I looked through the peep hole on my door and there were two monster sized Police officers ready to do some damage to my door.
I opened the door and the bigger one asked if I was Bradlee Cooper? I replied I was not, but I did get his mail and send it back to the post office. I don’t think the cops were buying my tale. The strange young man who lives in the apartment in front of me came down the hallway and told the police he had just seen Cooper walking across the complex.
Off they went looking for Cooper. I wonder if the young man from next door hadn’t showed up when he did, would I have been escorted to the local jailhouse? I would have been able to call Annie or Rhett, but they may have been down on their property and out of range to hear the call.
Things Change
When I was a kid, I was always playing Army. I played with toy soldiers, played with toy rifles; I blew up toy soldiers or toy tanks with firecrackers. I had a friend, Jim and we both had surplus helmets, ammo belts, backpacks. We would practice wrestling and what we thought were judo moves.
One time we were in transit from his house to mine and when we were passing a local church, we broke into an impromptu judo exercise on the church lawn. Upon completion, I said to Jim, “You know Jim, whichever service gets us, Army or Marines, will be pretty lucky.” We were all of 10 or 11 at that point. Jim never did enter service.
Jim had a very bad habit, he stole my girlfriends. The last one I heard of was a real stinker. He married her, divorced her, had nothing but trouble over her. Isn’t it grand when someone who dismays others finally gets his own come upends?
I started working in a gas station that also repaired car brakes when I was 16 and stayed there after finishing high school. I was repairing a flat tire one afternoon when a Navy chief walked into the garage. He asked me if I liked what I was doing. I said it was ok. He asked if I wanted to be a mechanic. I said I was buying tools and might be a mechanic at some point. He said that was ok, but he asked if I wanted to spend my life all greasy and dirty. He told me he could get me into aviation electronics and I would have a nice clean job. I told him I would think about it, but I got busy with life and soon forgot about it.
I met Joyce just before graduation in 1963. We courted through the early summer and I was in love. Joyce was going away to college in the fall and I thought I might join the military and get away from town and all the places that would remind me of her and make me miserable. I was ready to sign up in early July, but my parents refused to sign for me to enter service at 17. So, I had to wait until I was 18 and could do so on my own.
Had they signed for me at 17, I would have enlisted and then been released from naval service the day before I was 21. I don’t know what would have come to pass and I never will. I just know my life would have been very different than what it was.
I went to speak with the recruiters a few days after my birthday at the end of July; the Marines offered to make me a man. I thought nature would do that so I declined entering the Corps. (Best decision I ever made!).
The Air Force recruiter was out that day, and that could have, would have made my life very different.
I bumped into that same navy Chief at the courthouse. We talked; I took a test and he said he could get me into an aviation rating as I qualified for any and all the Navy had. He said I could go to aviation electronics school, so I signed up to join and leave for boot camp on September 4, 1963, just days before Joyce went away to college.
A funny thing happened, working on airplanes on a flight deck turned out to be a dirty business. Remember the navy chief said I’d have clean hands? There’s oil, grease, dirt and dust everywhere on planes and flight decks. My job wasn’t as dirty as the engine mechanics or airframe mechanics; but it wasn’t the “nice clean job” the chief promised.
Life has not always turned out the way I planned it, but looking back; it’s all been good. Sometimes it takes a while to look back and see it, but it’s all good.
Brother Bill
