Andie - Meetings
It was my graduation year from Farrington and I would spend the time immediately after school at my mom's workplace at Roosevelt High School where she ran the Health complex. Outside the Health building was a very large tree that looked out on a field where the cheerleading squad practiced. I would in the time between getting out ot school and when my grandfather would pick me up to go to work I would sit beneath that tree and read. One day I was reading and half aware of the litany of sound "Our boys are fighting..Our dear old Roosevelt team." in the background when I became aware of a young, tall, blond who was also seated beneath that tree. We were both reading Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls". One thing led to another and we began to talk, first about the book and over time about other things. Everything it seemed like she was a kindred soul and I found myself very comfortable with her. We talked about politics, economics and the war. She was very anti-war and I found myself being talked into attending functions at the Church of the Crossroads to protest the war. We grew to be good friends and then I dropped the "bomb" I mentioned that I planned to join the Army and go to Vietnam. She did her best to discourage me and at the same time she introduced me to people who would aid me in achieving my goal, including the priest who falsified my baptismal certificate ostensibly so that I could work full time. The name I used is not the one most people know me by, however, It was a combination of my Bar Mitzvah name and my grandfather's name.
I don't remember how long it took but eventually we would watch the sun set on Tantalus and the lights of the city come on. It was there that my first "kiss" occurred and it was there in the back seat of the family station wagon that she and I made love for the first time. It was a clumsy thing and while I tried to be gentle I was also ignorant. So many things were happening at that time. I was attending classes to improve my vision. That summer I made my third appearance at Camp Perry for the National Matches and was in such a distracted state I didn't score well. Things blew up over mine warfare and cluster munitions in the very late summer. It left off with Andie hating my very existence and I going it alone to MEPS and from there to Ft. Dix where I did BCT. It wasn't pleasant but it kept me from homesickness. So, I ended up in the Army under a different name and with no one at home. I would find out during my first combat deployment that Ben was born and sent money which she returned for several months despite the fact that she was on welfare and living on Ramen noodles while Ben got the best she could manage.It would be almost ten years before she and I would encounter one another again.
I don't remember how long it took but eventually we would watch the sun set on Tantalus and the lights of the city come on. It was there that my first "kiss" occurred and it was there in the back seat of the family station wagon that she and I made love for the first time. It was a clumsy thing and while I tried to be gentle I was also ignorant. So many things were happening at that time. I was attending classes to improve my vision. That summer I made my third appearance at Camp Perry for the National Matches and was in such a distracted state I didn't score well. Things blew up over mine warfare and cluster munitions in the very late summer. It left off with Andie hating my very existence and I going it alone to MEPS and from there to Ft. Dix where I did BCT. It wasn't pleasant but it kept me from homesickness. So, I ended up in the Army under a different name and with no one at home. I would find out during my first combat deployment that Ben was born and sent money which she returned for several months despite the fact that she was on welfare and living on Ramen noodles while Ben got the best she could manage.It would be almost ten years before she and I would encounter one another again.