Category: A Boy’s Life

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A Boy's Life Dad Blogs Life in these United States

Boxed Nasties and Kindness

This past year has been difficult; I won’t sugarcoat it. But, it’s also been a bit of a revelation. I was forced to face some things about myself that I’ve long ignored, though of late, I’d been far less successful than previously.

I’ve always been an emotionally sensitive, some might say fragile even, person. I didn’t need a therapist to tell me (but they did) that some of it, probably a lot of it, stemmed from my childhood. Adoption, two divorces (4 “mother figures”), and a family in near-constant worry over a son (my brother) who, at any moment, could and would do something almost unimaginable in the early 80s, tend to weigh on a kid.

In my case, I believe nature is partly to blame, but nurture more so because my emotional state evolved over time. I’ve always been independent; in fact, I prided myself on it. Once I left home, I never asked my family for anything–nor did I receive anything. I returned home a few times, but during the first leave I took to visit my family after joining the Air Force, my dad and step-mom announced they were divorcing. After that, there just didn’t seem like much to come home to. So I became stronger and more independent. I made my own decisions; saved my own money, and got a dog. I was good. At least, that’s what I told myself.

But there was always a simmering sadness just below the surface that bled through any time someone showed me kindness. I wouldn’t say that has caused problems, necessarily, but it has created situations where I’ve been unable to control my visible emotions in front of someone I should, like a manager.

The flip side of being that emotionally on-edge is that those situations indelibly lodge themselves in my memories and for those people whose kindness affected me, they remain some of my favorite people, whether they know it or not. To this day, decades later in some instances, I feel a fierce loyalty to them that they’ll never know.

Thinking about this, I’m reminded of the first time I became self-aware that I perhaps had some emotional turmoil. I’d just left Air Force Basic Training in Texas. We’d flown into Biloxi, MS, and caught the shuttle to my Tech School at Keesler Air Force Base.

Now, for this story to make sense, you have to understand something about Basic training: It’s six weeks of mental misery. Everything they can do to try and break you, they will do. Recruits are constantly yelled at and put down, and even when you’ve tried your hardest and done your best, they’ll tell you it wasn’t; that it was a piss-poor effort and you’re the sorrier for having even tried. At least in my experience, not a single word of comfort was ever offered by those in charge.

To reinforce a pending state of worry and constant fear, each recruit is required to carry around three small 4×6″ forms called DD316s, at all times. To be caught without three, even if you’d had one taken from you and not yet had a chance to return to the dorm and get another, was itself a violation, resulting in the generation of another DD316 black mark on your training.

The purpose of these forms was to provide a physical record of your screwups. Any Drill Instructor, at any time, could demand one from the recruit, typically in response to some misbehavior or failed instruction (e.g., improperly shined shoes), whether real or imagined. Although the exact number of collected DD316s that it took to get you “washed out” was never stated explicitly, the idea was that any recruit who generated enough of these forms would have to start Basic all over again. There was an unspoken acknowledgment among recruits that having to start Basic over was a non-starter, so either you made it the first time or you were “out.”

Suffice it to say, nothing you did was ever good enough even if you knew in your heart it was the best you could do. And every recruit had more than a few DD316s taken from them; that’s just the way it is. The program is designed to break those who are not strong enough, mentally.

I remember one evening about 2/3 through Basic. I was, at the time, Flight Leader and had three other Squad Leaders to help me. We were called for by our Drill Instructor and told to come to the bottom floor of the dormitories. Within minutes, the four of us arrived at the room we’d been instructed to visit. We knocked; the door was opened, and we four filed in quietly, unsure of why we’d been summoned.

The room was dimly lit and I immediately noticed four Drill Instructors in the room, some standing; others sitting. Immediately, I also heard someone crying. Over in the corner was one of our fellow recruits. He’d been missing all day and no one knew why. We’d all assumed he’d reported to the medical clinic and would return when he was cleared. Being July in Texas, heat sickness and “crotch rot” (severe blistering in your nether parts due to constant sweat and rubbing) was rampant.

But it quickly became clear this recruit was not physically ill. As he stood there crying–wailing even–two of the Drill Instructors stood around him yelling. They called him names, threatened to throw him out of Basic, and generally berated him mercilessly. We four Recruits were told that this particular Recruit was not mentally strong enough for the Air Force. And as we stood there, dumbfounded and frankly, unnerved, one of the Drill Instructors asked us, “Would you want him next to you in a foxhole? Would you want to trust your life to someone who can’t even handle being yelled at?”

The truth was, we wouldn’t want to. As bad as it sounded then and now, it was the truth. And at that moment, I realized that a lot of what we were enduring in Basic was a game. And it wasn’t. But, the winners were the ones who could last the longest. Since that time, I’ve worked hard to keep my feelings in check because the world can be a cruel place, and I wasn’t about to give it any more ammunition.

I’ve thought back on that episode many times over my life. I’ve wondered if it was real or staged. I’ve even wondered if it really happened or if maybe I made it up to help me get through boot camp. I’m confident it happened, but I’m also confident there was more going on there than we were told. Perhaps they’d found out this particular youth was an illegal. I don’t know. His last name was common to the Philippines and it was clear he wasn’t from the heartland of the U.S.

In the end, nearly all of us passed our tests and survived Basic, though I didn’t score nearly as well on my final graded exam as I’d expected. But even after I graduated, after packing up my meager belongings and heading to the bus that would take us to the airport along with my fellow Airmen, did we get a kind word from our Drill Instructor? A parting comment about how proud he was of us, perhaps? No. Instead, he stood at the door to the bus and as each Airman boarded, he punched us on the arm.

Go figure.

So as I arrived at my next temporary duty station in Mississippi, I had no expectation of it being any different. Still pretty much a young, dumb kid, I’d resigned myself to the fact that this was my new life, for better or worse, and there was nothing I could do but try to get through it. But, at least I was on my own and self-sufficient. That was worth something.

There were approximately six of us new recruits just out of Basic on the plane arriving together and heading to Keesler where we would train for anywhere from 2-9 months for our next job in the Air Force. A few of us knew each other, but not all. We found and boarded the shuttle, each quietly staring out the window, afraid to say anything or look at anyone lest we draw negative attention. It was September; raining, and humid as it always is from April through October in the South.

Getting off the bus, I grabbed my green duffle and was met by a youngish, female Airman. Probably in her early 30s, she had a kind face and seemed completely non-threatening. Smiling, she offered a “Welcome” and beckoned for us to follow her inside where we were instructed to drop our bags and take a seat in a small room with schoolroom-style desks.

After introducing herself, she began telling us what we would be doing that day–mostly paperwork– before getting our room assignments and instructions for starting our first day of class. I remember sitting there and looking around the room, mentally categorizing what I might be called on to do or say so I’d be prepared and not get in trouble for saying something dumb.

After some time, she mentioned something about lunch, saying they were prepared meals that come in a box. She joked that everyone called them, “Boxed Nasties” and I remember thinking that this was the first bit of non-crude humor I’d heard in more than a month and a half. It was also the first inkling I had that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be a little less terrible.

As we sat and ate, she tried to goad us into conversation but it was clear we were all still very shellshocked and distrustful. In Basic, recruits weren’t allowed to address anyone not a recruit unless or until you were addressed first. But, as the minutes passed and it became more apparent she wasn’t going to start yelling and no one was going to come in banging on a garbage can and shining flashlights in our eyes, we all began to loosen up and talk.

I don’t remember who, but one of us told her how strange it felt being there and her being “nice.” She laughed and said it’s normal and that everyone who arrives there after Basic feels the same. She assured us the “Basic Experience” was over and Tech School was going to be a lot more like the regular Air Force. There would still be things we were required to do, but the days of being fearful of everything and everyone was over.

Somehow, I was able to control my emotions that day, but inside I was a mess. I wanted to melt out of my chair, scooch over into a corner, and just ball my eyes out. I didn’t, but I wanted to. And the strange thing is, I’d never felt that way before. Certainly never at home. It was almost as if now that I was on my own, and knowing full well that my family couldn’t come help–or hurt–me, it was OK to “feel.”

In the years since, I’ve learned a great deal both about myself, and my childhood. Some things I knew; some I didn’t. And some things, I’m sure I just repressed. It’s taken an emotional toll that I hadn’t fully realized until the last few years, and only even more recently did I seek out help.

I’m happy to say that I’m doing much better. Truth be told, I haven’t felt this “even” in decades. It’s unfortunate it took me this long to seek help because I’m confident that some of the decisions in my life that have been the most impactful–usually negatively in some way–were in no small part influenced by a mind that I can only look back at now and question.

We Gen-Xers are an independent lot. We pride ourselves on having survived childhoods that saw some of the most impactful societal change in the last 100 years. But, the truth is, even the strongest of us need help sometimes. If anything I’ve written here rings a bell, I urge you to find someone to talk to. Get some help, or at least find out if you need it. If a first step would be talking with someone a little less “professional,” my email’s always available.

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A Boy's Life Dad Blogs Life in these United States Society

Side Hustles and Morality in the 80s

Back in the 80s, it was a little lean around my house. I didn’t realize it then, but I’m pretty sure my father was out of work a good bit of the decade. He’d never gotten a degree, but he was very smart and had a knack for working with machines and electrical things so he’d been fairly successful just based on prior experience. My new stepmom had not yet started working, so we were solely reliant on my father’s salary–and maybe a little “state support” if you know what I mean.

I’m not certain where all of our money came from that decade, but I vividly remember my stepmother collecting green stamps and pasting them in a booklet and using them for groceries. I assumed they were a local store promotion, but in retrospect, maybe that’s what food-stamps looked like in Alabama during Carter’s presidency.

To make ends meet, my parents tried a lot of different side hustles, some more successful than others. For instance, my father installed–and sold–a hot-water-heater timer that automatically turned the water heater off during non-peak hours. This little doo-dad was mechanical and I remember that, as a seven-year-old, it was extremely difficult to “flip the switch” on it when you needed to turn it on out-of-hours. I can remember coming home late of a night from being out of town and needing hot water. I’d have to go through the garage, climb up on a table and trip the switch. And every time I did it, for some reason I expected to get shocked. I don’t know why…

My father tried to get into dog-breeding once, as well. We had a beautiful Doberman female. After successfully breeding her, she had a litter of 9 pups and promptly developed mastitis, which quickly put an end to any future breeding endeavors.

But perhaps my folks’ most enduring moneymaker was a plastic sign-making business. Plastic was a fairly novel thing then. And being able to make signs out of plastic, versus metal or some other material, was much less expensive. ‘

There were two sides to the hustle; one involved engraving those plastic nameplates that go on office doors or that sit in attractive brass stands on desks. It involved taking a piece of plastic that looked like wood of whatever color the customer wanted, and engraving names and titles on them. It was a fascinating process involving a long tracing and engraving mechanism. I was too young to work this machine, but my brother sometimes did. For my part, once the signs were engraved, I used the bevelor to smooth out the edges. It was about as difficult as using a knife sharpener, so even a 10-year-old could do it.

Our other “business” consisted of a giant vacuum molding machine and a hundred thin sheets of different colored plastic, each approximately 4′ x 4′. With this, you could create just about any kind of sign as long as you had the mold or template. Whomever we purchased the equipment from also provided a large catalog of rubber molds you could purchase for use.

The actual sign-making process was fascinating to me, even then. Once you selected your rubber sign mold, you put it on the bottom of the machine. Above that, you placed your sheet of plastic–usually white. Once you closed the lid and flipped a switch, the plastic would begin heating up. And this is where it got tricky..and hot! Everything was manual then; there were no electronic dials or automation, so you’d have to squat down and watch the plastic slowly heat, breathing in hot plastic fumes all the while. When it got to the point where the plastic was so hot that it was started to droop down in the middle due to gravity, you had to very quickly do the following: shut off the heater, flip on the vacuum, and then push the handle that lowered the plastic onto the rubber mold. The drama was palpable and the noise from the vacuum was like a Harley Davidson thundering through the garage and every time we did it, my heart would thump in my chest and I felt like I was having a mini panic attack! But if you did everything correctly, almost as soon as you lowered the shelf onto the plastic, the vacuum sucked the hot plastic over the mold, and voila! You had your sign. You then reversed all your switches and louvers and you were done.

Though my brother was old enough to help make the engraved signs for doors and desks, I was too young to do much of anything. Still, I used to love watching my parents work. Crouched down on my heels waiting for the plastic to heat to the point where it sagged almost to the breaking point was more fun than watching date trainwrecks on social media. And then that moment when the plastic was sufficiently heated and they flipped the vacuum switch and lowered the plastic onto the rubber mold and the big WOOOSHING sound filled the room….ah, it was exhilarating!

Of course, once you had the mold you needed for you signs you could then turn around and create as many of that type of sign as you wanted. Most of the templates were for things you might attach to your vehicle using magnetic tape, such as “For Sale” signs, or other common things like “Plumber” or “Electrician.” My brother and I used to love to play with the rubber molds. There was something really cool about a floppy, soft, rubbery thing that you could bend and twist. For us, it was something new and interesting, and therefore, something our parents didn’t want us messing with.

Not long after my parents took possession of all of the equipment, my brother and I snuck into the garage to look through the catalog. I remember thumbing through it and coming on a section of, what was then, very racy sign mold templates. I don’t know why, but one, in particular, struck me and it has stuck with me all these years. It was a nut and bolt, each with human characteristics–a face, arms, and legs–and the bolt was behind the nut, presumably about to screw itself into the nut and the caption on it read, “Not without a washer!”

I think my brother had to explain it to me at first, but once I understood what the sign inferred, I was dumbfounded that my parents would be involved in a business where they might make such a sign. I mean, we weren’t terribly religious then, but there was certainly never any sexual innuendo bantered around the house. Looking back, I still can’t imagine what business scenario might require such a sign. Maybe at a strip-club, or as a joke in a mechanic’s shop?

I searched for this design and found several versions of it in random places, like this one on Etsy:

The one we could order wasn’t quite like this, but the gist is the same. Scandalous, no?

Considering what all happened in the 70s, this was probably pretty tame for most adults; but for a kid, pure magic!

I don’t think I ever looked at my parents the same after that. Not that they ever made a sign like this, to my knowledge, but the idea that they were involved in something where this was even a consideration, changed how I viewed them.

As I got older, my parents became more involved in church and got more “religious.” Our involvement in the church waxed and waned for various reasons, but it struck me that despite whatever we choose to practice in our personal lives, just existing in this world sometimes requires a certain “moral flexibility” to steal a phrase from “Grosse Point Blank.” I guess the alternative is to draw a line in the sand and say, “This is not something I’m willing to bend on,” but then, we’ve seen how well that has worked out for many, especially of late.

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A Boy's Life Dad Blogs Life in these United States Society

Boys Will Be Boys, But Bullies Ruin it for Everyone

I was in 5th grade. After that thing my brother did, which resulted in his being forcefully removed from our house and becoming a ward of the state, life changed for us. At the time, I went to a good school; we lived in a great neighborhood for riding bicycles; I had my own room. Life was not bad, for me.

But after my brother left home, it went downhill fast. I was too young to understand the adult complexities that come with your child doing something horrible, but from the cautionary, muffled conversations I heard between my step-mom and my dad, and others in the family, I know there was a lot of embarrassment and general unease in our community, both within our neighborhood and our church.

I guess I can understand my parents’ decision to sell our house and move to another town. It wasn’t too far away, but far enough that we would no longer see any of our old neighbors or friends, and far enough away that I had to change schools right when I was starting the 6th grade.

In short, we moved to the country (more on it in this blog about our house and my friend, Joe). While I wasn’t exactly a city boy, I might as well have been from Saturn with glowing eyes and antennae coming out of my head. The established boys in my new neighborhood took an immediate and distinct dislike to me from the get-go. In fact, it wasn’t just the boys in my neighborhood, but a number of boys in my grade.

Today, society has a low tolerance for bullies. But back then, “bullying” was just boys being boys and if you didn’t want to be bullied, then you’d better learn how to avoid them or learn how to fight. At the time, I weighed in at a mere 60 pounds in 6th grade, so the best option for me seemed to be avoidance.

Every day I walked behind the portable classrooms to avoid the two boys who always used the well-traveled walkway behind the cafeteria and who, if they saw me, liked to physically push me around and tell me about all the horrible things they would do to me if they ever caught me off-campus. There was the boy in P.E. who also hated me for some unknown reason. This particular bully kept at it for nigh on a year until one day I snapped, threw him down, grabbed his legs and began dragging him all over the football field. To this day I don’t understand why I did that versus just straddling him and pummeling his face. I think it was over fear of actually hitting him, which I get into later.

To avoid all confrontation, I helped out just about anyone who asked, with their homework or with a “loaned” pencil or some paper that I never got back. In general, I did everything I could to stay under the radar and avoid a pummeling. But you know, boys will be boys. Bullies can smell fear and nothing makes them feel bigger than to see a kid they’ve picked on, running scared.

By far the worst of the lot was a kid in my neighborhood named “Craig.” Craig was a little taller than me, but he outweighed me by about 20 pounds. He and I were about like Ralphie and the bigger Farcus brother from “A Christmas Story.” Now, I didn’t have any classes with Craig. I assume that’s because he wasn’t terribly smart, which is probably why he overcompensated by being so hateful.

In the mornings I rode my bike over to another boy’s house (James) in the neighborhood to catch the bus. The bus wouldn’t come down our street, so we all had to meet it out on the main road. I don’t know why, but for some reason, James liked me well enough that, not only did he not pick on me, but he let me warm up inside his house in the morning after my bike ride, and he let me keep my bike at his house during school. James and I weren’t buddy-buddy enough that he took up for me over Craig and his cronies, but he was a big enough kid that nobody messed with him or his brother, a very large boy-man named “Boogie” who never wore a long-sleeved shirt or coat even in the winter. Boogie hardly ever gave me a second glance, but I got a sense from him that, while he was large and feared, he wasn’t mean. And I like to think that if anything had ever gone down around Boogie, he would have stepped in and at least stopped it. So James and Boogie were the Canada of the neighborhood–at least politically–so when I was with the two of them everyone basically left me alone.

After dropping my bike off at James’ house of a morning, I’d wait for him to finish getting ready, and then we would head out to the bus stop where I did my best to avoid looking at Craig, or his cronies. Because, like anyone in jail can tell you, eye contact is a form of aggression and I wanted to avoid that at all costs.

Still, I knew they watched me and whispered about me, and shot daggers from their eyes at me while I looked at anything BUT them. And the name-calling, man I heard it all. Mostly, it was words you can’t say these days without getting nailed with a hate crime, but back then it was just standard bully-fare.

Afternoon bus rides home were more of the same except I only had to avoid Craig and his bunch as they boarded the bus and moved to the back. Once we got off the bus my Canada protection-neutrality vanished once I got my bike, or on the unfortunate rainy days when I had to walk because my bike couldn’t make it through the 6-inches of muddy slush created by a freshly grated dirt road and an inch of rain.

After about a year of taunting, even Craig’s lackies became emboldened and started following me for about 1/10 of a mile off the bus, yelling obscenities and pushing me in the back. One particular boy, who became the worst of the non-Craig boys, was smaller than me but what he lacked in stature he made up in colorful language and bravado. And he was merciless.

Now, I had always been taught not to start fights. It was particularly stressed in my house because of my brother, who, before he was taken away, started–and won–more fights than I’ve ever been in. It was my genuine belief that if I got into a fight, whether I won or got my butt whipped, I’d face a certain butt-whipping from my father when I got home. And my father favored belts.

So, I put up with Craig and his ilk for far longer than I would have preferred. But little did I know that one summer day in 1985, I was about to do something that would at least grant me a reprieve for a time.

It started off typically. I got off the bus and for some reason that I can’t remember, I was walking home that day, which always extended the length of the taunting because it was easy for them to keep up with me. I remember vividly cutting through someone’s yard, which opened up into a wooded field where no houses had been built. This particular day, Craig was staying back and letting his minions handle the taunting.

This smaller boy I mentioned was walking just behind me and off my right shoulder. He had been calling me names for a good two or three minutes and there were several other boys walking behind him, egging him on as he worked me like a prize-fighter. As he got right up behind me to yell in my ear again, “fight or flight” took over and I spun around with a backhand, hoping to connect with his head. I missed. He may have been little, but the kid was quick and he dropped to the ground as I came around.

Though I didn’t connect with my would-be Joey LaRusso roundabout spin-move, it impressed upon him that maybe today wasn’t the day to pick on someone willing to fight and who happened to be bigger than you. I kept on walking and though they continued the name-calling and yelling, it lacked the usual vehemence it usually had and they stopped following me. A moral victory.

For a while, things quieted down. Sometimes with boys all they need to see is a willingness to stand up for yourself. Once they realize you’re not quite the victim they thought, self-preservation forces self-introspection, which inevitably leads to a decision to find an easier target.

About a year later, after a relatively quiet period of non-violence, Craig decided to start up on me again. I don’t know why, or what the catalyst was, but it was if nothing had ever happened and almost literally overnight, we were back to being sworn enemies.

By this time, the bus route had changed and instead of our having to get off at the front of the neighborhood and me riding or walking back to my house, the bus stopped about two-tenths of a mile from my house. One day on the ride home, I could hear Craig and his friends threatening me quietly from the back of the bus. I could hear them say they were getting off at my stop. I figured they were bluffing until they didn’t get off at their stop, at which point I knew I had troubles.

My adrenaline pumping and my heart racing, I stepped off the bus and immediately started walking home. Never turning around to check who else might be with me, I could hear the bus pull away and for just a minute, I thought I was safe. Then rocks began whizzing by my head, thumping into the red dirt as the boys pelted me with quarter-sized pebbles.

I don’t know what made me turn around that day. Maybe I’d finally just gotten tired of living in fear–of them and my father–or maybe it was the fact that I had gotten a little bigger and felt that I actually had a chance of winning a fight. As I got nearer, a few more rocks flew at me but even those stopped as I approached their group. I stopped just a few feet from Craig as he stood there glowering. Silently, I dropped my backpack on the ground; my heart beating out of my chest. I knew today was the day. It was him or me. No matter how it turned out, and no matter what my dad did to me when he found out, I knew that if I didn’t face Craig today, I’d have to live in fear the rest of my days there.

I looked at Craig and said, “Come on. Hit me.”

Any real fighter will tell you that you don’t wait for the other person to hit you first. Your best bet is to hit them first with everything you’ve got and hope it’s enough. But, I believed that if I could get Craig to swing at me first, then maybe I could get some leniency with my father, especially if I ended up losing the fight. But Craig just stood there glaring, not saying a word. So, I taunted him more, “Come on, hit me! You’ve been picking on me for years. Let’s do this!”

Craig just stood there. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there. “WTH?” I thought.

Finally, I pursed my lips, turned around, picked up my bag, and headed home, fully expecting someone to come crashing down on my back and for the pummeling to begin.

It never came.

After that, Craig and his friends left me alone. There were still sneers and dirty looks, but the days of picking were mostly over. I suppose they realized there was some fight in me and in the last couple of years, I’d managed to close the size gap between Craig and me and I probably wasn’t quite as easy a victim as they’d once thought. Maybe once I was actually standing in front of him at eye-level, he realized he might not come out of the fight as well as he thought. And losing to this city kid was something his reputation would never recover from.

Not long after, we were having a family get-together at my house and it came out that I had been dealing with, not only Craig, but other bullies at school. My dad was furious. Not at me, but at the situation. The school knew I was being bullied and offered no help and never reported it to my parents. When my father asked me why I didn’t stand up for myself, I told him I was afraid of what would happen at home. When he heard that, he immediately started showing me a few “moves” that could help me at least hold my own.

There was still an admonition to never “start a fight,” but my father wanted to make sure I didn’t have to continue living in fear. He told me that if someone else starts it, he wouldn’t be mad at me for standing up for myself, no matter what happened. It was a small turning point in my relationship with him, but an important one.

To this day, nothing chaps me more than a bully. It doesn’t have to be a physical bully like Craig, either. Bullies come in all shapes and sizes. Some are physical, while others verbally bully people, usually through coercion and fear, or by withholding something they know you need. I’ve run into a few of them in my professional career.

But no matter the method, they’re all the same to me–bullies. And maybe part of why I beat myself up in the gym, and ran until the joints in my feet fused, is because I regret the years I lived in fear. I never want that for my own kids and so I’ve continued my father’s “don’t start it, but finish it” philosophy with them. They know I don’t want them to start a fight, but they also know I don’t want them walking away from one, or encouraging others to continue bullying by ignoring it and hoping it goes away.

Boys will be boys, or at least some of them will be. No amount of gender-neutrality can take away the biological desire to eliminate the competition. We can teach our children right or wrong, however; and when diplomacy fails, I expect them to protect themselves and their families. I consider it part of my responsibility as a father and I think my father did too.

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A Boy's Life Life in these United States

Round Here – A fall day in D.C.

Had anyone asked me, before I joined up with the US Air Force, to describe my situation three years from the day I caught the bus in Mobile, headed to the MEPS station in Montgomery, my description certainly wouldn’t have included the words, “depressed” and “bored.” Mix in “the Pentagon” and it sounds less like a four-year duty station and more like some trippy dream you have during REM sleep right before you wake up to the sound of your alarm reminding you of the math test you’re going to fail in 45 minutes.

Living on a military base governed by a wing of the military in which you did not enlist should be high on the list of “Things the Government Shouldn’t Do To Military Personnel“; but, they do. I spent nigh on four years, enlisted in the Air Force, but living on tiny, boring, very little to do, Fort Myer in Arlington, VA, an Army base. Not to be confused with Fort Myers (note: plural) in Florida, which is not a military base, but is in fact, fun and wonderful.

Fort Myer in Virginia resides at the top of Arlington National Cemetary. Among other things, it’s purpose is to monitor and protect the cemetary and provide the elite guard watching over the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.” The base itself, which is less than 2 miles at its widest point, includes (at the time I was there) a sundries store (think…low-rent Walmart with about 1/50th the selection), a BX (that’s a grocery store to Johnny Civilian), a bowling facility, a small movie facility, a squash court, basketball court, small track, and various administrative complexes. There is very little to do on-base.

Now, if you snuck through the fence at the back of the base, you could get onto a Marine facility, which was even more poorly arranged, with the exception of a much better sundries store, where I purchased this green recliner which, to this day, my wife maintains was blue. Granted, looking at this picture, I can understand why she feels that way; however, I assure you, it was not blue.

My green chair with my friend Brian Tardif enjoying a beer. Bottom left is my “roommate” with whom I shared this room for all of about two weeks when he arrived on site. Shortly thereafter, he hooked up with a gal and lived off-base for the entirety of my time there, leaving me with the coveted room to myself.

Most of us who lived on Ft. Myer and were in the Air Force, but working at the Pentagon, worked various shifts. As such, it was of utmost importance that your living conditions be conducive to a number of factors and situations, including:

  • Blackout curtains so you could sleep during the day.
  • A noise barrier pushed up against the bottom of your door to keep out unwanted noise from the echo-chamber hallways built of cinder blocks and concrete ceilings and floors.
  • A refrigerator so you could store you own groceries to cook when you’re awake (because you’re working night shift) and the base kitchens are all closed.
  • Various black-market cooking appliances you had to hide in your closet each day when you left your room due to any number of unannounced inspections. Generally, our Air Force commanding officer understood the situation in which many of us worked and was not unsympathetic to our plight. In return, he made allowances for us breaking the Army’s rule of “NO COOKING” in the barracks as long as he couldn’t see it when he did his cursory inspections.
  • An unspoken competition among various rooms as to who had the best electronics setup; a contest in which I was a perennial “also-ran,” but never quite the winner.
  • Cable television.
The picture on the left was my room the first couple of years at Ft. Myer. I got into weightlifting and since I spent a great deal of time alone, in the middle of the night, awake because I was used to working mid shift and everyone else was asleep, I surrounded myself with various entertainment and motivations; pictures of weightlifters, posters of hotties, lots and lots of VHS-taped movies (I switched premium channel subscriptions regularly to get the best range of titles). When I couldn’t stand the four walls any longer, I’d go on late-night runs around the base. Due to the base’s location, it was not recommended that you go off base by yourself at night; but looking back, I sure wish I had. It would have made for much more interesting runs.

The picture on the right is my room the last year or so of my enlistment. It’s the exact same furniture, only used more creatively, providing more storage and generally allowing me to “straighten up” everything. Oh, and I got rid of most of the posters.

Despite my best efforts, the long nights awake in my room with no one to talk to, and even lonelier nights AT work where I frequently worked by myself in a nuclear-war survivable metal box, designed to be maintained by a single Airman in case of an attack, eventually began to wear thin. My parents divorced within months of my leaving home and my “back-home” girlfriend and I had broken up a few months back. I wasn’t terribly torn up about it, but I hadn’t yet been able to replace her with a new relationship, so all in all I was feeling pretty alone. I was also about a year younger than most of the others in the barracks, so when they all went out partying at the clubs–the ones requiring that you be 21 just to get in–I stayed home. All of that, combined with a growing tendency towards introversion, contributed to my becoming more and more…not depressed, but certainly, withdrawn.

Looking back now I recognize the mental place I was in and it wasn’t good. I needed a lift; something to pull me up and help me refocus on the good in life.

My friend Brian Tillett (another Brian) was off the same day as I. While I technically worked in “Tech Control,” Tillett (everyone called everyone by their last name) worked in Cryptography. I kept the communication lines working and Tillett made sure all of the communication lines stayed encrypted. We didn’t work together, but we frequently worked in the same facility and spent more than a few shifts watching Letterman, performing maintenance on the “world’s oldest electronics” and generally trying to avoid “guard duty,” a requirement to stand around and keep an eye on non-secured visitors to the area for anything as generic as “A/C maintenance.” These guard duties could last five minutes or five hours and all you could do was stand, or sit there, and do nothing but watch. It was interminably miserable.

Anyway, this particular day, we were both off work. Most of our friends were either still on day-shift, or preparing for swings, so we found ourselves separately with nothing to do and lots of time on our hands. I’d been feeling very detached of late and spending a great deal of time exercising if, for no other reason, than out of boredom. Sitting in my room, I heard a knock on my door, and opened it to find Tillett. We made small talk for a few minutes; neither of us coming up with anything the other wanted to do. Finally, Tillett said, “You want to just go for a drive?”

Now, at the time, I didn’t have a car on base. To get to and from the Pentagon every day, I usually caught a ride with someone. But, I’d never ridden with Tillett. He had this gorgeous Trans Am, a drop-top that rumbled when you cranked it up.

We hopped in his car and headed off base. No particular destination in mind, we just drove. I remember that neither of us spoke much. Tillett, perhaps feeling a bit of my mood too, put on Counting Crows, the August and Everything After album. You know, the good one. And while Adam Duritz belted out beautifully despondent songs like “Round Here” and “Perfect Blue Buildings,” I closed my eyes and reveled in the fall wind whipping through my hair and the feeling that I was living a nearly perfect moment; my cares lifted and my emotions soaring for the first time in far too long.

I don’t remember anything else about that day, but I remember that hour. Rarely since have I felt such peace and freedom. Maybe that’s why I love fall so much today; the faint hope that I’ll recapture that same feeling just once more in my lifetime.

I’ve mentioned before here on my blog that I wish I could go back and tell all the people in my life what they meant to me and how much they impacted my life. Tillett and I were never that close, and he’s a big-wig in the security space now, so this isn’t something I’d feel comfortable hitting him up on LinkedIn and telling him. Still, maybe he’ll stumble across this blog one day and read my simple, “Thank You.”

Brian, thank you for that day. It was one of the good ones. And there’s been far too few of them before or since.