Too Late Smart

Out in the Pennsylvina Dutch country in the Eastern part of the state, dozens of souviner stores fill the rural towns and villlages. Among the coffee mugs, Tee shirts, candles and oteher things are iitems  with the phrase “We grow old too soon ane too late smart.”

 

As I have gotten older, I am recalling what a dumbass I was as I wolrried Cc about stupid things instead of doing what was right. Here are two things involving my high school and early college days.

 

DEBBIE AND THE DANCE

 

Debbie was a high school classmate who also attended County College of Morris. During high school, we put on Bye Bye Birdie as the class musical. Included in the cast was Randolph, a kid brother of about 10. The cast was set except for Randolph. I suggested Debbie, who was well under 5 feet tall. The idea was greeted with enthauism and Debbie was rehersing the next day. One of the most cheerful girls in the class, she helped all of us to keep our spirits high.

 

She went to prom with my best friend and after school was over he found another girl and we dated for a short time. The college had a dance at an off-campus venue. And the guy she was with was very drunk and somewhat hostile. The right thing to do was, of course, to offer her a ride home. So why didn’t I? Because I was with a date and I was way too self centered to bring her and an ex-girlfriend together.

 

Dumbass, dumbass, dumbass.  I avoided class reunions until our 45th in 2011. It was then I learned she died in her 40s. I don’t now the reason, but I was very sad. And the dance event from decades ago continues to haunt me. She had too much joy to die so soon.

 

MARIE AND THE MOMENT

I transferred to Morristown High in the middle of my freshman year. It was a difficult time for me. It seemed most of my classmates had already formed friendships and cliques and finding friends was difficult.

 

In the middle of my senior year, Marie joined our homeroom and was pretty much ignored. She sat right behind me and we would talk. She also had a happy, friendly personality. She had bright, red hair and a smile that brightened up my mornings. She did have a problem as her face was ravaged with acne scars. 

I had thought about asking her on a date. But I was concerned about how people would react seeing me with her. Dumbass, dumbass, dumbass. Instead

The last time I saw her was a few days before school ended. I don’t think she went to graduation. In all my adult life, I don’t think I ever met a nicer girl. You can certainly was a loser. Too late smart. :-( 

 Scam???

 

On Wednesday, 3/6/34, I received a call from Houston Texas – 346-327-3901 – claiming they were from Amazon. The person said I had bought an Apple laptop  for $1799.99. I told them I didn’t and after much discussion, including the delivery place was in Tenessee, they said they were transferring me to my bank’s fraud department. 

 

At the alleged fraud department, I was asked what other products I purchased from Amazon. There was very bad reception. Since I at my doctor’s office, I didn’t have internet and asked the person to call me back. Again, poor reception, even when I moved outside. This time the number – 202-992-5600 – still had bad reception. I told them to call back later. After that, I stopped answering calls and got around a dozen from BOTH numbers. I finally answered one of them and told them I think this is a fraud and would go to my bank to deal with it. The calls stopped. I went to my on-line bank account and there was no record of this purchase. 

 

Then, I went to Amazon.com, searched for Apple laptops and learned there were no computers for sale at that price.  I then went to Apple.com and learned the top price for their newest top-of-the-line laptop model is $100 less than what the scammers claimed.

 

I’M ON MY WAY TO THE BANK TO DISCUSS THIS AND ANYWAY, KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THIS SCAM.

It takes one to…

I have grown up thinking that I shouldn’t be judgemental. I learned about the idea of “walk a mile in his shoes” as a young boy scout. 

 

But Donald Trump is an egomaniacal fool, or a very sick person. Probably both.

 

How do I know this? Because it takes one to know one.

 

Anyhow. I now live in Florida, a state populated by extreme right people and their equally insane leaders. So I want you, and them, to understand where I’m coming from. 

 

You should know that I am under the influence of Rachel Maddow and Liz Cheney, I just finished reading Maddow’s “Prelude” and listening to her podcast called “Ultra,” both are about how Nazi spies influenced 1930s and 1940s pre-war right wingers to attempt a bloody coup in the United States through congressmen and other influencers.

 

I am now “reading” Cheney’s

 “Oath and Honor” on Audible as it is not yet available on Kindle. Thus far, Cheney reads her book without the passion I expected but lays out a damning case against Trump following the election but prior to the Jan. 6 uprising.  It is clear that Trump, not to mention his most ardent supporters, was aware he lost the election but refuses to concede while plotting to nullify the eldctrol vote count. 

 

I have yet to continue to read the book but I have watched several of her interviews, including one with Maddow, who points out that from a political point of view, they couldn’t be further apart. 

 

But this isn’t about these two women.  It’s about my personal viewpoint.

 

I first heard of Trump in the 1980s when he was able to rebuild a skating rink in New York City when no one else was successful. It earned him some prestige among New Yorkers which he parlayed into a business book called “The Art of the Deal,” which was entirely ghost written.

 

Working in the city, I would sometimes browse bookstores. I found the book in the $2 overstock bin and after scanning it, I found it was more about Trump than business deals and I ignored it.

 

The next I heard about Trump was when he demanded that four Black young men be severely punished for attacking a woman in Central Park. They were innocent. During that time it was revealed that Trump and his father lost court cases when they refused to allow people of color to rent their apartments.

 

I am proud to say I never watched his reality television series.

 

Then came the day he took the escalator down Trump Tower to the cheers of dozens of attractive young people. I didn’t care about his attacks on Mexicans. What got to me was that cheering crowd were out-of-work Broadway actors who were paid $50 for the two hours of cheering him on. I immediately decided he was a fraud. 

 

And when I learned how he stiffed his contractors and others, I decided he was a criminal. And as his pronouncements piled up, I absolutely knew he was a fucking liar.

 

 Another thing I want to express was throughout his time in office, there was absolute chaos as people were constantly fired, especially his chiefs of staff.

 

I want to add just two things: how many hundreds of thousands died because of denial of the realities of Covid while we stayed in our homes and wore masks and couldn’t even go to church? Perhaps he was also a killer?

 

AND HOW CAN ANY REASONABLE PERSON DENY HE INCITED THE JAN. 6 RIOTS?

 

I am too old and disabled to ever be an anti-MAGA activist but you can bet your ass I will vote against Trump in any election. 

 

I have two hats that say “Make America Sane Again.” I thought that might have happened when Republicans lost the presidency, house and senate in 2020. But I fear the only time that will happen is when The Donald leaves our planet. Though since we're the same age, perhaps he will become a senile egomaniac.

Fear and scaring in Sarasota

Letter to a store manager

I'm not the biggest fan of Walmart, but it seemed like every one in the store was there when I needed them.

 

Oct.27, 2023

 

Store Manager Jarad

Walmart 

Lockwood Ridge Road

Sarasota, FL 34243

 

Dear Jarad,

 

While I spend several thousand dollars per year at your store, I have never experienced so much help from many of your associates until today.

 

You see, I lost my phone. Frankly, I was very scared and upset. For one thing, I do not drive. I have to depend on Uber and that means I need my phone or I am marooned in your building. I. had nightmare visions of spending the night sleeping on a table. 

 

Anyhow, here is what happened. First, I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and get my flu and Covid shots. 

 

After that, I picked up some groceries. And then, I checked out. While checking out I had a problem with one of my credit cards. I thought I had properly activated it, but failed to do so, and used my debit card instead.

 

Anyhow, I decided to check out the Holiday store. For more than a decade, Walmart has sold cute little holiday teddy bears with the year imprinted on the foot. It isn’t available yet, which is not unusual. But I used the phone to take a photo of a Christmas tree I was interested in. Then, while shopping for some gift bags, I got a phone message from my credit card company telling me why my credit card was refused and how to activate it. 

 

Anyhow, I went to the register to pay for the gift bags and discovered my phone was missing!

 

Not think very straight, I went to the first place I used the phone – the pharmacy. I had a notice when my prescription was filled. They didn’t have it, but the pharmacist on duty was kind enough to dial the number to no avail. 

 

Next, I went to the register where I checked out. The cashier was gone and the lane was closed, but one of your associates was using the area to apparently organize merchandise. He too, called the phone, again to no avail. But he referred me to another register which was designated for use as a lost-and-found station. The person there (perhaps a CSM?) went through the drawers but didn’t find it.He also tried calling the phone with the same results.

 

It was on to the Christmas tree area where an associate went throughout the entire area ringing me and searching for the phone without any results.

I then went to the area wheI I found the gift bags to no avail.

 

Having worked for five years at Walmarts on Long Island, I finally realized that just about the only person in the store who could walk around with me searching would be a manager.

 

Now, nearly hysterical, GM Coach Carrie arrived and in a calming voice asked me to review what I had done. I finally had figured out something of the last place I had been and we headed towards the Christmas section. She dialed my number and immediately found the phone by the gift bags. I had left it upside down and it was difficult to see and hear with my older eyes and ears. 

 

She continued to talk to me, further calming me down and I was finally able to order an Uber to get me home.

 

Again, so many people expressed their concern and willingness to help that I have to congratulate you on the magnificent core of associates you have.

 

Sincerely,

 

Michael Munzer

JUST A THOUGHT

Just a thought.

 

Our current political climate can be traced back half a century, or even longer. 

 

Buried under Nixon was Agnew. He was forced to resign after facing extensive bribery charges. I cannot comprehend how Americans could support Trump, due to his track record and moral recklessness. And how is Biden charged with financial issues with absolutely no proof?

 

It started with the Nixon nightmare. Except for 9/11, we have continued to become a nation of haters. Even then we found a new group of our citizens to hate, despite the fact that, unlike the terrorists, they fled their former homes to leave the oppressive and extreme Muslim culture.

 

When I was a student teacher, years before 9/11, I had a couple of students whose family fled the Islamic revolution in Iran. One of the students was a young teen who insisted on becoming as ‘American’ as possible. She insisted she wanted to become a Christian because that’s who Americans were. 

 

A few years later, during the 2002-03 school year, I taught a young student who lived on the lower East Side. Wearing a head covering every day, she rarely spoke and appeared to live in fear. She ate alone at lunch. A year earlier, the school’s playground was used as a staging ground for rescuing 9/11 victims. 

 

Politics in MY country has become convoluted and filled with rage. I once lived in a time when the minority party was called “the loyal opposition.”

Discourse was usually civil.

 

I’ve come to realize that, unlike previous years, I’m getting too old to care. If I live long enough, I’ll vote against Trump or whoever the GOP candidate is. But many of the friends who once made wonderful advocates for both sides are gone. It’s not so much fun anymore. Politics has gone from a great sport to all-out war tearing apart friends and family. 

 

It reminds me of the ‘War of Northern Aggression,’ which still has  roots in today’s climate as the differences between north (liberal) and south (conservative) cultures are filled with fear and distrust. How many times over our lives have we commented that the south is still fighting the Civil War? Yet even if we spend a day at Gettysburg, we still fail to realize how high the cost of that heritage is. Is it ‘history’ and has little to do with us, or are we doomed to repeat it by not learning from it?

 

Those of my high school classmates who are still alive remain clinging to different sides. We lost our innocence with the JFK and MLK murders. Here was a group that elected four Black classmates as our senior year officers, not because of the civil rights era we lived in, but simply because the incumbent group of privilege did a poor job. 

 

Today we remain divided. I’m so grateful that we had our 50^th reunion before Trump took office. Trump’s heritage of division, incompetence and election denial has polarized us.

 

It's my belief Trump never would have considered running for president if he hadn’t been so brutally teased by Obama at a White House Correspondents Club dinner. The man’s ego isn’t built to take a joke. We can all agree the Trump family has a history of racism. Court records give us a pattern of ongoing discrimination in their real estate business. Here was a man who was satirized and humbled in a most public forum by a man he grew up considering racially and economically inferior. He is a man so prideful that he could have no choice but to seek validation in the presidential arena, especially since his ‘birther’ claims proved to be false.

 

And his denial of the 2020 election results continues to inflame our nation and deeply encourages chaos in light of both civil and criminal charges. He simply could not accept defeat and repudiation and though his supporters will deny it, this is an example of a childish temper tantrum over incredibly high stakes. 

 

Yet many still believe his Jan. 6 behavior and its consequences are justified. Back in our senior year, we could never have imagined something like this.

 

But we should not be surprised. We quickly entered – and perhaps even caused – the civil strife over Vietnam and the rise of the counterculture. We were the ones who made drugs socially acceptable ­– and some of our best and brightest have died because of it. It is something we have passed down to our children. At the turn of the century, I taught special ed children. Many of these children were abandoned by their parents and their grandparents freely admitted that the mothers used drugs during pregnancy. But the deniers blame vaccines. 

 

We then went through Watergate, which was followed by impeachment of Clinton over sexual misconduct. Yet so many of us will freely admit to cheating.

 

And then on 9/11, we seemed to unify. But we also found a new group of our citizens to fear and hate. And Trump vocalized that fear and hate.

 

And we attacked Trump because of his “Stormy” relationship and three wives, the latest of whom frequently displays public hostility towards him. But I wonder if impeachment is justified over Clinton’s blow job or over Trump’s phone calls? In neither call did Trump get satisfaction. Hopefully Clinton did ( That’s a joke –  sort of).

 

Until January 6, we can view the former president as a man of many character flaws, disorganization, impulsive behavior and very poor decision making. His public lies and misinformation number in the thousands.

 

Though Trump is not an example of a “good” person, the reason I feel he has so much support is he is so much like us.

 

The fact is we deserve the leaders we have and may have killed the ones we need.   

 

Just a thought. 

Harry Chapin and the girls in juvenile confinemen

I did a lot of substitute teaching on Long Island, which included Madonna Heights, a place for girls not unlike the farm for boys I lived in while growing up in New Jersey.

 

These were girls who were often in trouble but not really criminals and the purpose of the place was to keep them protected and safe more than anything else.

 

Anyhow, this was a long-teerm gig and the principal told me that the girls, mostly of high school age, lkked poetry. So I decided to move in that direction.

 

I started to recite Harry Chapin’s classic  “Taxi,” knowing that these girls probably never heard of it. It was four decades since the record came out and Chapin had been dead 30 years. After I recited it, there was a lot of conversation, especially about the lyric: “We learned about love in the back of a Dodge. . .the lesspn hadn’t gone too far.” There was a lot of discussion about how the girls would have sex with the boys and then get dumped, especially after they came to this place. A few of them got pregnant during Christmas recess and could not stay there if they got an abortion, This place was run by the Catholic church.

 

I led them into a discussion about how our hopes and dreams never happened as we hoped and asked them to write about that in a poem, or in a letter to someone, perhaps God as they saw him.

 

The results were astonishing. Some of these girls were really talented writers. They poured their hearts into it.

 

The next day we did another Harry Chapin song/poem called “Dogtown.”

 

It is about the town of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Since colonial times, it hass been a fishing village. Today, it is home to Gortons Fish.

 

Over it’s long history, many of the fishermen from the town have been lost at sea and there is a statue of a sailor in a rain slicker gripping a steering wheel called “They that go down to the sea in ships,“ based on a Bible quotation.  Surrounding the front of the statue is a fence listing all the sailors who had perished. 

 

 

A few hundred yards down the road is another statue about a woman looking out to sea with a baby in her arms waiting and hoping her husband would return.

Chapin wrote about these women. He picks one woman who married her husband and he left for the whaling trip ten days later: “He took me up to Dogtown the dday I was a bride. We had ten days together before he left my side. He’s the first mate on a whaling ship, the keeper of the. Log. He said ‘farewell my darling, I’m going to leave you with my dog.’”

 

The girls were very upset the woman had only ten days for her honeymoon. I askled them what they knew of the Puritans from their history lessons. This was the town they settled in.  I noted that the first ttime they ever kissed was possibly when they got married as there were very strong religious rules then. The sailor had gone to Boston to find his bride and they were strictly chaperoned. 

The woman, now a three-time widow, frequently walks along the coast ranting and raving. The song ends with these verses:

“Sitting by the fireside, the embers slowly die.
Is it a sign of weakness when a woman wants to cry?
The dog is closely watching the fire glints in his eye.
No use to go to sleep this early, no use to even try.

My blood beats like a woman's,
I've got a woman's breast and thighs.
But where am I to offer them
To the ocean or the skies?

Living with this silent dog
All the moments of my life,
He has been my only husband;
Am I a widow, or his wife?

Yes, it's a Dogtown and it's a fog town,
And there's nothing around 'cept the sea pounding granite ground
And this black midnight horror of a hound.

I'm standing on this craggy cliff,
My eyes fixed on the sea.
Six months past, when his ship was due, I'm a widow to be.
For liking this half living with the lonely and the fog,
You need the bastard of the mating of a woman and a dog.

And I have seen the splintered timbers of a hundred shattered hulls,
Known the silence of the granite and the screeching of the gulls,
I've heard that crazy widow Cather walk the harbor as she raves
At the endless rolling whisper of the waves.”

 

Dogtown was the place where these impoverished widows and orphans moved to. It was an area about a mile inland from the coast and the women lived in shacks. Alll that remains is a few ruins. The rest is woods and the road into the area is chained off. If you want to visit, you have to hike in and many a tourist has become lost there.

 

The girls in the class responded to the thought of not having anyone to offer their breasts and thighs to. They were all sexually active and thought about their “dry spells.” They also absolutely hated ‘the bastard of a mating of a woman and a dog’ line. I shared the line before that about how Chapin wanted to show the horrors of living in this place.

 

We continued to review poetry for another week with more mainstream poets. 

But the girls didn’t respond with as much emotion to these poems as Chapin’s.

During that time, I discovered “Sequel.” It’s a follow-up song to “Taxi,” ten years later. It’s about how Chapin, now a very successful singer, returns to San Francisco and visits the woman in the song. She has left the luxury of 16 Parkside Lane and has learned to like herself. In the original ‘Taxi,” the woman had wanted to be an actress and he had wanted to learn to fly.  And she acted hppy inside her handsome home while he flew in his taxi stoned.

Chapin concludes this song as follows:

So I thought about her as I sang that night
And how the circle keeps rolling around
How I act as I'm facing the footlights
And how she's flying with both feet on the ground

I guess it's a sequel to our story
From the journey 'tween Heaven and Hell
With half the time thinking of what might have been
And half thinkin' just as well
I guess only time will tell.

 

The girls were quiet for some time. And I repeated the last line. I said that they will decide what their time will tell. Their future has yet to be written. But they need to create and follow a plan. The plan would be subject to constant change but having a goal will keep them out of worse places then Madonna Heights.

 

Maybe you know a girl like these?

 

 

 

 

Top Ten Women

 My top ten female entertainers

 

I see any number of top ten lists and so I’m being a joiner. My top ten have a somewhat different standard as they are actors and/or singers rather than from one category. Another factor is a personal sex appeal. 

So let’s take a look.

 

10. Martina McBride. 

A beautiful country singer, YouTube has a number of live performances and she is “real” instead of what a director thinks of her in music videos. She has a love affair with her audiences.

 

9. Nataile Wood. 

An amazing actress from the ‘40s on, she is best known for her role as Maria in ‘West Side Story’ (though her singing was dubbed). She held major roles in many films. As a child actress, she co-starred in ‘Miracle on 34^th Street.’ My favorite film as an adult was ‘Love With The Proper Stranger.’

 

To me, her incredible eyes and face were one of the most appealing of any actress of her time.

 

8. Juice Newton. This country singer has an incredible voice and stole my teenage heart with her ‘Angel of the Morning.’

Her long mane of hair is her best feature.

 

7. Shaina Twain.

Beautiful voice and incredible body but her smile is captivating. Man, I feel like that woman. Look at her ‘I’m having a Party’ video on YouTube to see just how her smile will drive any man to desire.

 

6. Denise Richards.

While she has played much more sexy and mature roles, I am convinced she is one of the most beautiful women on any planet from her role in ‘Starship Troopers.’ I saw the movie because the original book was written by my favorite author. But was stunned by her fabulous innocent-to-warrior face. 

 

5. Speak Easy Three (tie)

What man would not want enjoy the ultimate fantasy of a trio of a beautiful blond, sexy brunette and fiery redhead women. Check out their ‘When I get low, I get high’ video on YouTube. The way they sync both their bodies and eyes is awesome.

 

4. Ladyva (pronounced La Diva)

This Swiss beauty is probably the best female Boogie Woogie piano player in the world. She is also a fairly good singer. This Swiss miss has a lovely body and shows off her long, shapely legs with her tight short skirts and dresses. I also love her long, straight, hippie-style straight hair.

 

3. (tie Morgan James and Hailey Reinhart).

Both these women are part of Post-Modern Jukebox, the famed collective group of musicians. They can sing anything from swing to jazz to ssoul to standards and just about any style of music. 

Each beauty has a somewhat different voice, but make beautiful music and audiences love them.

 

2. Katharine Ross. 

I fell in love with her beauty in ‘The Graduate’ and she continued to grab my heart in ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’ I do have one problem with her. She had the good sense to marry Sam Elliot instead of me.

 

NUMBER ONE Rita Hayworth.

She could, and did, outdance Fred Astaire and every other partner. Sexy as a person and in single roles, she had a come hither smile and a face that said let’s get excited.

 

Honorable mentions:

Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Sophia Loren. These beauties were very well known, but I wasn’t especially turned on by them.

Olivia Newton John, I fell in love with her pre-Grease country music. I honestly loved it.

 

KARMA

 Around 13 years ago, during our bitter, anger-filled divorce, the ex told me that Karma was going to catch up with me. It finally did.

 

I have been extremely depressed this year. So depressed that, among other things, I’m refusing to answer my phone and talk to the two friends I have left who have been calling and supporting me for years. For weeks, they have left a constant flow of messages. It wasn’t until today that was able to send them messages telling them why.

 

Today, I also realized I haven’t taken my meds for weeks, which include heart, diabetic and psych meds. The psych meds treat my mildly bipolar symptoms. I just don’t think about taking them. But when I do, I’ll tell myself I’ll take them in a little bit–and I forget.

 

But I don’t think the current depression is so much a sign of bi-polar as much as it is situational.

 

In the Bible, God sends Eve to Adam because he declares it is not good for man to be alone. And I’ve reaped what I’ve sown.

 

A lot of people, including my divorce lawyer, my shrink and others familiar with my ex have all stated she had serious mental issues. I have to agree. But in the early years of our marriage, we overcame problems. We loved and cared about each other. But as a Gospel song I remember says “Love is not a feeling but an act of your will.”

 

During our marriage, the bipolar punches of mania and depression kept me in trouble, both in my marriage and my jobs. Too many shrinks said I was depressed and I endured a decade of antidepressants which made me far worse.

Between our mutual issues, our lives became violent with frequent screaming battles that kept my boys awake and in fear.

 

And now, I reap what I’ve sown. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of the ex, frequently crying myself to sleep about what was lost. Ro, if you ever read this, I beg you for another chance or, at least, please end the animosity between us. I will do my absolute best to love you, lift you up, support you in the way you deserve to be treated and listen to and honor your feelings.

 

Both my boys rarely speak to me either; so the family I made is destroyed nearly beyond repair. Yet I still cling to hope.

 

After the divorce, I became involved with my high school senior prom date. We were involved, on-and-off for about five years while I traveled throughout the country and we then lived together for another seven years. But the relationship gradually eroded and when her mentally-disturbed granddaughter who was in a psych hospital accused me of touching her inappropriately, she demanded I leave. Within a few weeks, I was cleared by both local police and the state BCW. But by then, I had moved to Florida and she still wouldn’t take me back – leading me to believe there were several other issues that I failed to address.

 

Anyway, here I am in Florida, getting by on Social Security but I can’t afford a car and my cataracts prevent me from driving or renting a car. At the same time, I am unable to motivate myself enough to see an eye doctor. I also won’t see a dentist to get some false teeth.

 

And, of course, I have other health issues. Not taking care of my diabetes has resulted in the loss of half of my right foot. And an old injury from high school baseball has left me with a very bad left knee. My balance is poor. Last December, I fell into my brand new, just- decorated Christmas tree.

 

I suppose I can deal with that but I had a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day in 2021. Now heart problems were nowhere near my wheelhouse. Both my parents were alcoholics and heavy smokers. My dad died of liver disease and my mom of lung cancer. But both lived a couple of years more than predicted because they had such strong hearts. I remain easily fatigued and exercise is minimal. And the only fear I have of death is dying alone.

 

And even though I’m alive, death is constantly taking other people. The worst has been my cousin “Red.” When my parents split, I lived with my aunt and uncle for a few months and he became my unofficial “big brother.” He died about two years ago and I’ve yet to stop grieving. I recently learned his sister, my cousin Rita, about a decade older than me, has become senile. A fellow writer, I am devastated to know that her brilliant mind has left us.  And my other cousin, a long-retired policeman, is now in Florida but, like me, too disabled to travel (even to Red’s funeral) and also like me, does not communicate with others.

 

Besides family, I’ve lost so many friends, classmates and teammates. Bobby C, Debbie L, Pam W, Pete C, Lois C, Frank and Gina S, Chip, and so many others.

 

So, what am I to do about being so lonely? I’ve tried the Facebook dating app for seniors, but I rarely get a response from others. Years ago, I got a lot more response from Our Time but am not ready to try it again.

 

So, as the ex once said, Karma got me – by the balls and the brains.

Memory of a beautiful stranger

Most people are aware that I’m a writer. Unlike most people’s idea of what a writer is, I don’t write fiction. Throughout my career, I’ve been a newspaper reporter and trade magazine editor and writer. After I was forced to retire due to disability at 62, I spent a few years recovering from a number of physical problems, but I did begin writing this blog. It was greatly expanded after my ex decided to divorce me when I went on a road trip to try to discover why my life was so fucked up. During the trip, I found I enjoyed the nomadic life and after the house was sold, I used my share to buy a pick-up truck and a small travel trailer. 

 

The ultimate goal was to drive around the country and by volunteering at state and national parks, I would have no expenses except for food, gas, car payments and insurance. The parks would provide a site, electric, sewer, water and sometimes cable and internet service.

 

But before all that, I headed on a final road trip from New York State to the Florida keys visiting friends. One of my stops was a campground in St. Marys, Georgia.  I really liked this place, which was a mile from the Florida border. I decided to spend the month of March there, recovering from a rather rough Upstate New York winter. 

 

There are a number of local attractions there including a national seashore, and other national park attractions. The office had a number of brochures including one for a gambling boat out of Brunswick. It offered free boarding and two meals over a six-hour voyage. Two of those hours were used to make our way beyond the three-mile border limit into the Atlantic and back, while the ocean was quite calm. The other four hours were for gambling. I had my best night ever, winning about $500 playing $10 blackjack and hitting another $250 in a couple of slot machines. It was certainly enough to pay for campground fees for the rest of the trip.

But a minor memory of the trip returned to me more than a decade later. After the casino shut down, I went to the top deck to get away from the smoke-filled rooms. A woman whom I had met on the trip out came on deck. Early on the way out, she had lost her phone and was very upset until I found it under the table she was previously sitting at. She was probably in her mid-30s and very beautiful with her excellent hair and makeup and a lovely dress. I asked her how she did and she answered “not good” and that was the end of our discussion as we quietly sat there gazing at the stars and the harbor. I really didn’t think much about her though I enjoyed the smell of her perfume as the breeze from the boat’s movement sent it to me.

 

As I said, I had won big and wrote about that in my blog. I only mentioned her in a couple of paragraphs.

 

But more than a dozen years later the memory came back to me for some reason.  And I realized there was probably a short story in that memory.  I remember the man she was with was rather plain – bald and wearing an especially ugly pair of glasses. He wore a dress shirt and slacks. And I thought about how much out of his league she was.

 

So the writer in me began creating many scenes about this woman. I’ve never done this before and I suddenly realized this could be how fiction writers got their ideas.

 

So here are some thoughts about story ideas:

 

She was stunning. But throughout the trip, I never saw her gambling.  She was clearly bored.

So why did she go on this voyage?

 

Perhaps she was simply unhappy that the date wasn’t what she expected. She was wearing a beautiful dress that revealed a beautiful body. In Vegas and Atlantic City, people dressed up. They went to shows and gambled in beautiful casinos. Here the entertainment was a guy with a keyboard. He wasn’t bad, but he certainly wasn’t Tom Jones or Wayne Newton. And most of the men wore shirts and slacks combined with many rednecks wearing too-small tee shirts, well-worn jeans and work boots. And she certainly wasn’t paying much attention to her date as he played poker.

 

So why was she with him at all? Perhaps this was just a very disappointing first date and I imagined the discussion in the car ride back. As I said the theme was that she was way out of his league and she would be telling him so.

 

But then I took this a step further. Was this man renting her for the evening? I’ve been to Las Vegas many times on business and I suddenly realized she was dressed in a similar manner to the hookers who cruised casinos. Unlike streetwalkers, their fashion sense clearly showed the goods, but not semi-nudity. I supposed he could be spending thousands for her escort services. Perhaps that was why she was so crazed about the loss of her phone – and a very important part of her business.

 

But that story idea was a little off too. Unless he told her not to bother him, she didn’t pay any attention to him – especially after the casino closed. That didn't match the behavior of an escort. ,

 

I finally returned to the hope-disappointment theme. Was this an office romance? Could she have been the boss? Or was she sleeping her way up her career ladder and running out of time?

 

I remembered an incredibly lovely receptionist at an office I worked at after finishing high school. She was a former Miss America contestant, representing a southern state. She used her southern charms to keep visitors happy while waiting for appointments. In her early 40s, she was never given a promotion after working there for a decade and her looks were starting to age. I was a kid and I played on the company’s basketball and softball teams and the guys always speculated if she was sleeping with one of the big shots.

 

But the bottom line is this: we have a female protagonist who makes a considerable effort to please a man, and is disappointed. Hell, just how many romance novels use that same theme. Perhaps, at the age of 75, I should write soft-core romance books? I’ve certainly spent way too much time dealing with disappointment.

  

It's just a fantasy!

Note: A friend of mine suggested who I am writing about and after checking her yearbook photo, this is probably the person. I sent her a message and any contact will be up to her.

In my book, I speak about dealing with ghosts I met as I traveled throughout the country. I hope this isn't about ghosts. But it has haunted me for more than half a century.

 

The setting: senior year of high school, 1966. The place: Morristown, NJ, a now suburban community with a rich history dating back to colonial times. The person: I don’t remember her name. The issue: Love at first sight.

 

At the beginning of the school year, I needed one more credit to graduate. So I joined the school choir, despite the fact that I had absolutely no talent. The teacher evaluated me and then said “For men, there is bass, tenor and baritone. You are none of those. You are a monotone.” She wasn’t trying to hurt me. She was simply stating a fact. I had absolutely no musical training. But I did have a unique gift: I could mimic. So if you put me next to a good singer, my ear would pick up the notes and duplicate them. And so, I wound up driving Barry Liss crazy. But the teacher was happy.

 

In addition to the usual activities such as school concerts, we did a couple of performances around Christmas. One Wednesday night, we performed Christmas carols on the town’s historic square, known as “The Green”. Why Weneusday? Because in those days, stores were only open on Wednesday night. That meant a decent audience. We parked ourselves in front of Bamberger’s, an upscale department store owned by Macy’s.

 

The next week, we went to the town’s big hotel and performed at a service club. There were at least 100 people, including women (wives, I suppose). The concert combined our regular songs with holiday music. 

 

On the way home, I wound up sitting next to a girl I’d never met and we began talking about stuff like the holiday and what we planned after graduation. Somehow we wound up holding hands. She later described it as “romantic” as she signed my yearbook. 

 

I discovered she actually lived around the corner from me. I offered to walk to school with her the next morning and she happily agreed.

 

That night, I couldn’t sleep as I thought about her. She was, by no means, a great beauty. But she was attractive. This was senior year, and plans for the future were a huge part of our existence. I wondered if we had one together? As I thought about it, I envisioned her as not just a girlfriend, but also as a potential wife. In those days, it was not unusual to marry your high school sweetheart right after graduation. She had everything I wanted. She was warm, calm, friendly and by the time I got up the next morning I was in love.

 

I walked to her apartment the next morning. The first thing I noticed was it was not an expensive place. While clean and neat, it was at a basement level for a much larger apartment building. This made me happy. Neither of us came from well-to-do families. 

 

And so, I knocked on her door and she opened it with a smile. I was introduced to her father. He was very rude and had a somewhat strange voice, very low combined with a slur. I thought he was an alcoholic. After leaving, we went to school talking about inconsequential things. Like the asshole I surely was, I decided this was not going to work. Both my parents were alcoholics, especially my mother, the drama queen. And so, I did not see her again until the last days of school where she signed my yearbook telling me she would never forget the romantic night together on the bus. 

 

I felt like a cruel bastard and didn’t know what to do about it. I should have asked for a second chance, but I was too ashamed to do so. And I lost the yearbook so it was impossible to find her name.

 

You see, I had entirely different plans for that morning walk to school. I wanted to tell her about how I had been thinking about her all night and would ask her to skip school with me so we could become much better acquainted. I thought we could have breakfast at the local coffee shop which was an “in crowd” after school hangout. We would then go back to my mother’s apartment where we could both talk and perhaps make out. But that didn’t happen.

 

After graduation, I started working as the office boy for a big financial company. We had a bowling league and went to an alley in Parsippany, a nearby town. And there she was, working at the snack bar. We talked for a little while but I had to join my team. That night, I bowled the best game of my life: 217. After we finished, I returned to the snack bar, but she had finished work and was gone. 

 

The next week, I went back to the alley intending to see her. I wanted to take her out for dinner at a local diner (New Jersey if famous for them) but she was gone. The manager said she had quit. I wondered if I was the reason and felt a great deal of regret. Another opportunity to make amends with someone I cared about was wasted,

 

But I never, ever forgot that night on the bus. Through the years, I have had frequent fantasy moments about her. This is especially true over the past year as I have alone in Florida, where I never wanted to live but had little choice.

 

Several times, I have looked through the high school yearbook trying to find her. I have long since lost my copy that she signed, but a friend of mine made a copy of her book and I just can’t find her. And so, dear MHS ’66 reader who may know who I’m talking about, let me know her name and anything else you might know about her.   She lived at the intersection of Colles Road and Mt.Kimble Avenue (Route 202).

 Its Labor Day. I have very mixed feelings about both the labor movement and Americans.
During the great depression, my father helped organize labor unions in the printing industry. It was something that helped create a middle class and prosperity following the Second World War. He was frequently beaten up for his efforts. 
But the printers’ unions remain quite strong, despite losing jobs to technology. In the early 1960s, there were more than a dozen newspapers serving New York City. But labor costs destroyed them. The Herald Tribune, the World and the New York Journal were forced to merge due to union demands, and they went out of business due to a strike.
After graduating from high school, my first full-time job was, as aa sales clerk at Bamberger’s, New Jersey’s largest department store chain. My union dues were $4 per week. That left my earnings at minimum wage. That $4 bought three plus mels at McDonalds, or 80 candy bars, or four packs of cigarettes. I didn’t stick around very long.
 
With some exceptions such as Costco, today’s retail jobs have very low wages. When I worked at Wal-Mart, about a third of the employees needed public 
assistance such as food stamps and Medicaid. In Canada, the 12 technicians in the automotive department voted for a union and Wal-Mart closed the store. I was made a department “manager,’ which meant I got an extra dollar per hour and lost several employee rights. As a manager, I had to go to an all-day session on union busting at an off-store site. 
And, of course, many jobs have been lot due to technology and cheaper foreign labor costs. In the automotive industry, workers have been replaced by robots. And “American” brand cars are made in other countries, especially Mexico where Ford’s sedans are a made there. Not to mention many parts are built elsewere. Even the most iconic American brand, Harley Davidson, makes its motorcyces in Europe these days.                                                                                                   
Yet there is an immense need for labor unions in many industries, Fast food and many grocery workers can’t get full-time jobs. Health care workers not only have low wages and long hours, but many of them risked or lost their lives due to Covid. 
 
Restaurant and hospitality workers get well below minimum wage and depend on tips, suffering a great deal due to Covid where the tips died due to take-out only situations.
 
But the major impact of Covid is over and it is time for every person in America who wants a job to get one that will keep them above the poverty line. And unions, weakened through lack of support and internal corruption, seem to be the ony answer. But the fact is, most Americans purchase foreign items because they are cheaper. 
 
From the 1940s through the 1970s, the International Ladies Garmet Workers Union filled the radio waves with its “Look For The Union Label” song. The ILGWU doesn’t even exist any longer, having merged with other unions in the 1990s.
 
And so, America, enjoy your extra day of rest, at least those of you who aren’t being forced to go to work. And to those of you who are buying inferior crap from Communist China, enjoy killing American jobs.

Morristown, NJ and Vietnam

 MORRISTOWN AND VIETNAM

 

I consider Morristown as my home town. I lived here from 1958 through 1976 and graduated from MHS in 1966. I was a member of the very first class at County College of Morris.

 

But I would like to share a few things about Vietnam and the town from a Vietnam-era veteran’s perspective.

 

I never heard of Vietnam until I was a sophomore when my European History teacher, Joseph Dempsey had us write a paper about Vietnam. I focused on the Buddist monks who committed suicide by pouring gasoline on themselves and then setting themselves on fire to protest the South Vietnamese government. It was an assignment Mr. Dempsey gave for several years and it helped many of us understand a little about the war that became so divisive. (More about this later).

 

I turned 18 in September of my senior year registering with Selective Service that day without a thought of military service. It was legal proof that I was18 years old. In those days the legal drinking age was 21 in New Jersey but 18 in New York. Many of us would head to the Northern border to places like Greenwood Lake or the Village in the city. Very few of us thought about getting drafted. That same year, military recruiters came the high school. I was a competitive swimmer and had lifesaving, instructor and SCUBA certifications. I spoke to the Navy people about becoming a frogman and doing underwater demolition. I was told it was impossible due to my eyesight. I asked about lifeguarding and teaching swimming but those posts went to NCOs and it would take several years to become one. I also called the Coast Guard office in Newark about search-and-rescue and was told the same thing about my eyes.

 

After graduation, I worked at a couple of office jobs in Morristown and one Saturday, I picked up a copy of the Daily Record to read on the Green and learned one of my best friends, Tristian Hayes, died in Vietnam. It was a shock and I thought about this brilliant, wonderful guy who wanted to be a soldier since middle school had sacrificed his young life in a war very few cared about. At the end of this article you will learn much more about him.

 

When I started at CCM, I was a few years older than most students, but all male students had to be registered with Selective Service. I appeared before the Draft Board to request a student deferment claiming I could not afford to go to college until CCM opened. My request was granted. This was in 1968, a very controversial year with the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. With the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the war heated up under the Lyndon Johnson administration. I became something of a wanna-be hippie and attended campus protests and an all-night vigil on the Green.  I never did drugs though. A high school classmate, the son of a very popular MHS teacher, took LSD and killed himself by putting his head on the railroad tracks and was run over by a Lackawanna train near the Morristown station. I was too terrified to try them. I had enough problems with self-control.

 

While at CCM, I began working as a freelance newspaper reporter for the Morristown Daily Record covering town meetings in the western part of the county. Since I was a college student and registered for the draft, I was assigned to try to cover Nixon’s draft lottery. “See if you can find someone who has a high number,” the editor told me.  I started to listen to the lottery and had absolutely no problem finding someone. I was number 2. 

 

Many months before, I had gotten on the waiting list for the local Army Reserve unit and I went to their office and asked the Sergeant if it was possible there was an opening available and he gave me the Army’s version of an IQ test. 

 

There was. I could become a drill sergeant! 

 

The unit was designated as a “training” unit. The concept was that if there was a need for cadre to train troops, we would be activated. I would go through Basic Combat Training, a month-long leadership preparation course, Advanced Infantry Training (Vietnam) and Drill Sergeant school.

 

So I had a choice: Enlist in the regular army for three years, the Navy or Coast Guard for four years, get drafted and wind up in the Army or Marines (!) or spend seven months to become a “shake-and-bake” drill sergeant and spend two days a month and two weeks in the summer for the next six years. I chose the drill sergeant opportunity.

 

And so on Jan. 3. 1970, about 30 of us from different parts of our 78^th division, a/k/a “Jersey Lightning” boarded a Delta Air Lines jet to New Orleans and then transferred to a 1950s era Trans Texas Airline propeller aircraft where the pilot welcomed us by telling us the aircraft had flown half a million miles without any problems. But then he introduced our stewardess who was wearing tight denim bell bottoms and a tight blouse. She got a wild ovation from us.

 

After deplaning, we got a different reception from Drill Sergeant Russel and friends who began screaming at us to get into and dress up our line. After finding temporary barracks, getting dinner and falling asleep, we were woken at 0-dark-30 to do KP. Later that day, we were given haircuts. Unlike previous weeks a new regulation went into effect as of the new year stating we didn’t have to get our heads shaved, but long hair was long gone. Following the unpublished “Hurry up and wait” regulation, we stood on line to get our uniforms and vaccinations. The next day, was perhaps the funniest day of our orientation. We had an ice storm. You had to understand that we were in the South and many of the base’s permanent party had never seen snow or ice. Soldiers were falling all over and we Jersey guys laughed our butts off as we saw several cars spin out of control, one slamming into a fire hydrant.

 

So much for fun, that night we were moved to the barracks of Alpha-one-two and revived our acquaintance with Drill Sergeant Russell and his friends. We were divided into four barracks. Barracks One was National Guard people from Texas, We Jersey boys were in Barracks Two, and Barracks Three and Four were draftees and enlistees. 

 

We learned to march and do other drills. In about a week we stated to march to rifle ranges. We were introduced to the command “At Ease, March. Drill Sergeant Russell set the pace. He was about 6’3” and had long legs. He set a very rapid pace that had us either tripping or jogging to keep up. By the time we reached the range, we had many people puking up their breakfast. The next day, many of us changed from fried eggs and bacon to a hard-boiled egg. toast and juice.

Most of our training was with the M-16, which included an automatic fire mode we rarely used. We also used the Korean-war era M-14 and Colt .45 caliber pistols. 

 

But the most interesting part of our training was with hand grenades. In the morning, we played with practice ones that we could toss at targets. We also were introduced to grenade launchers that were attached to M-16 rifles. That afternoon, we got to throw real grenades. We stood behind a bunker with a sunken area to take cover in in case someone dropped their grenade before tossing it. In turn, we would throw our grenade over the 8’ wall. I wasn’t thrilled about the distance mine went because I compared it to a baseball. I really didn’t see how far it went. I then watched the guy next to me throw his. Instead of going out, it went way up. I immediately dropped to the pit on the ground with my hands covering my helmet liner. The grenade exploded on the other side of my wall, shaking me off the ground. But I was alive and the guy next to me was given special instructions (500 pushups) from the range sergeant while other cadre were laughing about my duck-and-cover elementary school drills were so well remembered. 

 

We marched to cadence, with a sergeant calling out different songs that we repeated, many of them ribald. But everyone’s favorite was our countdown. “X more weeks of polish and brass, then Fort Polk can kiss my ass!” And finally came the day it could. We participated in a graduation parade with about 1,000 others. The parents of three of my Morristown comrades showed up and treated us Morristown men to lunch.

 

And then it was time to return to the real world until I was to return for more training. I took a bus to the New Orleans airport and flew to Newark. Then I took the train to Morristown and since Mom moved while I was away, I went to her law office next to the Chinese restaurant, showing up in my uniform. They gave mom the rest of the day off  and we went to our old place on Wetmore Avenue where I picked up my car and then went to the new place in Jacob Ford Village. 

 

Leave was spent renewing friendships and girlfriends. Mom came home early and threw a fit when we were caught in bed.  Mom, born in 1908 to an Irish Catholic family, wasn’t so upset about our bed activities as she went wild because the girl was Jewish. I had no clue she was so prejudiced. 

 

After that, I took my car, an eight-year-old Rambler convertible, to Seaside Heights to sort of clear my head. On the way down, I came across two girls hitching and eventually they asked why my hair was so short. I told them I was on leave from the Army. 

They started talking to each other and in a few minutes they asked to be let out. As I pulled away, one of them screamed “baby killer.” Hell, I never had been to ‘Nam, much less was involved in combat. I only shot at paper targets.

 

I spent most of the day on the beach and headed home early to avoid traffic. Around Mt. Kimble Ave. and Colles Ave., there was a girl hitching so I said to myself “what the hell, why not!” I pulled over and seven MHS kids piled into the car. They were heading to Morris Plains and we drove twice around the Green yelling and screaming. As we drove down Speedwell Avenue, we talked and they learned I was in the Army. They started to welcome me back and as they left the car thanking me for the ride, one of the girls kissed me. Morristown people had made a bad day fantastic!

 

When I was in town, I went to the First National Iron Bank at the corner of South Street and Madison Ave. to get some cash from my checking account only to discover it was suspended for inactivity. I showed them my military ID and they re-opened the account with a promise to not close it. On payday, I sent my mother a money order to add to the account. But I had purchased some civilian clothing from the PX with a check that bounced and there was hell to pay until I gave them the business card of the branch manager and they confirmed what happened. 

 

I returned to Fort Polk for Leadership and infantry training, then to Fort Knox for Drill Sergeant School. About 18 months later, I was activated. I returned to Morris County but lived in Randolph and Roxbury, only to spend some days visiting my mother after getting married and living in Queens.

 

After 33 years of marriage, we divorced and I roamed the country for many years. But when in the East, I spent much time with my 1966 senior prom date. We went to our 45^th and 50^th reunions together and lived together coping with the Covid-19 lockdown. When we decided to break up, I moved to Florida and stayed with another classmate while finding an apartment. One of the things I bought was a “Vietnam-Era” baseball cap and people frequently thanked me for my service. 

 

But before I end this, I want to share one last thing about Morristown and Vietnam. It was probably the finest moment of my life.

 

***

TRISTIAN

I graduated from Morristown (NJ) High school in 1966. During that time, I was on the school’s stage many times: receiving athletic awards, appearing in plays and in concerts as a member of the school chorus.

 

But the proudest moment of my life happened on that stage, about 45 years after graduation. 

 

Before I describe that moment, it is important to understand a little about Morristown. It has a long and proud history. The town headquartered George Washington’s revolutionary war army during two winters, one of them being the worst in the colonial era’s history. Throughout the town there are many statues and three areas of a National Historical Park:  the Ford mansion headquarters, The troop area in Jockey Hollow, and Fort Nonsense at the highest part of the town. It was there that I lost my virginity to a Morris Township girll and got married to a Brookyn woman.

 

The center of the town has a green that is the site of many parades and festivals. I also remember attending an all-night anti-war protest there. There were several Memorial Day parades when I marched with my Boy Scout troop.

 

Samuel Morris invented the telegraph here. Thomas Nast, the newspaper cartoonist who fought Tammany Hall and gave us the images of the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey and even Santa, lived here. The house I lived in was built just after the Civil War and it featured many of the ideas advocated by women’s magazines at that time which included the early concepts of childhood and adolescence. 

 

In other words, the town is very aware of and promotes its past. 

 

When I attended the high school, the main entrance featured a dual staircase, called the “senior staircase.” Its use was restricted to senior students and during the school’s last week of every year, there was a “senior skip day” when the seniors decided not to go to school. On that day, the juniors would “rush” the stairs and occupy it for a brief time as they made their claim to it for the next school year.

 

Since then, the school has a couple of expansions and the stairs no longer occupy the central status it once did. Instead, it has been changed to a “Wall of Fame” where distinguished alumni, teachers and athletes are featured on plaques. I suppose it means little to the current students, but visitors can share memories and inspiration from the many names there. 

 

The school hosts an annual “Heritage Day” where those who are to be added to the wall are honored and announced at an assembly. When I learned about this new tradition, I was quite pleased especially since the senior stairs concept had ended. I never liked the undemocratic “clique” system that had created so many rivalries and emotional pain for those who weren’t permitted to use the stairs simply because of their date of birth. 

 

So anyhow, I had some unfinished business with Morristown and I made it my job to see that Tristan Whitney Hayes, class of 1967, would have a plaque there to honor him. 

 

I met Tristan when I was a freshman and he was in eighth grade. We were both in the same boy scout troop and I was a patrol leader and he my assistant patrol leader. We planned many events such as campouts together and also became close friends. I remember we once visited Times Square in New York City and browsed many stores. He was especially interested in the metal soldiers representing historic battles such as Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo. Even at that age, he wanted to be a soldier. 

 

We grew apart as our interests in school varied. I was into sports, debate and drama while he was more academic, though he played football. Without a common interest, we drifted apart.

 

During those high school years, the war in Vietnam began to heat up, especially after President Kennedy was murdered and Johnson replaced him. In 1963 and 1964,Joseph Dempsey, our European History teacher, had us all write papers about the war that was starting to involve more forces. In retrospect, those papers gave us some information about a war that would become so divisive.

 

Tristan graduated a year after me and as soon as he graduated, his family moved to Massachusetts. The last I heard about him was a brief newspaper article that he was killed in action in Vietnam; quite possibly the first from our town to die in that war, but certainly not the last. 

 

Many years later, I was chaperoning my son’s eighth grade trip to Washington, DC, and visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I found out where Tristian’s name was listed and spoke about him to the students and how he was more than just a name. Many adults gathered around while I was speaking and listened to Tristian’s story.  

 

A decade or so later, I looked him up on the Internet, which had finally become a major research and social phenomena. His story was incredible. Then a private first class, he was on patrol with his platoon when they were ambushed by the Viet Cong. His sergeant and platoon leader were cut down by enemy fire and Tristian carried him out of danger to safety. Carrying a several more soldiers, he also took over the platoon and led them to safety. In doing so, he was wounded and died a few weeks later. He received a bronze star with valor, purple heart, Combat Infantry Man’s badge and Vietnam service medals as a result of his actions. 

 

In the early 2000nds, I became a social studies teacher and every Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I had my students look up Tristian’s name, reminding them that he was my best friend at their age. This was after 9/11 and I hope it gave these students, who lived under the shadow of the World Trade Center, an idea about the middle east war.

 

In 2010, after separating from my wife, I contacted the school’s alumni association and asked about how to nominate Tristan for the school’s wall. I got the forms and sent them in. In March, 2011, I got a call from the president of the Alumni Association.  Tristan would be given the award but there was no one to make a speech on his behalf. An only child, his parents were long dead. He died at 18 years of age and had never married so there were no children. There was a distant cousin, but he had never even met Tristian. Would I do the speech for his award? I suppose there really was no more qualified person, so I agreed. 

 

 

So in April, 2011, I returned to the stage. I was the first one to speak and began by asking the audience to stand. 

 

“Attention to orders,” I barked out in my best drill sergeant voice. I then read his citation.

 

“For exceptionally valorous service in connection with military operations against a hostile force. Private First Class Hayes distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 9 September 1968 while serving as a rifleman on a combat operation in the Republic of Vietnam. When artillery rounds began falling into the company's surrounding area, numerous casualties resulted. Seeing that his squad leader was missing and that his squad was disorganized, Private First Class Hayes immediately directed his squad to dig in. He then left the safety of his position to look for his squad leader. Upon finding his wounded squad leader, he carried him to safety and to medical aid. Several times Private First Class Hayes left the comparative safety of his position to carry wounded comrades to safety and to medical aid. As a result of his unceasing determination and concern for his comrades, the wounded received the medical attention they needed. Private First Class Hayes' personal bravery and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.“

 

I then began to speak. I pointed out an aging Mr. Dempsey, sharing how he forced us to understand Vietnam and educating us to be able to make choices about the divisive war. 

 

Then I said: “Mr. Dempsey, once an all-state football player for this school in the 1940s, also coached Tristan and me. One day, during practice, Tristian stopped chasing someone. Mr. Dempsey grabbed Tristian’s face mask and told him ‘you keep playing until the whistle blows.’ It was lessons like this that gave him the incredible courage he displayed in Vietnam.”

 

I thanked people; told them they could be seated. They didn’t and I left the stage to a standing ovation. I suppose timing is everything because my cell phone started ringing as I walked off the stage as the ex started demanding money. I turned the phone off and sat down next to a friend. As I sat in my seat, I thought that since Tristian’s family had moved away, a long-delayed need for the community to say good bye to its hero had finally been met. As I said, it was the proudest moment of my life.

  MORRISTOWN AND VIETNAM

 

I consider Morristown as my home town. I lived here from 1958 through 1976 and graduated from MHS in 1966. I was a member of the very first class at County College of Morris.

 

But I would like to share a few things about Vietnam and the town from a Vietnam-era veteran’s perspective.

 

I never heard of Vietnam until I was a sophomore when my European History teacher, Joseph Dempsey had us write a paper about Vietnam. I focused on the Buddist monks who committed suicide by pouring gasoline on themselves and then setting themselves on fire to protest the South Vietnamese government. It was an assignment Mr. Dempsey gave for several years and it helped many of us understand a little about the war that became so divisive. (More about this later).

 

I turned 18 in September of my senior year registering with Selective Service that day without a thought of military service. It was legal proof that I was18 years old. In those days the legal drinking age was 21 in New Jersey but 18 in New York. Many of us would head to the Northern border to places like Greenwood Lake or the Village in the city. Very few of us thought about getting drafted. That same year, military recruiters came the high school. I was a competitive swimmer and had lifesaving, instructor and SCUBA certifications. I spoke to the Navy people about becoming a frogman and doing underwater demolition. I was told it was impossible due to my eyesight. I asked about lifeguarding and teaching swimming but those posts went to NCOs and it would take several years to become one. I also called the Coast Guard office in Newark about search-and-rescue and was told the same thing about my eyes.

 

After graduation, I worked at a couple of office jobs in Morristown and one Saturday, I picked up a copy of the Daily Record to read on the Green and learned one of my best friends, Tristian Hayes, died in Vietnam. It was a shock and I thought about this brilliant, wonderful guy who wanted to be a soldier since middle school had sacrificed his young life in a war very few cared about. At the end of this article you will learn much more about him.

 

When I started at CCM, I was a few years older than most students, but all male students had to be registered with Selective Service. I appeared before the Draft Board to request a student deferment claiming I could not afford to go to college until CCM opened. My request was granted. This was in 1968, a very controversial year with the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. With the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the war heated up under the Lyndon Johnson administration. I became something of a wanna-be hippie and attended campus protests and an all-night vigil on the Green.  I never did drugs though. A high school classmate, the son of a very popular MHS teacher, took LSD and killed himself by putting his head on the railroad tracks and was run over by a Lackawanna train near the Morristown station. I was too terrified to try them. I had enough problems with self-control.

 

While at CCM, I began working as a freelance newspaper reporter for the Morristown Daily Record covering town meetings in the western part of the county. Since I was a college student and registered for the draft, I was assigned to try to cover Nixon’s draft lottery. “See if you can find someone who has a high number,” the editor told me.  I started to listen to the lottery and had absolutely no problem finding someone. I was number 2. 

 

Many months before, I had gotten on the waiting list for the local Army Reserve unit and I went to their office and asked the Sergeant if it was possible there was an opening available and he gave me the Army’s version of an IQ test. 

 

There was. I could become a drill sergeant! 

 

The unit was designated as a “training” unit. The concept was that if there was a need for cadre to train troops, we would be activated. I would go through Basic Combat Training, a month-long leadership preparation course, Advanced Infantry Training (Vietnam) and Drill Sergeant school.

 

So I had a choice: Enlist in the regular army for three years, the Navy or Coast Guard for four years, get drafted and wind up in the Army or Marines (!) or spend seven months to become a “shake-and-bake” drill sergeant and spend two days a month and two weeks in the summer for the next six years. I chose the drill sergeant opportunity.

 

And so on Jan. 3. 1970, about 30 of us from different parts of our 78^th division, a/k/a “Jersey Lightning” boarded a Delta Air Lines jet to New Orleans and then transferred to a 1950s era Trans Texas Airline propeller aircraft where the pilot welcomed us by telling us the aircraft had flown half a million miles without any problems. But then he introduced our stewardess who was wearing tight denim bell bottoms and a tight blouse. She got a wild ovation from us.

 

After deplaning, we got a different reception from Drill Sergeant Russel and friends who began screaming at us to get into and dress up our line. After finding temporary barracks, getting dinner and falling asleep, we were woken at 0-dark-30 to do KP. Later that day, we were given haircuts. Unlike previous weeks a new regulation went into effect as of the new year stating we didn’t have to get our heads shaved, but long hair was long gone. Following the unpublished “Hurry up and wait” regulation, we stood on line to get our uniforms and vaccinations. The next day, was perhaps the funniest day of our orientation. We had an ice storm. You had to understand that we were in the South and many of the base’s permanent party had never seen snow or ice. Soldiers were falling all over and we Jersey guys laughed our butts off as we saw several cars spin out of control, one slamming into a fire hydrant.

 

So much for fun, that night we were moved to the barracks of Alpha-one-two and revived our acquaintance with Drill Sergeant Russell and his friends. We were divided into four barracks. Barracks One was National Guard people from Texas, We Jersey boys were in Barracks Two, and Barracks Three and Four were draftees and enlistees. 

 

We learned to march and do other drills. In about a week we stated to march to rifle ranges. We were introduced to the command “At Ease, March. Drill Sergeant Russell set the pace. He was about 6’3” and had long legs. He set a very rapid pace that had us either tripping or jogging to keep up. By the time we reached the range, we had many people puking up their breakfast. The next day, many of us changed from fried eggs and bacon to a hard-boiled egg. toast and juice.

Most of our training was with the M-16, which included an automatic fire mode we rarely used. We also used the Korean-war era M-14 and Colt .45 caliber pistols. 

 

But the most interesting part of our training was with hand grenades. In the morning, we played with practice ones that we could toss at targets. We also were introduced to grenade launchers that were attached to M-16 rifles. That afternoon, we got to throw real grenades. We stood behind a bunker with a sunken area to take cover in in case someone dropped their grenade before tossing it. In turn, we would throw our grenade over the 8’ wall. I wasn’t thrilled about the distance mine went because I compared it to a baseball. I really didn’t see how far it went. I then watched the guy next to me throw his. Instead of going out, it went way up. I immediately dropped to the pit on the ground with my hands covering my helmet liner. The grenade exploded on the other side of my wall, shaking me off the ground. But I was alive and the guy next to me was given special instructions (500 pushups) from the range sergeant while other cadre were laughing about my duck-and-cover elementary school drills were so well remembered. 

 

We marched to cadence, with a sergeant calling out different songs that we repeated, many of them ribald. But everyone’s favorite was our countdown. “X more weeks of polish and brass, then Fort Polk can kiss my ass!” And finally came the day it could. We participated in a graduation parade with about 1,000 others. The parents of three of my Morristown comrades showed up and treated us Morristown men to lunch.

 

And then it was time to return to the real world until I was to return for more training. I took a bus to the New Orleans airport and flew to Newark. Then I took the train to Morristown and since Mom moved while I was away, I went to her law office next to the Chinese restaurant, showing up in my uniform. They gave mom the rest of the day off  and we went to our old place on Wetmore Avenue where I picked up my car and then went to the new place in Jacob Ford Village. 

 

Leave was spent renewing friendships and girlfriends. Mom came home early and threw a fit when we were caught in bed.  Mom, born in 1908 to an Irish Catholic family, wasn’t so upset about our bed activities as she went wild because the girl was Jewish. I had no clue she was so prejudiced. 

 

After that, I took my car, an eight-year-old Rambler convertible, to Seaside Heights to sort of clear my head. On the way down, I came across two girls hitching and eventually they asked why my hair was so short. I told them I was on leave from the Army. 

They started talking to each other and in a few minutes they asked to be let out. As I pulled away, one of them screamed “baby killer.” Hell, I never had been to ‘Nam, much less was involved in combat. I only shot at paper targets.

 

I spent most of the day on the beach and headed home early to avoid traffic. Around Mt. Kimble Ave. and Colles Ave., there was a girl hitching so I said to myself “what the hell, why not!” I pulled over and seven MHS kids piled into the car. They were heading to Morris Plains and we drove twice around the Green yelling and screaming. As we drove down Speedwell Avenue, we talked and they learned I was in the Army. They started to welcome me back and as they left the car thanking me for the ride, one of the girls kissed me. Morristown people had made a bad day fantastic!

 

When I was in town, I went to the First National Iron Bank at the corner of South Street and Madison Ave. to get some cash from my checking account only to discover it was suspended for inactivity. I showed them my military ID and they re-opened the account with a promise to not close it. On payday, I sent my mother a money order to add to the account. But I had purchased some civilian clothing from the PX with a check that bounced and there was hell to pay until I gave them the business card of the branch manager and they confirmed what happened. 

 

I returned to Fort Polk for Leadership and infantry training, then to Fort Knox for Drill Sergeant School. About 18 months later, I was activated. I returned to Morris County but lived in Randolph and Roxbury, only to spend some days visiting my mother after getting married and living in Queens.

 

After 33 years of marriage, we divorced and I roamed the country for many years. But when in the East, I spent much time with my 1966 senior prom date. We went to our 45^th and 50^th reunions together and lived together coping with the Covid-19 lockdown. When we decided to break up, I moved to Florida and stayed with another classmate while finding an apartment. One of the things I bought was a “Vietnam-Era” baseball cap and people frequently thanked me for my service. 

 

But before I end this, I want to share one last thing about Morristown and Vietnam. It was probably the finest moment of my life.

 

***

TRISTIAN

I graduated from Morristown (NJ) High school in 1966. During that time, I was on the school’s stage many times: receiving athletic awards, appearing in plays and in concerts as a member of the school chorus.

 

But the proudest moment of my life happened on that stage, about 45 years after graduation. 

 

Before I describe that moment, it is important to understand a little about Morristown. It has a long and proud history. The town headquartered George Washington’s revolutionary war army during two winters, one of them being the worst in the colonial era’s history. Throughout the town there are many statues and three areas of a National Historical Park:  the Ford mansion headquarters, The troop area in Jockey Hollow, and Fort Nonsense at the highest part of the town. It was there that I lost my virginity to a Morris Township girll and got married to a Brookyn woman.

 

The center of the town has a green that is the site of many parades and festivals. I also remember attending an all-night anti-war protest there. There were several Memorial Day parades when I marched with my Boy Scout troop.

 

Samuel Morris invented the telegraph here. Thomas Nast, the newspaper cartoonist who fought Tammany Hall and gave us the images of the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey and even Santa, lived here. The house I lived in was built just after the Civil War and it featured many of the ideas advocated by women’s magazines at that time which included the early concepts of childhood and adolescence. 

 

In other words, the town is very aware of and promotes its past. 

 

When I attended the high school, the main entrance featured a dual staircase, called the “senior staircase.” Its use was restricted to senior students and during the school’s last week of every year, there was a “senior skip day” when the seniors decided not to go to school. On that day, the juniors would “rush” the stairs and occupy it for a brief time as they made their claim to it for the next school year.

 

Since then, the school has a couple of expansions and the stairs no longer occupy the central status it once did. Instead, it has been changed to a “Wall of Fame” where distinguished alumni, teachers and athletes are featured on plaques. I suppose it means little to the current students, but visitors can share memories and inspiration from the many names there. 

 

The school hosts an annual “Heritage Day” where those who are to be added to the wall are honored and announced at an assembly. When I learned about this new tradition, I was quite pleased especially since the senior stairs concept had ended. I never liked the undemocratic “clique” system that had created so many rivalries and emotional pain for those who weren’t permitted to use the stairs simply because of their date of birth. 

 

So anyhow, I had some unfinished business with Morristown and I made it my job to see that Tristan Whitney Hayes, class of 1967, would have a plaque there to honor him. 

 

I met Tristan when I was a freshman and he was in eighth grade. We were both in the same boy scout troop and I was a patrol leader and he my assistant patrol leader. We planned many events such as campouts together and also became close friends. I remember we once visited Times Square in New York City and browsed many stores. He was especially interested in the metal soldiers representing historic battles such as Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo. Even at that age, he wanted to be a soldier. 

 

We grew apart as our interests in school varied. I was into sports, debate and drama while he was more academic, though he played football. Without a common interest, we drifted apart.

 

During those high school years, the war in Vietnam began to heat up, especially after President Kennedy was murdered and Johnson replaced him. In 1963 and 1964,Joseph Dempsey, our European History teacher, had us all write papers about the war that was starting to involve more forces. In retrospect, those papers gave us some information about a war that would become so divisive.

 

Tristan graduated a year after me and as soon as he graduated, his family moved to Massachusetts. The last I heard about him was a brief newspaper article that he was killed in action in Vietnam; quite possibly the first from our town to die in that war, but certainly not the last. 

 

Many years later, I was chaperoning my son’s eighth grade trip to Washington, DC, and visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I found out where Tristian’s name was listed and spoke about him to the students and how he was more than just a name. Many adults gathered around while I was speaking and listened to Tristian’s story.  

 

A decade or so later, I looked him up on the Internet, which had finally become a major research and social phenomena. His story was incredible. Then a private first class, he was on patrol with his platoon when they were ambushed by the Viet Cong. His sergeant and platoon leader were cut down by enemy fire and Tristian carried him out of danger to safety. Carrying a several more soldiers, he also took over the platoon and led them to safety. In doing so, he was wounded and died a few weeks later. He received a bronze star with valor, purple heart, Combat Infantry Man’s badge and Vietnam service medals as a result of his actions. 

 

In the early 2000nds, I became a social studies teacher and every Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I had my students look up Tristian’s name, reminding them that he was my best friend at their age. This was after 9/11 and I hope it gave these students, who lived under the shadow of the World Trade Center, an idea about the middle east war.

 

In 2010, after separating from my wife, I contacted the school’s alumni association and asked about how to nominate Tristan for the school’s wall. I got the forms and sent them in. In March, 2011, I got a call from the president of the Alumni Association.  Tristan would be given the award but there was no one to make a speech on his behalf. An only child, his parents were long dead. He died at 18 years of age and had never married so there were no children. There was a distant cousin, but he had never even met Tristian. Would I do the speech for his award? I suppose there really was no more qualified person, so I agreed. 

 

 

So in April, 2011, I returned to the stage. I was the first one to speak and began by asking the audience to stand. 

 

“Attention to orders,” I barked out in my best drill sergeant voice. I then read his citation.

 

“For exceptionally valorous service in connection with military operations against a hostile force. Private First Class Hayes distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 9 September 1968 while serving as a rifleman on a combat operation in the Republic of Vietnam. When artillery rounds began falling into the company's surrounding area, numerous casualties resulted. Seeing that his squad leader was missing and that his squad was disorganized, Private First Class Hayes immediately directed his squad to dig in. He then left the safety of his position to look for his squad leader. Upon finding his wounded squad leader, he carried him to safety and to medical aid. Several times Private First Class Hayes left the comparative safety of his position to carry wounded comrades to safety and to medical aid. As a result of his unceasing determination and concern for his comrades, the wounded received the medical attention they needed. Private First Class Hayes' personal bravery and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.“

 

I then began to speak. I pointed out an aging Mr. Dempsey, sharing how he forced us to understand Vietnam and educating us to be able to make choices about the divisive war. 

 

Then I said: “Mr. Dempsey, once an all-state football player for this school in the 1940s, also coached Tristan and me. One day, during practice, Tristian stopped chasing someone. Mr. Dempsey grabbed Tristian’s face mask and told him ‘you keep playing until the whistle blows.’ It was lessons like this that gave him the incredible courage he displayed in Vietnam.”

 

I thanked people; told them they could be seated. They didn’t and I left the stage to a standing ovation. I suppose timing is everything because my cell phone started ringing as I walked off the stage as the ex started demanding money. I turned the phone off and sat down next to a friend. As I sat in my seat, I thought that since Tristian’s family had moved away, a long-delayed need for the community to say good bye to its hero had finally been met. As I said, it was the proudest moment of my life