Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Chapter 9 Out from Under the Bootheel Part 4 Trying to Wrap This Up

This entire book was intended to be a brief 15,000-word or so summary of my early life. As you can see, at over 35,000 words it got quickly out of hand. There are so many more people, places, and activities I'd love to tell you about.

This would include my childhood friend Max, who would drive me around on the back of his self-built motorized tricycle delivering papers on his paper route.

And I can't forget my best friend at Mather, Pete Killian, the highly intellectual navigator bombardier who met his wife while at Navigator training and chose me for best man at his wedding.

And I have to tell you about at least one of the adventures with my Mather friends Doug, Doyle, and Tin. How we set out one weekend totally unprepared to conquer Mount Shasta and halfway up got caught in a blizzard and found shelter in a rustic stone cabin where we spent the night along with a group of hippies with whom we shared stories and the most interesting potluck soup you could possibly imagine. Fortunately, in the dim light of the fireplace fire we couldn't really see the freegan additions our new friends had made to the soup we were cooking over the fire in a large pot they had brought. (I just learned the word freegan. It exactly describes their contribution made forty years before this word was even coined! I also just learned that I am what you call a wordie. No, I didn't misspell it. Although I may also be wordy, a wordie is someone who loves words the same way a foodie loves food. So, naturally, I had to share these two new words with you.)

I can't my streaking buddy John Haynes. Kids, it was a dare, and streaking was very popular back then. Streaking was the fad where you stripped naked and ran like crazy across some public place. After a quick jog around the condo complex, I put my swim trunks back on, but John remained naked for the rest of the evening much to my neighbor's chagrin. John's wife and the rest of my guests at the pool party found it entertaining.

John was also my orienteering partner on a three-day event celebrating our promotions to first lieutenant. About thirty of us newly promoted officers spent a weekend camping and navigating an orienteering course in the woods around Sutter Buttes. For three days I drank nothing that did not contain alcohol, mostly beer. John partook of much more potent beverages. We came in next to last in the orienteering contest, but that was because John was fighting a hangover. The winners jogged the entire course and probably actually drank water.

And then, there were my other camping buddies at McClellan AFB — Mike, Roy, Steve, and of course Mike's dog Tensor. With whom, I finally did get to the top of Shasta and also with whom I snow camped, cross country skied, and shared several other camping adventures in the Sierras. I will never forget Mike challenging me to forty strokes out and forty strokes back in the chilling 40-degree waters of Fourth of July Lake. We stripped down and dove in with Tensor right behind. I don't want to exaggerate how cold the water was, but I was pretty sure my testicles were trying to seek warmth near my tonsils. After twenty of the fastest swim strokes I have ever managed, I turned to see that Tensor, the dog that rarely left Mike's side, was turning around and heading for the shore. I hollered to Mike that I was going with the dog. Mike and I both ended up following the dog to shore.

Mike was the General's aid and very active in getting all types of community service activities organized. He arranged a tour of the base for a group of troubled teenagers who were in a court mandated rehabilitation program. He put me in charge of them. The tour bus was late picking us up so I went into the office to call and find out what had happened to it. While I was on the phone, I looked out the window and saw my teen charges absconding with the bus. I ran out, chased the bus down, and read the bus driver the riot act for taking orders from a bunch of teenagers and leaving without me!