Next morning my parents and I ascended into our two vehicles, including our 1948 GMC pickup truck, already packed with our scant belongings and headed North for Tacoma, Washington. We left at 7 a.m., with a goal to be in Kingman, Arizona by nightfall. Where travel and my father were concerned, time-lines and goals were not suggestions, or matters of hope, they were hard and fast once set. Missing a goal, even for reasons beyond human control, were treated as possible Cosmic catastrophes. Each vehicle was adorned with a canvas water-bag in preparation for the inevitable overheating which would occur on some as yet to be known uphill grade. The spare tires, retreads, were checked and aired. We had ample reconditioned motor oil to get us to Kingman.
I don't remember much about that trip North. I drove one of the vehicles and my father drove the other, though my mother occasionally spelled him if he developed leg cramps. He and she drove the GMC because its was more finicky, overloaded with the "junk" of ownership, its gear and differential ratio causing it to run hot at highway speeds. I do know that during the long hours staring out the narrow windshield I was the most pensive I had ever been in my short life. I was now an adult, having just finished high school, and I was already 18-years old, and would be 19 in less than 6 months; I had started elementary school almost a full-year later than most others.
The long stretches of mostly two-lane blacktop gave ample time to consider the fact that I had started late playing the "game" and had no obvious skills, and even fewer prospects. I was leaving behind, further and further with each mile, the place and friends I most valued simply because I didn't know how or when to break with my parents and the restrictive security they offered; there was a certain smug-safety in allowing them to continue making my decisions; doing so allowed me to be critical and pretend I was not participating in any the choices. I did however have one thing going for me.
I had a fantasy. It was not well-defined or fleshed out, but involved joining the crew of a merchant marine vessel as an apprentice-seaman, its flag, cargo or destination didn't matter. I considered my life to date to be aimless and meandering. Achieving my fantasy would allow me to continue doing what I did well. It might be useful for the reader to know that I had pretty much read every Joseph Conrad book I could lay hands on by this time, and I had assumed the persona, a conglomerate psyche of some of his youthful characters, including the tragic coward-hero Lord Jim. In my internal video, I saw myself ascending the gang-way of a nameless ship, sea bag effortlessly hoisted onto one shoulder as I joined the crew of yet another merchant cargo vessel. I knew absolutely nothing about this prospect except my own sourceless imaginings. Tacoma, Washington where my sister and brother-in-law lived with my young Niece Jeanie, offered a large and active international port and would serve well as my jumping off point, at least that's how it played out in my fantasy. All I had to do was convince some Captain or Mate to take me on for room and board. I had $150 saved so I didn't need wages for awhile...at least until I had built some sellable seaman's skills.
Turns out the U.S. Merchant Marine actually requires some level of professionalism, as well as sponsorship just to become an "able bodied seaman." Who could have known? Disappointed but undaunted I headed for the ships with foreign flags and unpronounceable names. When I finally found a Captain aboard one such ship, he yelled at me while gesturing wildly, "No Americans! You cause trouble! You complain all the time! No Americans! I explained that I would work for food and a berth, but he again yelled "No Americans!" I returned to my sisters house dejected, and aimless. My compass had had only one direction on it, and that was thwarted. By the time I decided I'd try to get into the U.S. Navy, my sister's cooking and my inactivity had a barrier to my easily joining the Navy. I weighed 217 pounds.
As it occurs, the U.S. Navy in 1962 had a height and weight ratio that could not be worked around even by a dishonest recruiter The doctor's at the Navy pier in Seattle, told me I was physically fit, but at 5 feet 9 inches tall, I would need to weigh no more than 202 pounds before I could sign the enlistment contract and be shipped off to the San Diego Naval Training Center to be molded and shaped into a finely tuned fighting machine. Through a combination of dieting and laxatives I made that weight, and soon after, caught the flight from Boeing Field to San Diego. But, that was just the beginning of my weight problem..."fat boys" were not smiled upon by the Company Commanders of the recruit companies, and ours was no exception.
Mr. Mathern was probably 5 feet 7 and wiry, possibly weighing 135 lbs. By rank and rating he was a Petty Officer First-Class Machinist's Mate, but by human standards he was one mean son-of-a-bitch, and he was convinced that the "fat boys" would slow down the company and cause some catastrophe in the process, like being last in line at the chow hall. So I learned about a Navy tradition: the "fat boy" got dispatched to run, balls out, from the barracks to the grinder in front of the mess hall, and hold a favored place for the company which was marching in formation. I was the breakfast "fat boy." And, lunch and dinner had their own fat boys...and God help you if you failed to seize a good position for your company. There were worse things than being the chow runner, one such thing being sent to Company 2013...but that's a different story. So every morning I set out from the barracks at a dead run, my ears and sensibilities stinging to the calls, "Run fat-boy, run!"
Still, in some ways, it was good to have purpose. I served my company well. I learned the shortest routes, and I earned earlier and earlier positions in line for my shipmates until I weighed in one morning at 175 lbs...but, with perhaps only two or three days to go at Boot Camp. I left "boot camp" and went home on leave for a while, and then returned to the same training center to join my Radio "A" School class. We had an "instructor" instead of a Company Commander. The instructor was barely older than most of us were; because he was a Radioman he had made Petty Officer First-Class much earlier than Mathern. And, his values seemed almost oddly democratic for a lifer...he suggested this or that, but seemed uncomfortable demanding anything, and he never involved himself in disciplinary matters. We didn't march to chow in formation. We were now trusted, though untried, sailors who were allowed to wander to chow, on and off the base, at our leisure, and even skip meals if we desired. Our one caveat was to show up at class on time and sober.
Once in a while I would encounter a recruit company on its way to Noon or evening chow. (In Radio School I was never up early enough to see an early breakfast runner.) I would witness a "fat boy" running for the mess-hall grinder, sweating, jiggling and out of breath...and, even in the silence of my mind I understood why he ran, and I never yelled "Run fat boy, run!"
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