Tag: memories

‘Phooon Party

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.

 

5

Reminding Me of You

A white Jeep flipped a bitch, your expression, and it came to me because that of that time you were pulling out and that Jeep did a U turn and hit you, and then tried blaming you. That’s how it was going for you, then. Your poor grey Bimmer was totaled when it flipped on 101 on the home commute after hitting a piece of wood in the lane, but the insurance company didn’t believe you. But they couldn’t explain why your car flipped, either.

‘Round and Round’ came on, and I thought of you, your face lighting up as you lunged for the boom box and cranked it up as you said, “Oh, my God, that’s my tune.” Then you played air guitar and sang.

I think of you whenever I see an Atlanta Braves uniform or hat. You’re gone and the players you cheered have retired but you bled the colors. And you’re there when the Packers play, even though Favre moved on to the other teams and the HoF.

Every time I stop to look at a new program, I think of you, because you were the first one to ever point out to me all the little things, encouraging me to not be afraid and just click on things to see what happens. You come to me in a whiff of Pall Malls and Marlboros, in a sweaty white Miller can, and in the taste of bad, burnt black coffee in small paper cups. I see you when I cut open a watermelon and gaze at the rows of black seeds in the glistening sweet flesh and when I hear a fighter jet split the overhead air. You emerge when someone speeds by, talking on their cell phone, because I can hear you spit, “Slow down, fucker, and get off your phone and drive.”

Van Halen’s ‘Jamie’s Crying’ comes on, and you pop out, because you were dating that young woman, Jamie, and ended up marrying her. We were all at the club one night and started singing it to her, and she started crying, asking us, “Why are you doing that?” She was drunk, we all were, and you and she went into the dark corner and talked and kissed. You’re in the taste of a well grilled cheeseburger because nobody made them like you, no one ever in my life, and you’re there when I think about making pancakes or get out of the car and stretch and look around at a highway rest stop. You’re there in the blue sky over the ocean and in the whispering, salty sea breeze, brushing your hair from your face and urging me to move over so you can take a picture.

You all come to me, individuals caught in the wad of bubblegum that is me, individuals contributing to my sum total, from your moments and points, trying to stretch away but always mired in the pink strain of memories.

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Sentimentality and Nostalgia Win in a Landslide

Purging tee shirts today, and shorts. I have many of both, old and frayed and worn, that never escape the drawer. They often no longer fit, because I am no longer that size.

But there is a Pink Floyd tee shirt from the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour. What a party that was. What was it, 1988? While stationed in Germany. We partied with Germans and Czechs. Man, hard to believe it was so long ago. I was a different person then. Well, I’ll keep it, even though its collar has partially separated from the shirt’s body, the colors have lost their luster, and the underarms are holed. I’ll keep it.

Also, the tee shirt celebrating Mark Donohue and the 30th anniversary of the Porsche 917-30, which itself was over a decade ago. That’s in good shape but small, a keeper. Also a keeper is the Australian Grand Prix shirt from 2000. My boss, a good friend, bought it for me. I was supposed to accompany her to Australia. We were doing clinic trials for a new medical device for treating chronic total occlusions, but plans were changed at the last minute and I didn’t go. But she remembered how I’d been going on about racing in general, and the Formula 1 race was going on that weekend, turning the place into a carnival, so she bought the tee shirt for me. It’s never been worn. I haven’t seen Laura in ten years but I remember her brightly as one of the best people I ever worked for and a sensational friend.

Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari in the rain is kept. That was his first year with Ferrari after he won two WDC with Bennetton. A red tee shirt from an Iowa writing conference is kept, and another, from a writing conference in Portland, is kept. My LeMans tee shirt is kept. This tee, although drained of life, celebrates Mario Andretti’s final year of Indy car racing. To the keep pile. The Steeler AFC championship shirt from my brother-in-law must be kept.

The tee shirt from the race course formerly called Laguna Seca is also kept. It has the old configuration on it. We ‘won’ passes from the Marlboro people when they were doing a promotion on Moffett NAS. I phrase it as ‘won’ because they gave us the passes after enjoying our company. That was when? Well, Marlboro sponsored Penske, and Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Tracy were the driving line-up. 1994, a year before I retired from the USAF, that was the weekend the late, unique Randy stole a golf cart from a track official and drove it around because he was tired of walking. Blue, the tee doesn’t fit, but it’s the thought that counts.

In the end, the thought counts for a lot. The Goodwill pile is much smaller than the pile to return to the drawers. But these shirts, with their smells and rips, shrunken and frayed, are better than photos. I’ll die someday. An estate sale will be held or my wife or relatives will come through and look at these shirts. Those who know me will know what they’re about, and why I kept them.

The rest will just have to wonder.

5

Intentions

Today is a sunny, drizzly, wintry late spring summer day, a rich day for meditating and harvesting nostalgia.

Such weather induces silence. The cats huddle for warmth, seeking places to stay dry and out-wait this weather. Children and adults find indoor activities. Less people prowl the neighborhood in cars, bikes and motorcycles. Nobody is cutting their lawn or trimming their trees and bushes. Few walkers and hikers pass the house. The birds become dormant on branches, indulging in their own weather meditation.Even the crows and jays aren’t saying anything.

With this quiet, I think of faded intentions and plans. I’m almost 60 now, and can pause and look back on what I thought would happen and what I planned, and compare it to what transpired. More, I remember insights that I planned to act upon and never did, words that I meant to say to people, feelings and emotions that were to be spoken, but never touched my lips. Time is an avalanche, and buries these moments. They may be our intentions but they’re subject to everyone’s timetable and existence.

Some people say this is summer, despite the calendar and the official start. Summer begins with some when Memorial Day passes, or June begins, or the schools let out. Whichever way you consider the season, as late spring, or summer, today’s air carries wintry odors and chills. It reminds me of Okinawa winters. Our tiny apartment, made of cinder blocks and lacking insulation, didn’t have any heater. We’d purchased a small electric heating tower to keep us warm.  Our family was me, my wife, and the cats. The cats were Crystal and Jade, felines that others surrendered for different reasons, that we took in. For a time, the family included Jade’s three kittens, too, but we found them homes.

Jade, a terribly smart and willful tabby cat, loved the heat and despised cold. She planted herself in front of the heater about six inches away. If you tried sharing her space, she’d bite your ankles until you moved out of her way. Mess with the heat and get the teeth. She’d make her displeasure known through her biting without moving anything except her head and mouth. The rest stayed huddled, keeping warm.

Such memories flooded me as I gathered my laptop and gear and packed it away to ‘go write’. We were in the snug, the small room where we do most of our living. The house is about 1850 square feet but we can usually be found within the snug’s hundred and twenty four square feet, reading books, on our computers, watching television, cats on the desk and laps. A small electric heater was on to combat the chilliness. The room’s thermometer claimed it was 69 in there but it didn’t feel that warm. It felt like an Okinawa winter. So the small electric heater was on because its more energy efficient than running the entire gas system.

We’re spoiled, I think, remembering back to those days of Okinawa. But sometimes it’s good to be spoiled.

I wish everyone was.

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