serving the entire base population stalking entertainment, so you grabbed what you could, and then traded with others in the building, watching movie after movie and trying to catch some sleep as rain deluged the island and the wind hurled items through the charcoal skies.

Back on base, working in the Command Post, it wasn’t so good. We were pretty limited to what was available to watch. Scrambling aircraft and dealing with the emergencies, nobody raced out to rent movies. Then once that was done, the phones and radios went still as our status changed to monitoring the passing storm and waiting for it to clear. We watched what was on hand. How many times did I see ‘Silverstreak’, ‘Young Frankenstein’, ‘Blazing Saddles’ and ‘Stir Crazy’? Enough that we would start going stir crazy. Enough that I remember the characters and who played them, and whole scenes of dialogue.

Yet, now, watching scenes from these movies as I remember Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and the others, I laugh and laugh, again. Remembering these things last night with my beer buddies, we just had to mention a character or a line from his movies to trigger laughter.

Thanks, Gene Wilder. It was a memorable stint with you through the many, many typhoons.