New Car

     Our '63 Buick was a total pain in the ass. No doubt it could've been worse. Nothing major went wrong. Mostly it was the car's ability to over heat that drove me batty. And in a tropical climate like Hawaii, if a car can overheat, it will. And frequently. What it needed was a new cooling system. Somehow that didn't fit into our budget as easily as did a gallon jug of water in the back seat. And it never seemed to break down to or from work at Schofield.
     The Buick seemed to know when I was off work and had the time to crawl under it in parking lots. Or carry a battery home from Sears on foot. Or cool its heels while we sat on the sand and stared at the Bonsai Pipeline break on the North Shore.
     We didn't know it was the Pipeline at the time. Didn't seem like a whole lot of other people did either. It was one of our regular stops when we were circling Oahu (something we did a lot on our days off. That's how you can log twenty thousand miles on an island). There was this rock pile near the backside of the break that drew us to it and we'd sit to watch the perfect curl come beachward no more than a couple of hundred yards off to its right. Sometimes the rocks we sat by stood up as a mound of some size. Sometimes they were nearly buried in the sand. Come and go at the whims of the ocean.
     When my mom came to visit, the Pipeline was one of the must see places we took her to. Like most of our days on the North Shore, we had the beach to ourselves. Certainly not the crowd you see there these days during the winter months. Kinda gives a flatlander like me a good feeling knowing his farm-born mother got her feet wet on the most famous surf beach on the planet.
     For a quick trip to play in the water and scorch our caucasian hides, we'd head over the Ko'olaus on the Pali Highway and then hang a right to the Bellows Air Force Beach. You had to be military to pass through the gate. As a result it was always quiet on the weekdays. Maybe a mile out, the surf was broken down by a reef but rebuilt a bit before it broke on the shore. Bellows was always a clean stretch of sand and a friendly spot for body surfing. Even Lois like to body surf there.
     My introduction to body surfing came further up the shore at the half-moon bay that's called Pounders (with good reason) these days. We were cruising up the Windward Side and came upon a group of seven or eight year old kids riding the waves there. I figured if they could do it, a big old haole like me would have no problem. As it worked out, catching a wave was no problem. Wait for a big one then swim with it for all you're worth. Next thing you know you're in the wave and smokin' toward shore. Then it dawns on you the six foot wave you're in is gonna crash on the sand and take you with it. Hey kids how do I get out of here? I should have been paying more attention to the exit part!!
     What happened next was simple. The wave spit me out onto the sand, then came crashing down on top of my body like a waterfall. Then rolled me around like I was in a washing machine 'til up and down were all jumbled up and I was sure I was gonna die. Finally, the rip sucked back out and there were a have dozen seven and eight year old kids pointing at my sand and shell encrusted body and laughing their asses off. I shoulda charged them a buck apiece for the show.
     Yeah, the car got us around the island but seemed to be slowly going downhill like an octogenarian at the front door of a nursing home. It was only a matter of time before something major went wrong and we'd be stuck with a bill that'd never be repaid by resale value come time for us to leave. That's when Lois came to the rescue.
     Lois worked as hairdresser at the Fort DeRussy Salon. The room that called itself a shop wasn't but an oversized closet with three or four operators working inside. Their clientele consisted of officer ladies in the military, wives over to see their Vietnam stationed husbands at DeRussy on R and R, and the wives of officers. One of the wives Lois did was married to the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific for the Coast Guard.
     Seemed the subject of our old beater came up now and then when the two were together in the shop. About three months before my tour was over, the Admiral's wife offered to sell their car to Lois for about half what it was worth. It wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a new car. But it was as close to perfect and new as a '61 Buick LeSabre convertible could be. Having it's own mechanic and chauffeur might've had something to do with that.
     Part of me knew we had no use for a second car. Another part of me knew our first car didn't actually count as a whole car. When the time came for us to leave Oahu we figured there'd be no difficulty unloading the LeSabre seein' as how it was in showroom condition. Plus we now had enough money in the bank to pay cash. Who was I to say no to drivin' the roads of Oahu with the top down?
     So there we were. Foot of Diamond Head pullin' into the lighthouse driveway. Probably the most valuable piece of property on an extremely expensive island. That's where the Vice Admiral and his wife lived. Of course they didn't live in the lighthouse. They had to satisfy themselves with the bungalow and verandah at its base. The view from the verandah where the Admiral's wife did her ironing extended for forty miles over a two hundred, seventy degree arc. Lois said if she had that view ironing would be a joy. I doubted that but got her point.
     Lois seemed to be at ease. Me, I was sweatin' bullets and trying hard to appear calm. The man we were dealing with outranked Schofield's division commander. Had 'em three stars to two. I was as close to the bottom of the ranks as the Admiral was to the top. Hell, even his chauffeur was an E-6, the same as my Platoon Sergeant. And he was polishing the Buick like I was some kind of VIP. Shoulda been me with the rag. Weird to say the least.
     The Admiral and his wife treated us like real people. Maybe 'cause I was in civilian clothes and looked the same as any other twenty-three year old with a short haircut. Thank God the whole business was a simple writing of the check and signing over of the title. I'm not blowing this out of proportion. All I wanted was the car and a get outta there as quick as we can before I do my usual run off at the mouth and insult the folks.
     Lois drove the beater home. I suspect she figured if either of us was to smash up the new car on the way home it'd best be me. Couldn't blame her for that. By the way the LeSabre already had a military bumper sticker. Gold with a red band. Oh yeah, I was lookin' forward to being saluted when I passed through the Schofield gate.
     And lo, it came to pass. Bein' saluted, well at least the sticker was bein' saluted, was a moment of beauty. I'd slow to a crawl, roll down the window and snap out a "Thanks boys," or a "No need to salute but I appreciate it," or if the mood struck me, simply snap a salute back. Oh, it was great fun.
     For about three days. I was pullin' duty with the real MPs at the time and had to sit through a pre-shift meeting conducted by the Desk Sergeant. Near the end of the meeting on that third day he mentioned there was a PFC on post who was drivin' around with a General's sticker on his car. And that whoever the PFC was, he had twenty-four hours to get it off.
     At the 'any questions' part I raised my hand and asked, "You wouldn't happen to have any razor blades around, would you Sergeant?" End of the joy ride.
     The LeSabre was an easy sell when my tour came to an end. I was asking what we'd paid for it three months earlier. All it took was an "Anybody want to buy my car for three hundred bucks?" to a group of low rankers in the platoon squad bay. Coulda had a bidding war but that wasn't the way I was. Pass on a good deal. Simple as that.

Non-Soldier on the Road

     Don't know what they were thinking of when I was made part of a speed trap. I was actually pulling real MP duty that day with a partner. We were driving around in a pickup truck copmobile. My partner was a Spec. 5. Had the Army trusted him he'd have been a Sergeant. Same pay but a Spec. 5 wasn't an NCO and couldn't issue an order.
     Don't know what it is about some men. All subjects brought up eventually turn toward sex and mostly toward their personal escapades. How the women love 'em even though they look like amphibians. You'd be talkin' about how hard it was to get back in the swing of goin' back to college by reviewin' a calculus text book and they'd say something like, "You think that's tough, I once knew this one eyed prostitute who had a goat for a pet...." Then go on a ten minute rant about the satisfying three-way it turned out to be.
      When the subject turns that direction I've got nothing to say. So, as we drove around, it was a one sided conversation. Me, I'm counting the minutes 'til I'm off duty.
     Come lunch time we were given orders to join up with three other patrols and put the kibosh on a trend that was threatening to destroy the very fabric of military discipline, marginal speeders. Not my idea of fun. Nothing about harassing drivers appealed to me. I'd been pulled over a couple of times in civilian life and had no fondness for watchin' the man with the gun sauntering up the road shoulder on his way to making my day a little unhappier.
     Like I've said about a thousand times in the past, all I wanted out of my two years in the Army was for it to be over. And go as smoothly as possible on the way. Vietnam had been misery enough. Ruinin' somebody's day just 'cause they were doin' twenty-nine in a twenty-five mile per hour zone didn't seem to warrant any kind of punishment. 'Specially when, at the same time, we were overseas killin' people by the thousands.
     You see, the fine for speeding in Schofield Barracks was ten dollars for every mile per hour you were doin' over the speed limit. That seemed pretty excessive to a PFC like me who was knockin' down a hundred, thirty-three a month. And that didn't include any extra punishment meted out by the offender's Commanding Officer. Yeah, the Provost Marshall's Office, that's who I worked for, didn't handle the enforcement of the fine. That was dealt with on a Company level for most troops. If you had a total s.o.b for a Captain, it could amount to a fine, extra duty and confinement to the company area for a week or two. That sucked.

     Aside: I look back on those Army years and then think about the life I've led since. Gets me to wondering what the connection is, 'cause there's gotta be a connection. Same person with a couple of changes of body cells.
     In Vietnam I seemed to at least function like a soldier. What we were doing was all soldiery even though it wasn't much of a cause worth fighting for. We gained and lost ground at about the same rate as we walked. But we were soldiers. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
     At Schofield it was a whole new ball game. A pretend game that made even less sense. Hell, we knew we weren't goin' anywhere. James Jones called it the Pineapple Army. Biding time, drinking beer. Puttin' up with shit. Sure not a spot for an actual soldier.
     In the years since, my mindset has been more a soldier's than what was called for at Schofield. A one man, weaponless army in training for a future with nothing in the offing. But don't do reunions, American Legion, VFW or any other beer-gut, rememberin' the good old days when we were settin' the world straight, and other kinds of bullshit. If you have any idea what kind of left-handed stuff is in the back of my mind motivatin' me, send me a post card.

     Seemed like I was fated to draw the offending PFCs and Spec. 4s. Maybe they didn't have rich enough blood for the big boys up front. Up front the Sergeants and my Spec. 5 were having themselves a fine time. Writin' up tickets and upbraiding the offenders like they were at an ancient ritual and snappin' down on the bones of sacrificial babies.
     As much as I was supposed to, I just couldn't bring myself to be that way. I'd stroll up to the driver's side window and give my usual speech of:

     "We clocked you doing twenty-nine in a twenty-five zone. I'm gonna write you a ticket 'cause I have to. There's three parts to the ticket. One copy goes to you, one to the Provost Marshall's office and the other to your Company Commander. 
     What I'm gonna do is hand you your copy and put the other two in my pocket. At the end of my shift I'll throw those two away. Do me a favor and don't speed on post any more. Next time you might get one of the other MPs writing your ticket."

     And that's what I did. Whether I'd do the same today I can't say for sure. Probably I would and most likely I wouldn't sweat the bullets about it that I did back then.