Hondo Field, TX, summer 1973

I used to know the names of all of these flight members, but no longer.  It was too long ago.  The picture with the canopy, I don't remember any of their names.  In the second picture, that's Brian Bauries standing to my right and me sitting.  I don't remember the other guy.

Our flight commander for the first six weeks was a prior service Air Force enlisted man, then a Captain.  We were told to evaluate our other flight members by saying one positive and one negative thing about each one of us.  When I was called into his office to hear what all of the others had written about me, each one had said something different as to a positive quality.  He was startled and told me that he had never had that happen before.  Usually, most of the members of a flight would say some of the same positive things, but never each one choosing a different quality.

I do recall that one flight member, and I suspect David Hunn, but I could be wrong, picked something negative as a positive quality, as well.  His negative choice was really negative:  "apple polisher and boot licker."  Nice.  The flight commander said he did not see those qualities in me at all.

---

Hot friend on his bunk, OTS, 1973

Someday I may remember his name, but I don't now.

My roommate during the first weeks--I don't have a photo of him--later became the Cadet Squadron Commander, quite by mistake.  Our flight commander overheard him being criticized by another flight commander over an order he was giving to the rest of us in the flight.  However, I realized at the time that the only reason my roommate was ignoring the other flight commander was that he did not know he was being addressed.  Our flight commander thought he showed such courage in doing what he knew was right over the objections of an officer who was wrong that he highly recommended him to become Squadron Commander, the highest cadet rank.

It did not matter.  My former roommate was a very good Squadron Commander, regardless.

---

Three of us at Hondo Field, August 1973

Here are three of us, again me with the shower thongs.  I frequently ran through thongs because somebody was always stepping on them, marching behind me, step on them, and tear them apart.  David Hunn got me a couple of times.

---

Hot fellow flight member, Hondo Field, August 1973

I thought he was very hot.  I am surprised I no longer remember his name.

---

David Hunn and two other flight members, Hondo Field, 1973

David Hunn went through the same FSP program.  The guy in the middle was hot, but I no longer remember his name.  Next to them is the other woman in our flight.

One early morning, I was sent in to the women's floor of the barracks by David Hunn to retrieve the two women for the march to the chow hall.  However, when I quickly gathered them and we stepped outside, the flight was gone, and we had been left behind.

We'd not been gone long, but David Hunn was headstrong and stubborn.  I was ready to punch his lights out when we three got to the chow hall.  The flight commander cautioned me later when I complained to simply ignore what had happened because it did not really matter.

It was like one of our flight members, David Fink, relayed to me that he had learned from an old Air Force sergeant a few years before, "Don't sweat the small shit."

---

Two flight members at Hondo Field

Brian Bauries, with whom I would attend the Flight Screening Program, and a woman from our flight, leaning on the Camaro.  I longer remember her name.  We were in the same flight for the first six weeks.  Then we would be pulled out of your flight to undergo the Flight Screening Program at Hondo Field.  When we were done, our old flight was three weeks ahead.  We would join a different flight that was three weeks behind ours.  Their pilot trainees would then go on to FSP.

---

Me at Hondo Field, August 1973

One very early morning in either late July or early August, I awoke, got dressed, put a few of my things in the Camaro, hugged mom goodbye, and took off for Air Force Officer's Training School at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning.  I drove all the way to Riverside, stopping at the Sub Station, the submarine shop near the University of California Riverside campus.  I wanted to take a sandwich with me on the rest of the trip to my first stop, a Holiday Inn near the airport in Phoenix, AZ.  However, it was too early to stop by the campus and wake up Darryl Butler, and it was also much too early for the sandwich shop to be open I realized.

I got back into my car and kept driving, eventually passing through the California desert.  I had already installed an 8-Track tape player in the glove compartment to keep me entertained on the long trip.  At the motel, I accidentally left my keys in the trunk but found them still there when I realized I did not have them with me in my room over an hour later.

I soon spent time by the pool, watching a cute, younger guy diving into the pool off the board.  We finally began talking and I learned that he worked on a road crew, which was why he was staying at the motel.  He also was a member of the Marine Corps Reserves, so we had military service in common.  We ate dinner together in the motel restaurant.  On our way back to our rooms, I hoped he would ask me to his room; but he needed to get sleep, as did I, so we parted.  I left early enough the next morning so that we did not meet up again even though I hoped he'd join me again in the restaurant for breakfast.

I drove on to my next stop, El Paso, TX.  There were three other guys who were driving to OTS in their cars.  We had already agreed that we would meet up in El Paso in the same motel.  I was resting in my room when I heard a knock.  The others were there and we had dinner together before continuing across Texas the next morning.  In San Antonio, we stayed at a motel near Lackland, swimming in the pool in the afternoon.

The next day we showed up and were assigned to separate squadrons.  My squadron's colors were blue. 

A couple weeks later, my flight got to go to Hondo Field, a former base where pilots trained for WWII.  For just a few bucks, each of us was taken up individually in a Cessna by an upper classman, to get a feel for what the Flight Screening Program was going to be like in a couple more weeks.

In the photograph above, I am leaning against a B-25, which was an advanced training bomber that was used in dad's bombardier training in August 1943.  Here I was 40 years later, undergoing Air Force training.  If you look carefully, you can see that I am wearing shower thongs over my black socks rather than shoes.  I had gotten an infected blister on my big toe from the new hard shooes.  So I could not wear them until the infection healed.

---

Amazon.com to cease carrying RAoF paperbacks this month (July 2012)

I have been informed that amazon.com, due to lack of "activity," will no longer carry Rainbow Arc of Fire volumes in paperback editions. 

Obviously, with ongoing and ever increasing sales of Kindle editions of the Rainbow Arc of Fire series on amazon, those will continue to be available for purchase or for free downloading--see amazon.com for details.

For those of you who would like to have paperback editions of the first eight volumes depicted above, send me a note with your name and address and, as I have time, and with the continued availability of paperback copies, I will attempt to mail out complete sets for free, as long as supplies last.  The first volume in the series, A MILE HIGH SAGA, is already becoming scarce in paperback.  (Amazon.com actually has two copies still available, but they will destroy any remaining copies of the series that they have in stock before the end of this month.)

For those of you who prefer Kindle editions of the entire series, including volumes nine and ten which are Kindle exclusives, they will continue to be available at amazon.com.  It is the digital download age, and I saw this coming for some time now.  Most Kindle editions are second editions, as a matter of record.

I may, at some point, covert the series to print-on-demand editions, as well, but that will take some time to accomplish.

For those hundreds of you over the years who bought the series in paperback in bookstores all over the nation, as well as through amazon.com--and there are quite a few of you out there--I thank you for your support.  For those of you who bought your copies through gay and independent bookstores, I especially appreciate that support.

Gay and lesbian independent bookstores were the reason why I wrote the series in the first place.  They were an integral part of our culture and our community.  I always enjoyed holding book signings around the country, specifically at Category Six Books here in Denver until they closed.  A significant part of our recent heritage vanished when these stores closed.  Only a very few, if any, still exist.  Most of the stores where I held book signings are long gone. 

It's time to move on.  We have to realize that it is not important how someone reads a book these days; it's that he or she continues to read.

Again, I thank all of you for your support over the years.  Let me know if you want copies mailed to you, and I will do what I can to send them out as I am able. 

---

Den Zito at the El Cortez Hotel, San Diego, summer 1973

I wouldn't get a fancy new camera like Dennis is holding for a couple more years.  David Zito would actually purchase one for me when he was stationed in Japan while I was in the Air Force.

At some point that spring of 1973, I do recall that when Mike was then a sock salesman for Neuvil Hosiery, and was working down in San Diego, I flew down there, he met me at the airport, and we spent a pleasant dinner at night at the El Cortez Hotel, taking the glass elevator up to the restaurant level.

I would not revisit San Diego after this trip with the Zito brothers until flying there for ComicCon in the early 2000's.  (Mike and I would drive through San Diego on one occasion when he moved back to Southern California in the later 1980's.  A few years before that, I would drive through San Diego on my way home to Southern California during Christmas vacation in 1978 from the Academy.)

I would meet up with the Zito's on a few different occasions in the later 1970's.

---

Dennis Zito and friend, Marine Recruit Depot, San Diego, CA, summer 1973

Since I took all of these pictures, I'm not in any of them.  Here Dennis and his Marine buddy stand beneath the inspirational sign at the Marine Recruit Depot in San Diego, during the summer of 1973.

Sometime in the spring of 1973, I got help from a former co-worker at A.U. Morse in getting a job as a security guard.  Since AF OTS wasn't going to start for me until August, I needed to work.  I suspect that my unemployment insurance was running out.  In addition, with my search for a future in the armed forces now settled, I no longer needed to spend time getting ready or applying.  I had plenty of time on my hands.

My friend Darryl Butler was attending the University of Califronia at Riverside.  I visited him after my Air Force physical since they had dilated my pupils during the physical so that I could not see details.  I had Darryl's room number written down, though I had to ask at the front desk because I could not read my own note.

I visited Darryl at the university several times.  We sometimes ate at a new, local submarine shop where I first learned about sub sandwiches.  Since I also had so much time on my hands because I generally worked the swing shift as a security guard, I would often drive to a mall to watch movies cheaply in the first matinee before heading to work in a few locations before finally settling in at a German-owned manufacturing plant of drawer parts called Accuride. 

The company had been on strike, so I had to look for nails near the entrance and only let someone in when they had an appointment.  One evening, I was stuck between a forman at the plant and the head of the labor union as they argued on either side of the closed front gate.

One afternoon, less than a block from the main gate, I noticed something moving on the white dividing line of the two-lane road.  I instantly realized that it was a little gray kitten, not more than a few weeks old.  How he had gotten there was impossible to know.  But I knew that if I did not rescue him, he would get run over eventually.  I slowed to a stop, opened the driver's door, scooped him up, and set him on the passenger seat of my Camaro. 

Even though my three parakeets had either died or flown out the door, and I had given away to my sister Lorri my gerbil, I certainly could not keep a pet with my Air Force enlistment looming (mom was not a pet person), so I called the local animal shelter and they came to pick up the kitten.  I hope the cute little guy found a good home and lived a long life because he would certainly have died on that busy road.

Later at the plant, I even got a summer job there for Darryl.  He watched the back parking lot while I guarded the front lot.  Soon, the strike was over, the mostly Hispanic workers gaining nothing.  Most returned to their jobs since they seemed to have few other alternatives for work.

During this time, I continued to write and polish my poems, eventually publishing them using the velobind technique that I had learned about from one of those morning LA shows, that one featuring Ralph Story and Stephanie Edwards.      

BTW, the placard reads:  "To Be A Marine You Have To Believe In Yourself ..Your Fellow Marine..Your Corps..Your Country..Your God.  Semper Fidelis."

---

Dave Zito, Dennis Zito, a Marine friend at San Diego Marine Recruit Depot, summer 1973

Dennis Zito's twin brother, Dave, was stationed at Edwards AFB in the high desert for backseat F-4 training while Den was stationed at 29 Palms Marine Base that summer.  The two of them with a friend of Den's in the Marines drove to my house in South Gate a couple of weeks before I left for Air Force OTS.  I remembered, likely incorrectly, that we took my Mustang to drive to San Diego.  However, my maroon Camaro sits in the background, so this picture was taken not long after Den visited me in South Gate.

---

Dennis Zito in front of my new 1973 Camaro in South Gate

As you can see, the magnolia tree, almost a decade later in 1973, is still not very tall.  This photograph is the last I took while we lived in South Gate.  From June of 1964, until August of 1973, this was home.  Not long after I left for Air Force Officer's Training School in early August, mom finally was able to move to San Pedro, to live near the water.  I'd packed up most of my possessions, primarily my large record collection and books, before I left.

When I was visiting the Robertson's, I was able to speak to a representative with the Coast Guard Officer's Training School on the phone.  I was told that not only was my blood pressure a problem, but that year the Coast Guard did not have a large officer class, and I would not have qualified anyway.  Almost as soon as that door closed forcefully, out of the blue I heard again from my Air Force recruiter in Huntington Park.  He told me that my previous test scores no longer counted and that I was eligible for pilot training.  While I might have preferred to become a navigator, I wanted to join the Air Force more.

Whereas I had gone for a draft physical at the new Wilshire Blvd. draft facility in 1972, where we potential draftees were treated poorly, to a Marine OCS physical at the same facility not long after, where we were treated very well, the Air Force physical was performed at March Air Force Base, near Riverside, CA.  This was the same base where my dad took me, back in the 1950's, as a kid to an air show there.  I walked up into the cargo hold of a C-124 Globemaster on a gray day.

When I easily passed my Air Force physical, with no high blood pressure issues, and my date for AF OTS was set for early August at Lackland, TX, I sold my Mustang way too cheaply to a private party.  My Grandpa Sanchez had given Ann and me each a second mortgage that he held.  I closed it with the home owner for $400 and used that as a down payment for my 1973 Camaro.  The price was $4,000 at Cormier Chevrolet.  The Camaro plant had been on strike for months, so I wondered if the strike would end before I had to leave for the Air Force.

---

        

Dennis Zito and his Fiat, 1973

Fortunately, I had remained friends with Den and Beth Zito after the trip back east.  Dennis had finally finished with their six-month training at The Basic School (BCS, or what they would rename, The Big Suck) in Quantico.  They had referred to one another as Lieutenadates (no longer Candidates but still not feeling like full Marine 2nd Lieutenants yet).  Until after they graduated from BCS. 

Beth remained back east with her family when Dennis was assigned to advanced Marine training at 29 Palms, California, in the desert. 

Several weeks before this picture was taken on Cypress Avenue in South Gate, Dennis had told me he was renting a trailer off base.  I drove out one weekend evening to visit him.  My memory is that I still owned my 1966 Ford Mustang GT because I remember parking beside his trailer and taking the top down, staring up at the night sky above the desert as I waited for him to return from an evening at the Officer's Club.

In the photograph above, taken in the summer of 1973, Den is kissing his new Fiat because, as you can see, the bumper is decidedly bent.  He'd hit a coyote on the way to visit me in South Gate and was upset at having killed  a coyote and damage his new car.   

I don't know what we did that day after he arrived; and I don't even recall if he returned to the Marine base later that day, but he probably did.  I believe he parked his Fiat in front of the neighbor's house next door because of the following photograph.

---

John "Trey" Robertson III, 1st Birthday, January 23, 1973

They nicknamed him "Trey" so as not to have him confused with his father or grandfather, with the same name.  This was his first birthday party, and they did not own a camera to take any pictures.  I took this picture with the last photograph on the roll of film I brought on the trip.

When I returned to California, even though the two of them were angry with me and made my last couple of days of my visit miserable, even when I came down with some kind of bug the day before I left, I had three copies made of this picture, one for them and one for each set of Trey's grandparents.  I mailed those copies off to them with a note of apology for my having upset them.

It was a casual remark about looming budget cuts now that the Vietnam War was entirely winding down.  I idly speculated that, perhaps, since the army would sometimes perform similar missions as the Marines, that the Corps might be seriously reduced in size or eliminated altogether as a separate branch of the service out of fiscal necessity.  I did not say it vindictively or even very seriously; but John's wife immediately became incensed with me, even telling the infant Trey in the car at the gas station, "Trey, hit him."  I was shocked.

Later, when I tried to clarify what I had meant, John bitterly told me, "You probably said that because you couldn't make it at Marine OCS."  That, of course, was entirely untrue.  I could have graduated with the rest of our platoon had I wanted to, just as John could have had he wanted to.  He and I simply had not wanted to complete the program, for not dissimilar reasons--neither of us wanted to become career Marine officers.  He wanted to be with his family and finish his enlisted time as quickly as possible.  I knew it wasn't for me and had other things to accomplish in my life.

At this point, realizing that what I said had become totally distorted in their minds, I did not even bother to try to further explain what I had meant.  I dropped it.  However, even with sending the three copies of this photo to them so that they would have a memento of Trey's first birthday, as well as including a letter of apology with the pictures, I never heard from either of them again.  Not even a thank you note for sending the photograph to them.

I had gone out of my way to be a good guest during my entire stay.  I had attended a Baptist church service with them even though I no longer attended church and had been a practicing Catholic when I did go to church before that.  I consumed the grape juice and soda cracker during communion because they were devout Christians, and I did not want to offend them.  When John's wife told me that she did not even allow John to lay on the couch and watch TV, as I was doing, I moved to the floor without comment.  When I was feeling bad the day before my flight and asked if I could stay an extra day to recover before flying back to California, I agreed to leave when John explained that they did not want Trey to get sick with what I had come down with because Trey had been sick before I arrived (I stayed in his room the entire time and probably had picked up whatever bug he'd been sick with).  When his wife remained so angry with me and did not look at or acknowledge me while I uncomfortably waited for the taxi in their living room, as I finally said goodbye and thanked her for having me stay with them, she did not even respond with a "You're welcome."  And, of course, without protest, I took the expensive taxi ride all the way to Dulles airport from Quantico even though it cost me about $90, a hefty sum in those days when I was unemployed.       

---

John Robertson, his wife and son, January 1973

After leaving Ann Arbor, I flew to National Airport in Washington DC where John and his wife picked me up.  I don't even remember which airline I flew on or which type of aircraft, although it probably was a 727 and United Airlines.

I spent a week visiting them, where I also took those pictures of John and me on the various obstacles at OCS.

---

Greg & Daylin, Ann Arbor, MI, January 1973

As you can see, some snow is on the ground.  Daylin, with the super-long blond hair in this picture, was accepted, with a full scholarship, to the University of Michigan for graduate school.  All of the years of hard work and long hours of study at East L.A.J.C. and USC had paid off handsomely.  He was on his way.  I still had no idea what I was going to do, though this year would be decisive.

Now that the draft was over and I had spent my time at Marine OCS--and the Vietnam War was now winding down so significantly--I really did not have to worry about military service any longer.

What I should have done in those days, if I could get into a time machine now and travel back to meet up with my younger self then and offer some sound advice, was to go back to school at Cal State Dominguez Hills, get a Master's Degree in history or the humanities, such as I would from 1974-1978 while in the service, and then become a junior college instructor, as I would do part time from 1980-1991, in Colorado Springs.

That's the real regret I probably have now, given all that was to happen to me in those intervening years. 

While I enjoyed my time in the Air Force and wanted very much to serve 20 years at least and then retire, it did not work out that way for me.  Being gay when there were no legal protections, not even DADT, my career would simply be a diversionary path.  And I would find that I loved teaching but could not get a full-time job in the 1980's in Colorado Springs or around Denver in the 1990's and 2000's.  Had I still lived in California, where new community colleges were being built all the time and just about everywhere across the Golden State, I would likely have been hired decades ago and been able to teach for 30 years and then retire. 

I mistakenly fixated on a military career and then ended up so far off course for the rest of my life.  I never was able to get back to the Academy or back into the Air Force, even now with DADT overturned.  And I have not been able to get a full time teaching job no matter how many applications I have submitted and how much teaching experience I have had.

When this picture above was taken, while I was marking time by trying to get into the Coast Guard and then again trying for the Air Force, was when I could have made the switch to become a teacher instead.  I was still living at home in South Gate.  Mom would not have minded if I put in another year or two, and then began applying to schools all over Southern California to teach.  I would take two years after Dominguez Hills for Marine OCS and Air Force OTS before I finally got a military commission and began active duty.

Perhaps in several alternate universes, I did become a teacher instead of serving in the military.  However, in this universe, I had a whole different set of friends and experiences awaiting me. 

Regarding Daylin, a couple of years ago, I looked him up on the Internet and saw that he's been a college professor at three or four schools over the years.  I sent him an email and got a reply.  He was disappointed over the last years to discover that even among academics, or especially among academics, there is unwelcome politics inivolved no matter where you teach.  But he should be able to retire in the next couple of years, if he hasn't already.  While he was married when this picture was taken, and his wife took the picture above, he's been single ever since.  I don't read anything into that, mind you.  He also has no offspring, whereas his brother Darryl, who married the woman I met back in the 70's, had four children, all of whom have been doing well.  Darryl is also a college professor, and he and his wife of all these years are still married.  Daylin says they get together at least once a year.

He also explained that both his parents are dead (his father was a terrible chain smoker who used to line up the butts in an ashtray while he sat after work in his easy chair and watched TV).  Their older sister, he told me, is also dead.  So, it's just down to the two older brothers and the two fraternal twin sisters who are still alive.  I sent him a followup email, but he did not respond.

To get to Ann Arbor, I flew non-stop from LAX to Detroit on a United Airlines stretch DC-8, and the two of them picked me up.  I spent a nice couple of days visiting.  We played a sort of two-man basketball game on a trampoline apparatus at a rec center near where they lived.  For the next few days, the ground continued to feel as if it were sinking under my feet, even after I flew on to Washington National Airport in DC where John Robertson and his wife picked me up.  I may have flown on a 727-200, and perhaps I also took United Airlines.  I simply don't remember the details of that flight all these years later.

---

Lida, Mike & Greg, December 23, 1972

Ann must have taken this picture.  Lida looks very happy.  During the ceremony, she looked entirely calm and collected.  However, when Mike went to put the ring on her finger, I noticed that her hand was shaking noticeably, though not that anyone else in attendance could tell.  Mike looks stunned.  I look unprepared to have my picture taken.

That fall, of course, was the election of Richard Nixon over George McGovern by a margin that Nixon would foolishly call "a mandate"--big mistake right there because the Watergate break-in and especially the cover up would dog him until he finally resigned in disgrace. 

I voted for McGovern. 

Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam when he ran in 1968, and I supported him with NIXON'S THE ONE bumper stickers, involved what Lyndon Johnson had begun doing just before he left office:  turning the war back over to the Vietnamese.  But, of course, the other methods Nixon also used were secret bombings and secret U.S. troop incursions into Cambodia; and so the war widened beyond its original scope and borders.  But none of those moves brought peace any closer; well, they did but not the peace anyone else was looking for after all the dead and wounded and the financial treasure expended.  The U.S., though, did begin to pull out in much greater numbers, essentially giving up and going home. 

Throughout those years, I read Jules Feiffer, Pat Oliphant and Joseph Conrad cartoons in the L.A. Times.  They savaged Nixon as they had Johnson before him.  Conrad had produced one of the best cartoons ever regarding the My Lai massacre:  An effusively be-ribboned and be-medaled general, sitting on the witness stand while dismissively looking at the many photos of dead bodies, casually declares, "Yes, mass suicide is always a terrible thing." 

This election was the first time I was able to vote.  Not that long after, the voting age was reduced to 18.  But I still had to wait until after I turned 21 the fall of 1971 to vote in the 1972 election.  Our generation went off to fight the war but were still unable to register their votes until they were 21. 

I walked to the polling place, which was about a block away, in someone's living room on the block of Cypress on the other side of Firestone Blvd.  They used the innovative punch card method.  I believe I did check the back for hanging chads before inserting the ballot into a sleeve and dropping it into the ballot box.  I knew McGovern wasn't going to win, but I was not going to vote for the man who was, despite his protestations, a crook.

In those days, Del Clauson, a conservative Republican, was our Congressman for years.  But it was in the 60's and early 70's that the city became increasingly liberal when the old folks, like the two old ladies who lived on either side of us, died off.  South Gate was primarily white.  Watts was primarily black.  These days, both areas, and most of the surrounding communities that were also primarily white in the 60's and 70's, are now heavily Hispanic. 

---

Greg & Ann at Mike's wedding, December 23, 1973

I am wearing that cheesy mustache.  Ann obviously came to the wedding.  I actually went out with Lida first.  She had tickets to the LA Philharmonic with Zubin Meta conducting at the Dorthy Chandler Pavilion in LA.  But obviously, since I wasn't romantically interested, she turned her attention to Mike.

They would produce two lovely children who have gone on to produce lovely children of their own.  And both of them like Alex, Mike's partner of more than a decade. 

So while some might say that their getting married that night was a mistake since Mike would eventually accept the fact that he was gay, it's more accurate to say that it was a pairing that did produce good results even if the marriage did not last.

---

Christmas 1972, 8940 Cypress Avenue

The Christmas tree is behind me.  I am holding onto the handle bars of my new Peugeot 10-speed bike.  Frankly, I don't recall riding this bike much because South Gate, this being the early 70's, did not have bike riding trails.  The side streets were narrow.  The main streets too busy with traffic and no place to actually ride along them safely.  But I had always wanted a really nice bike and bought this one.

I am wearing a fancy (rented) tuxedo because Mike was getting married that evening in Bell, and I was asked to be his best man. 

I was still trying to get into the Coast Guard officer's training program because my scores for Air Force OTS were not good enough.

Although I would not know it at the time this picture was taken, this would be our last Christmas in South Gate.  The year ahead would begin slowly but would eventually send me on the path I am still heavily influenced by today.

---

Maine, Beyond Quantico

I wrote a poem about my two weeks in Maine, but I still did not have a camera to take pictures.  As I look back, I am not certain that I initially intended to return to Quantico to see the others graduate.  However, there were no job prospects in Maine, nor did I have a place to stay beyond those two weeks or so.  It simply seemed an interesting thing to do, to see the others graduate since we had all spent so many crucial weeks of our lives together.

Maine, Beyond Quantico

Although time-lengths of light
may be the barrier of our physical dip
                                  into the outer darkness,
will we recognize alternate escape for the coming end?

In the woods of the world,
colorless motion angles through muted green chimes,
easing leaves down the levels of gravity's shelves.

With the full of the sun,
will our falling settle when to await?
And will charred cells remember
and never suffer with their ringing stalks--
all forgotten in the way of frozen liquid?

Should ice ever disengage, and a thaw retain,
then we may find us up reversing roots
that catch a cycling earth in time
to repeat.

Besides the beauty of the woods of Virginia and of Maine, when I experienced the coming of spring in each place as the season worked its way up the Eastern Seaboard, in Maine, as I would later discover at OTS in Texas, it was the bugs.  I'd had never seen so many insects before.  The first week I arrived in Maine, I was able to walk in the woods undisturbed.  By the second week there, the bugs about killed me.  They swarmed everywhere and I could no longer take a comfortable stroll.

The other problem is that while I was no longer getting the exercise that I had gotten at Marine OCS, my appetite was still the same.  I was always hungry.  Initially, after I returned to California, I got heavy, about 185 pounds.  But a series of colds that summer and fall caused me to lose all that I had gained and I was back down to my regular 160-165.

I went back to work at A.U. Morse & Company, though I moved into the office to take wallpaper orders instead of filling them in the warehouse.  It was a bad move.  Our new office manager was a gay guy who was fey.  My stress level increased, working in the office.  When I tried to join, first the Coast Guard, and then the Air Force, my blood pressure levels were up and down.  I wanted to take a week off before I took my next test.  The office manager sent me a letter in the mail, terminating me.  I applied for unemployment insurance.  When A.U. Morse tried to counter my claim, I showed the unemployment rep the letter and he immediately granted my claim.  I did not have to worry about income for the next few months until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life and my future.

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