Look Before You Land (1979)

1979: Look Before You Land

1980: My Secret Weapon

It was one of the first service-inspired jokes I heard upon being commissioned an officer in the army:

Q: Who’s the most dangerous person on the battlefield?

A: A second lieutenant with a map.¹

No matter the source of their commission, newly minted second lieutenants are universally dismayed at the lack of confidence in their abilities from the officers and NCO’s they work with. Common wisdom is that a new officer anticipating his first troop-leading assignment should have some sort of edge or qualification that would bring them a smidgen of credibility for their first couple weeks of duty. Hopefully by then they would have done well enough in their assignments to earn a little bit of respect. Such items of respect include (but aren’t limited to):

• Ranger tab
• Jump wings
• Aviator/flight crew wings
• West Point class ring

…none of which I had when I was assigned to my platoon at FT Richardson in the early summer of 1980. A previously undetected vision problem cut short flight school for me, and jump school would be a couple of years in the future. All I had going for me was the fact that I was four years older than my fellow lieutenants and had a good amount of life experience working in the oil field and serving a two-year bicycle penance in New England, neither of which earned me any badges. However I had an advantage that had more clout than all those other badges combined.

I had my Beautiful Saxon Princess.

Lori was that rarest of treasures – the hottie that didn’t realize she was a hottie², and whenever she was with me life was better, and any job I had at the time got easier. Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t like she was just arm-candy all the time – but once the connection was made between the two of us as a married couple, everything got a little easier. I even had senior officers and crusty old warrant officers³ come up and introduce themselves to me just so I in turn would introduce them to her.

 There were only two times that her beauty failed to work its magic. The air in the room got noticeably frosty when she met the new battalion executive officer’s wife at a hail and farewell in the autumn of 1981. The lady was used to being the prettiest face in the group and didn’t take it well when all heads turned as Lori walked into the room.

The other time was later at that same party when Major Martin tried to corner her. Martin was the battalion S-3 (operations officer) and was my new boss. Despite the fact that he was sporting the most obvious comb-over EVER he styled himself a ladies man and was making his way around the room chatting up all the ladies. He perked right up when spotted my Beautiful Saxon Princess, but even though he was all smooth moves and slick pick-up lines she paid him little attention.

Finally she turned to him and asked, “Are you one of the privates who works for my husband?”

You know the time-lapse photography they showed in 7h grade science class where you’d see a lengthy process happen in fast motion? My favorite was a flower, a rose that slowly wilted and shriveled up in just a matter of seconds. That shriveling reaction immediately appeared in Major Martin’s face (and no doubt other areas of his anatomy) with Lori’s remark, and I expected some verbal lash-back, but somehow the executive officer’s wife chose that very moment to walk by, and any snarky response the major may have had was lost as he abruptly turned and hurried after her, a subtle clue in a mystery that remained unsolved until the following summer when she left her husband and ran away with the major..

Lori continued to work her magic after we left the army and embarked on a roller-coaster career of freelance art in two and three dimensions. Most notable was the way sales at conventions and acquisition of new clients took off when I started taking Lori with me. We even had clueless professionals pursue her (and fail) like Major Martin did all those years ago. We only stopped working together when I couldn’t work at all, and she still helps me, only now it’s with wheelchairs and pajamas…

…and she’s still the hottie that doesn’t know she’s a hottie.³

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Notes:

1. Later on I learned the proper response:

1. Q: Who’s the second most dangerous person on the battlefield?
   1. A: The platoon sergeant standing behind him saying “That’s right LT”.

• I’m still amazed that I am lucky enough to be with her. My sisters pass that off as me just responding to her innate maternal/homemaking inclination as (according to them) I have a face only a mother could love.

• …including one crusty old aviator who even had the general spooked. When my first battalion commander uncharacteristically maxed my efficiency report my fellow “butter bars” grumbled that he did so because he was sweet on my Beautiful Saxon Princess.

• In this age of Internet and Facebook I often come in contact with people I haven’t heard from in decades. Invariably the first thing they’ll say is “As I recall your wife was quite attractive”.

2023: Epiphany

“Epiphany” can be defined as a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something, or an intuitive grasp of reality through an event or experience that can be both simple and striking. Sometimes it is attributed to divine inspiration or a sudden insight of logical deduction – either way it usually results in a marked change of thinking or behavior.

My most memorable epiphany came about fifty years ago when I had a (take your pick):

• Road to Damascus
• Alma the Younger

..experience that changed my life. As a teenager I was not a particularly bad kid, but I wasn’t a particularly good kid either; between the ages of 17 and 20 I spent a lot of time on unsavory activities that I had hidden well. Unfortunately, my behavior juggling act began to break down, and by the end of May 1973 I was in a real mess.¹

I still remember the day – I was leaning on the frame of the door that lead from my loft bedroom into the attic proper, my eyes locked in a “thousand yard stare” at some spot across the pink Fiberglas (T) insulation, when the thought flashed, “I am never going to crash and burn again,” in a manner strong enough to make me twitch a bit. I closed the attic door, laid down on my bunk, and fell asleep almost immediately…and when I woke up hours later, I was a different person. The benchmark for “normal” had changed in my life and when I left home the following autumn it was not just returning to college but to a new life.

Fifty years later I am at a similar crossroads. Between the effects of advanced ankylosing spondylitis, the aftereffects of several fractures, and a continued minuet with Mademoiselle Pandemic, I have been bedridden² for more of the last two years than I want to admit…and it has changed my life. I have been able to do little other than watch television, and while that sort of life might be some people’s dream, it has been purgatory for me.

For example, part of the change for me in 1973 was a physical change – I lost forty pounds and got into the best condition/strength of my entire life³. Now I can’t stand for more than sixty seconds, and my physique is more like that of Jabba the Hutt than the paratrooper I once was. For the first six months or so I was so weak I could do little other than sleep, and there were many nights that I went to sleep wondering if I would be waking up the next morning. It’s only been since I’ve started getting (a little bit) better that I’ve had enough energy to grumble about my situation…and I don’t like what it is doing to me.

…and then fifty years after the first epiphany I had a second one.

I’ve always been goal driven. My kids, my Beautiful Saxon Princess, co-workers, and friends have told me all through my life that “I don’t have the work ethic you do”. I’ve kept records of what I’ve written, drawn, or made in my life  -mI guess to keep score with the cosmos or my own mortality. Unfortunately, between age and ailment I can no longer keep up the pace. I need to have reasonable expectations in what I try to do and patience with myself when I fall short…and as much as I love them, I need to limit the use of calendars, lists, and planning matrices that fan the flames of doubt by creating a fear of not being able to keep up as much as they help me organize. I also need to avoid hanging on to negative thoughts and seize what is good in my life, especially my Beautiful Saxon Princess.

If I do need to measure what I do, I should give myself some latitude. For example, at one time my goal was to add to this blog at least twice a week, but then that became once a week, then once a month, then every couple of months. I want to change that frequency but after battling the ‘Rona for a couple of years the journey back is difficult. Many of my chronologically earlier posts have been taken down, so I am going to rerun it all while filtering in the new stuff I write. There is a part of me that resists this course of action, but I need to do something to jump start my life and embrace a new normal just like I did in 1973.

Notes   

1. None of which included out-and-out lying. I just got very good at employing half-truths and diverting attention.
2. More properly “recliner-ridden”. I have a massive “Papa chair” in our bedroom right next to the queen-size bunk that my Beautiful Saxon Princess sleeps in.
3. When we were dating in 1976, I would do pushups with my Beautiful Saxon Princess lying across my shoulders.
4. …not to mention I turned seventy last May.

CCC*6: The Buzz Lightyear Syndrome

(I’ve been hammering away at this post for twelve years hence the lack of reference to Facebook)

I feel like I am taking a test.”

He was both baffled and concerned. We’d gotten to be good Internet friends, but he was convinced of a hidden agenda while answering my questions. He was writing an article on the role-playing game illustrators of the Eighties and had become intrigued with “the guy who’s work was all over the place but not as well-known as the Larry Elmores and Keith Parkinsons”. We’ve gone on to continue our friendship, but in the beginning he was put off by the times I was less than forthcoming. The sad thing is that he was right. I was testing him to screen out BLS – otherwise known as the “Buzz Lightyear Syndrome”.

Americans are schizophrenic when it comes to celebrities. We made a point of writing the concept of royalty/nobility out the constitution, but we are more obsessed with entertainers, sports stars, and British nobility than any other group on the earth .At the same time, our collective schadenfreude meter pegs out when a celebrity has any kind of trouble and proves to be just as fallible as anyone else. There’s also a fairly short life-span to our interest¹. It happens with actors, (when’s the last time you heard about Brendan Fraser in the news?) athletes, (ditto Brian Bosworth) and, sadly enough in my case, artists.

Ego was never part of the reason I got into this business, and both my Beautiful Saxon Princess and I have always been kind and accommodating when approached by fans. Evidently that is an anomaly, as I’ve been told horror stories involving professionals responding quite cruelly to their admirers, and early on we decided to go against the grain and be approachable to any and everyone. For the most part it has worked out well, and we’ve enjoyed meeting, working with, and teaching countless good people, but as time went on we noticed a common cycle of behavior among a small percentage of those approachees.

1. Lengthy fan mail expressing admiration for my work.
2. Efforts to establish as many common interests as possible.
3. Stepped-up attention-bombing via frequent letters, calls, or messages.
4. Personal visits and a monopoly on time together at conventions.
5. Separate Contact with family and other friends

….and this is usually the point where unless I was careful, I’d get sucked in. By nature I am a social animal, and working alone in a studio has always been a challenge, so it’s nice to gain a friend with similar interests. Unfortunately, this is also when the relationship hits a tipping point and the new friend starts to:

• Become overly familiar, often using family nicknames.
• Introducing me as his “famous artist friend Dave Deitrick”.
• Drop my name in social or business situations.
• Make expensive/extensive demands including (but not limited to) free artwork.
• Use my name to usurp relationships with clients or gain special privileges at conventions.
• …and eventually the relationship is turned upside-down with the fan becoming dismissive or contemptuous.

That’s when the BLS comes into full function and the person in question disappears off the face of the earth. Oh, I might hear from them eventually², but in the same way Woody was replaced by Buzz Lightyear as Andy’s favorite toy, I become a nonentity. That sudden change isn’t as painful as losing an old friend from decades in the past, but there’s an emotional toll on myself, my family, and often deep gaps in my personal collection of original art.

It doesn’t happen very often, especially now when we no longer attend conventions and I am retired, but I’ve dealt with the phenomenon enough times to spot a BLS event in the making… and while it’s not as devastating as losing an old friend or relative, it’s unpleasant enough for me to find way to avoid it in the first place, hence the checklist of red flags to watch for during initial meetings. I pay particular attention to how they address me – “Dave” is limited to family members or friends from high school, and the “Joe Cool” use of just my last name will get you the door unless we’ve made at least one night/equipment jump together or spent at least one afternoon door-contacting in New England.

If any of the aforementioned warning signs appear when meeting for the first time I will politely answer any immediate questions then ignore further contact. I hate the fact that I have to do this as it feels like I’m using the velvet rope hung by trendy nightclubs to limit entrance to the “beautiful people”. I also hate to miss out interacting with new people – Some of my best/longest friendships³ started with a fan contacting me, but I am easily distracted and I have to protect myself, and more important my family, from that narcissistic 1% that replaces their toys (er) friends every year.

_______________________________________________________________________

Notes

1. The two or three year gap between Bananarama, Expose, Spice Girls and En Vogue was enough time for memories to dim to the point that each act was able to bill themselves as “the first all-female superstar vocal group”.

• One guy surfaced after twelve years to demand that I remove his name from my website. Another one surfaces every ten years to complain because I wouldn’t sign over all rights to a favorite piece of art.

• Not every short-lived friendship involves the BLE. Friendships develop under many different circumstances, but change is the very essence of life and all too often a transfer, promotion, graduation, or major development in my health puts an end to a relationship.

   *Creative Curmudgeon Commentary

Brews To Go

One of my favorite duties as a platoon leader was “Right Arm Night” – the practice of an officer taking his platoon sergeant (his “right arm”) out for a beer late on a Friday afternoon after a particularly hard week at work. Despite the fact that I am a nondrinker I feel it is one of the best of the army’s traditions and is great for morale and cohesion. My own platoon sergeant SSG Kraft would nurse his beer while I’d knock back a Shirley Temple¹ as we’d share ideas just as valuable as the more technical conversations we’d engage in during duty hours.

My platoon leader days are long past but I have friends that I relate to in much the same way I did with SSG Kraft. Some of these men are friends of long standing dating back to my sophomore year in high school, but I’ve also more recent but equally solid friendships with current neighbors, recent students, and fans of my work. The only drawback to this newer group is the manner in which they are scattered all over the country, which precludes a group activity anything like a “right arm night”.

For instance, Damen DeLeenherr lives in British Columbia. He’s a family man working in the healthcare industry, but in his free time he’s building a home for his family and plays Battletech. Battletech is a tabletop miniatures game involving giant fighting robots, the development of which I was heavily involved with in the late 1980’s. Damen commissioned a Battletech-themed piece of art a couple of years ago, and since that time we’ve gotten to be such good friends that I think of him as another nephew.

It was Damen’s birthday a week or so ago, and while I wanted to give him a birthday present I didn’t plan very well – anything I found on line would be almost a week in getting to him. The puzzle just got all that more challenging because as the day went by I realized that what I really wanted to do was buy Damen a beer. The resemblance wasn’t screamingly obvious at first but he brings to mind a new millennium SSG Kraft with tattoos and 21^st century haircut, and a brew seemed more appropriate than the totally tacky cash option I’d finally settled on…but there wasn’t much I could do to get some suds to him.

Then I got to thinking.

 You can deliver send/receive flowers in the space of a single day – why can’t we do that with beer? Picture a network of brewmeisters scattered all over the globe but linked with telephone and Internet like FTD or Candygram. Place an order through a local dealer before noon and by the end of the day your buddy could be knocking back a cold one. The idea is still in its infancy but I did come up with some names for the business.

Names like:

• UberBrews
• PayPabst
• BudHub

I just have to remember to include Shirley Temples as one of the options.

1. A nonalcoholic drink comprised of Ginger ale and a splash of grenadine garnished with a maraschino cherry. Kraft always maintained that I had more class than most tee-totalers: “While they get soda pop you order a mixed drink!”

(Props to Marty Calderone for nudging me back in front of the keyboard. It’s been extremely difficult getting back into the creative saddle since my “second go-around” but Marty’s words of encouragement have helped immensely)

1970: Kites

(First posted in 2017, this post drew more attention than anything else I’ve published here with a good part of the response coming from the Indian subcontinent)

David R. Deitrick, Designer

I loved being a Cub Scout. When I joined in the fall of 1962 membership in Cub Scouts was the studliest thing a nine year old boy could do, and while wearing the uniform added a certain savoir faire to my game, it was the activities in our weekly den meetings that were the real attraction. I liked learning field craft; I liked learning to whittle. I liked making things with papier mache and I liked making costumes and performing in skits. In short I liked – no, I loved the entire program

…except for kites.

I went through most of the Cub Scout rank and arrow-head requirements like a freight-train until I hit the requirement to make and fly a kite, at which point the aforementioned freight train became completely derailed. While the handbooks had nice diagrams of both traditional diamond and box kites accompanied by precise measurements and…

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Music: David Crosby

Distance in Alaska has been described many different ways:

• It’s not the end of the world but you can see it from here.
• It’s as far as you can go without a passport.
• It’s so far north I can see Russia from my front porch.

…and while she was mercilessly mocked for that third comment, Sarah Palin wasn’t all that off the mark. While stationed at FT Richardson, we experienced more than one incident of real-world jamming by our counterparts stationed in the Far Eastern Military district of the Soviet Union.

Distance to family and friends living in the Lower 48 often seemed insurmountable, and that distance cut in both directions. We were far away from extended family, but we were also at the end of a four thousand mile cultural pipeline that delayed the timely spread of music, books, television and movies, and while I was fascinated by the world of popular music my only readily available source of information was the local newspaper, national magazines, and liner notes on the covers of the albums themselves…which in some instances was pretty sparse.

After wasting a Sunday afternoon trying to figure out who was who on the Déjà Vu cover, I borrowed copies of Retrospective: The Best of Buffalo Springfield, and the seminal Crosby, Stills & Nash album, then by comparing/contrasting cover photos I was able to finally distinguish David Crosby from Stephen Stills from Graham Nash and Neil Young. In addition to satisfying my curiosity, the knowledge helped me with a minor budgetary dilemma as the four of them had all recently released solo albums, and the money I’d been given as graduation gifts was burning a hole in my pocket. I started with the first name in the group and picked up Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name…and in the last fifty years I’ve never stopped playing it. Over the years I’ve jumped on every¹ technological bandwagon to roll down the musical highway, moving from records to cassettes to CDs to MP3s, and I’ve had a copy of (and eventually wore out) that album in each one of those formats.

I played through it several times last week when I heard the news that Mr. Crosby passed. From what I’ve read, given the way our outlooks on life were so diametrically opposed² we wouldn’t have made good buddies, but golly-bob-howdy could that man sing. Like most rock vocalists he was a tenor, but there was a quality, a richness, and resonance that is difficult to describe, though Canadian comic Mike Myers’ penchant for describing Barbara Streisand’s voice as being ‘like butter’ comes close

(I prefer the label ‘vocal umami’ ³ )

Seventies trends in recording only added to the effect of Crosby’s voice. Before Walkman technology pushed everyone into their personal ear-pod existence, engineers would use more imagination in the way music was laid down; the first track on If Only I Could Remember My Name being a good example. Rather than just a straightforward recording the sound moves around – the point of origin for the introductory acoustic guitar work on the song entitled Music is Love seemingly originates in your left ear, then moves to your right ear, before moving back and roosting in the middle of your head…an effect that (at the risk of sounding contradictory/ ironic) sounds even better when heard via earphones.

 But his work is much more than a collection of engineering tricks. Despite a chaotic life filled with tragedy and self-destructive behavior² he produced five decades worth of wonderful music that was as important for its content as its quality. Subject matter ranged from politics to social issues and again while much of it is diametrically opposed to my own values and world view⁴ it always comes across as potent and well-thought out.

Because of that philosophical depth I’d like to think that he’d have been equally successful in any era but the times had as much to do with his success as his talent. Management by committee didn’t have quite the death grip in creative industries then, and in our New Millennium it’s much easier to get airtime if a song fits the 2:45 format and appeals to the lowest common denominator⁵.

…but for geezers like me there is also the vinyl dimension that holds my heart. The introduction off compact discs in the Eighties came close to putting a stake in the heart of the phonograph record format. Audiophiles have been stating in recent years that the hiss, hum, skip and pop adds a warmth and subtle dimension to music from records in the same way that soft oil glazes lent the gentle smoky sfumato effect to the Mona Lisa, but for me the appeal of vinyl has what I call the ‘musical time machine effect’.

Once it’s been created, a digital tune is moved around & stored electronically, and there is a point where you have to wonder if there’s anything left of the original music.⁶ The copy of Music is Love found on my hard-drive had its origin in a CD that I bought in the late nineties and exists as a series of 1s and 0s that transforms into music only with the addition of electricity, and I have to wonder if it’s the same song as the one I ripped from that disc thirty years ago. Sound on a vinyl record is produced when a needle moves along the undulating path or groove made from the artist actual singing and playing which means the music from a record is only one step away from the musician(s) themselves. It also means that music from lines inscribed on the surface of a record can even be heard (with some effort) if you spin the record by hand.

…and when I listen to that original vinyl record the sound is coming from the same source as the first time I heard the album in my attic loft bedroom in 1971. It’s almost like I am reaching back through time to something precious…and as I am closing in on my ‘three score and ten’ mile-marker, that is a comforting thought indeed.

Notes

1. Except eight-track tapes.
2. He was a heavy drug user and would often say that “If you say you remember the Sixties you weren’t there!”
3. Umami: A Japanese culinary concept only recently adopted in the western world. A fifth savory ‘taste’ which in addition to sweet, salty, sour, and bitter can be found in foods.
4. …including an uncomfortable fixation on threesomes in the bedroom.
5. Songs on this album range from standard length to almost nine minutes long.
6. Bringing to mind Dr. McCoy’s aversion to beaming between a planet’s surface and the USS Enterprise via transporter.

Twelve Things I Never Want To Hear In My Classroom

As best as I can tell I went for a second round with the ‘rona last spring and I am still as weak as a kitten. I am slowly getting back up to speed but I am doing a lot more “beginning” than “finishing” so new work has been pretty sparse. I appreciate all of you that have continued to read and support this blog and I want you to know that new work is on the way.

Until then I will share some of my older/lesser known work.

David R. Deitrick, Designer

 I’ve been teaching  for the last twenty five years, covering every college level art class except ceramics and photography. One thing that continues to amaze me is the excuses students come up with; as much as art students would like to think they are bohemian and individualistic, the same rationalizations for (basically) ego and sloth pop up year after to year. Now when I teach studio classes I publish the following list  – along with my standard response) so we won’t have to waste any time.

(Ahem)

Twelve Things I Never Want To Hear In My Classroom

1. “I can’t afford good art supplies”. Good art supplies won’t make a bad artist good – but bad art supplies will screw up a good artist every time.
2. “I’m not done with the assignment” You have to meet your deadline. Period. Art directors value that quality more than anything else you can offer…

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1969 Explorer Encampment

The idea of ‘An irresistible force meeting an unmovable object’ is a paradox that has made its mark through history from 3^rd Century China to 2008’s Chris Nolan film The Dark Knight, but other than an epic 1978 clash of wills between my Mom and my youngest sister, it hasn’t been something dealt with in my life. My challenges have more often involved the skewed version –  indifferent effort colliding with half-assed resistance. Such was the case when I was bundled off to an Explorer event at Elemendorf Air Force Base in March of 1969.

The indifferent effort? Exploring – Scouting’s program for older boys aged 16-18. In addition to developing character and civic pride the program was also designed to introduce the young men to future vocations and career fields, but in reality it was just another way for my folks to work more exposure to the Church into my life. There were no uniforms or organization, just a room full of teenaged boys arguing about the Beatles’ White Album or the Jets winning Super Bowl III while a parade of disinterested adult advisors changed out on a monthly basis.

The half-assed resistance? March in Alaska where there is no spring – a period between winter and summer  referred to as ‘Break-up’, a term referencing both the ice on bodies of water breaking up and roads turning into a semi-frozen quagmire created by water from melting snow trapped on the surface by permafrost deeper down in the ground below. Daytime temperatures are warmer and the days are longer, but the snow will still be around for six to eight weeks. It’s a maddening situation not unlike my little sister humming the same off-key tune over and over while I was trying to do my homework, so when a three day activity for area explorers was announced for this particular Spring Break I gladly signed up, especially when the alternative was three extra days staring at the wall. I was also still figuratively on the lam after my involvement in a rather out-of-control party just a few weeks earlier. I’d managed to avoid the wrath of a parent who’d tumbled to exactly what had been going on, but I still spent most of my time with a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and was prone to jump a foot or two into the air when the telephone rang unexpectedly or an unfamiliar car turned into our driveway.

The event was known officially as an Explorer Encampment and was sponsored by one of the more active Explorer posts in Anchorage comprised of guys I’d gone to church and school with in Anchorage five years earlier. While encampment events would be split between Elemedorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson we’d be bunking at an unused squadron barracks on Elemendorf. As a service brat, the Spartan environment was reassuring rather than unsettling as it was to most of the other guys, and as we settled into the barracks Wednesday night I was looking forward to a couple of days respite from randomly ringing telephones. It prompted a thought that maybe a change of venue might provide me a little respite, but then sounds of shuffling cards and murmured bets started up in the next locker bay.

I’d forgotten about Blake Townsend.

Free agency figures prominently in our faith but so does adherence to very specific standards of behavior that most teenagers would find excessively restrictive, but in Blake’s case it wasn’t a matter of resistance as much as it was a personal challenge. Wednesday night lesson on pornography? Blake had PLAYBOY snapshots tucked inside of his scriptures. Guest lecture by a state trooper on drunk driving? Blake had two beers stashed in his coat pocket. Three day Explorer Encampment designed to foster citizenship and character? Blake had set up a portable casino, which at this point consisted of a poker game with two players: Danny, a member of our Explorer post from home (not the sharpest knife in the drawer) and Stevie, a kid from Anchorage wearing a field jacket and prone to waving around a Marine Corps K-BAR knife given to him by an older brother upon his return from Vietnam.

As was his habit, Blake had shared his plans with me beforehand, though whether it was to shock me to or gain an accomplice I’d never know. I was just as indifferent to ‘the rules’ as he was, but my inner fifty-year old man balked at the crassness of his theological guerilla warfare – if you disagreed with the prohibition on alcohol don’t get blitzed on Friday night and then sit piously in church on Sunday thumbing your nose at both doctrine and worshippers. Blake’s floating card game added to the internal Stukas dive-bombing my stomach. I really didn’t like the card playing, but I wasn’t firm enough in my convictions to stand up to Blake, so I just avoided the issue by pulling a pillow over my head and trying to sleep.

Thursday / Elmendorf Air Force Base

After a mega-caloric breakfast at the dining facility downstairs we were taken to the ramp area to see static displays of various types of aircraft and a lecture on the training pipeline for pilots, then after waiting the requisite thirty minutes after lunch we went to the fieldhouse and the base swimming pool. The highlight of the day was our visit to the cavernous blue-lit Alaskan Air Command headquarters with its wall-sized situation map which through the miracle of 1960’s slide projector technology would update every fifteen minutes.

Walking around the base triggered early childhood memories of walking around NAS Alameda with my Dad and I found myself feeling at home for the first time since we’ve moved north from California seven years earlier. I liked the discipline and sense of duty – and the jets were just totally bitching –  but I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that the uniforms made everyone look like bus-drivers so ‘Air Force’ dropped down several spaces on my list of possible future vocations.

When we returned to the barracks that evening I found that Blake’s casino had grown in scope. Instead of a simple draw poker game he had recruited one of the Anchorage Explorers to run a blackjack game while he continued to run the poker game. While not much money changed hands Danny had managed to gamble away all of his money and Stevie had managed to cut himself with his knife. Once again I rolled over and let myself be lulled to sleep by the soft sounds of shuffling cards and murmured comments like

‘Call, deal or fold’.

Friday / Fort Richardson

We’d been fed so well on Thursday that Friday’s breakfast was almost an afterthought before we loaded up and bussed over the FT Richardson where our day started with a demonstration of setting up camp in an arctic environment. The afternoon was spent watching an M551 Sheridan Armored Reconnaissance vehicle go through its paces while the evening was divided between a tour of the post’s wildlife museum and a lecture/demonstration by a Green Beret trooper.

Seeing this guy was like hearing dog whistle and I sat up and started paying close attention.

This particular Special Forces sergeant was attached to brigade headquarters after recently returning from back-to-back tours in Vietnam. It was a struggle to keep up as he started to rattle off his qualifications – not because he kept toggling between three languages in which he was fluent, but because he looked so totally freaking bad-ass in his tiger-stripe camouflage uniform and beret while running through function checks for the half-dozen foreign weapons displayed in the table in front of him.

I briefly tried challenging him with my second-year Spanish skills but his rapid-fire reply stunned me back into silence and I spent the rest of the time listening intently. Between Roger Donlon’s book Outpost of Freedom and Dickie Chappelle’s coverage of SF basecamps in National Geographic, I already had some idea what the Green Berets were all about, but I couldn’t tear myself away from what this team sergeant was saying.

His comments on duty, teamwork and bravery struck a resonant chord as I sat contemplating them during the ride back to our barracks on Elemendorf, even when Blake moved to the seat behind and started taunting me about avoiding his portable casino. My first thought was to just slouch down in my seat and pretend to sleep, but then the sergeant’s words echoed again and I thought: ‘If that guy can face down a battalion of Viet-Cong with just a ten man detachment I can stand up to Blake Townsend’.

I turned around.

‘Why do you have to screw everything up like this? You can drink anywhere? You can gamble anywhere? Why do you mess up a situation where people are trying to do the right thing?’

What followed were two minor miracles.

1. Blake Townsend was at a total loss of words.
2. His face manifested five different emotions all at the same time.

His face hardened into a scowl and he started to reply but then I heard the voice of our adult leader, Al, come from just over my shoulder in response to Blake: ‘Dave’s right. If you can’t stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen. Find somewhere else for this crap’.

…at which point a third miracle occurred. Blake sat back in his seat, tucked his cards and other his gambling paraphernalia into his pockets and remained silent for rest of the trip back to our barracks on Elemendorf AFB where he remained silent and detached until our trip back home the next day….and I found that my internal Stukas had stopped the airstrikes on my stomach.

In a perfect world that would have marked the end of Blake’s badgering, but between Hurricane Camille, Vietnam, and Richard Nixon’s inauguration, 1969 was far from perfect …and neither was Blake. He still made it a point to badger me about being a ‘goodie-goodie’ but the comments weren’t quite as barbed and ended quickly when I replied in the negative. It took me years to snap all the Legos together, but it was at that point on that dark bus traveling between Elemendorf and FT Richardson that my spine got shiny and peer pressure lost its terror for me.

2022: Roger That!

Better writers than me have discussed at length the vast differences in the current “childhood experience” and that of generations past but in many ways not much has changed. I wasn’t a helicopter parent per se but I was involved and always had a pretty good idea where my kids were and what they were doing. Kids in times past did get outside a little more often but my grandson Jayden spends as much time as possible “ow-side”. The biggest difference is that when he goes outdoors he has a nifty little two-way radio clipped to his belt.

Communication with the radio between Jayden and his folks is pretty casual but as the eternal platoon leader I sat down and gave him a short block of instruction on RTO (radio-telephone) procedues to include the proper use of the words “over” and “out” and the fact that you read books, not radio transmissions.

…and it’s amazing the difference that instruction made.

When his mom or dad calls Jayden is your typical fourth graders sounding like a member of the Vienna Boys Choir, but when Papa calls his voice changes. I can hear in his words that:

• His voice deepens
• His chest expands
• Belts of machine gun ammo magically appear draped around his chest

The only thing that keeps him from the full SGT Rock transformation is the fact that he has yet to hit puberty and can’t raise any stubble on his chin.