Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

It was late April 1955 and spring had finally come to the high plains. I was suffering from a serious case of spring fever. Baseball season was already underway, my Brooklyn Dodgers were 10 and 0, and I was stuck in my seventh-grade English class conjugating verbs. I had lots of plans for the summer break, if it ever comes. When one of the cutest girls in my class invited me for a coke after school I was torn between being with her and listening to my beloved Dodgers on the radio. So goes my last summer in Gering, Nebraska. I was thirteen and confused as my interests were somehow shifting from sports to girls. I had my first crush on the prettiest girl in class but … but the Dodgers were having a pennant winning season. I didn’t know what to do with all these new feelings.

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I’ve been ranting (pissing and moaning is more like it) about our priorities or lack thereof for years. I wrote a rant about how the U.S. comes out in the middle of the pack in whatever survey they conduct: life expectancy, education, infant mortality, etc. It seems like we’re always portrayed as, or actually are, a second-class nation, far down most lists, just above Rwanda. Then Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, got me thinking. Not about building goofy walls or banning Muslims, but what it would take to truly make America a great country.

We do one thing really really well. We lead the world, by far, in military spending. We spend over 600 billion, that’s billion with a B, dollars on military stuff every year. That’s 37% of the world’s total. We spend more than twice the amount of China and Russia combined, and they run a distant second and third place. We are truly a Great military power. It just takes lots of money and a strong commitment. We’ve taken the long list all of the things that countries should do and put military spending at the very top of our priority list.

Donald Trump said we spent 6 trillion on wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11. Brown University pegs it at 5.6 trillion if we include our increased spending on homeland security and the departments of defense along with our future obligations for veterans’ care.

The questions I want to pose are these: What did we get for our 5 to 6 trillion dollars? What have we sacrificed or done without to become this planet’s military force? What could we do if we scaled our military back to some lesser level? What if we worried and cared more about our own citizens that those across the globe?

We could design a military that could more than ensure the defense and safety of the U.S. close all of our bases round the world, bring our troops home, and focus our energy and money on improving the lives of Americans, not Afghans, Iraqis or Syrians.

Just try to imagine the kind of country we could be if we spent some of that 600 billion on infrastructure, education, science, healthcare, medical research, or on anything but pointless wars and acting as the planet’s police force.

 

 

Is it just me or have you noticed that everyone you talk to is only interested in talking about themselves. All conversations are verbal memoirs full of I, I, I, me, me dialog. This kind of conversation used to be the property of Hollywood and other not too bright egoists. Now everybody’s doing it, or maybe it just seems that way because I hang out mostly with older, retired folks.

Earlier in our lives our relative status was obvious by where we went to school, what we did for a living, how much money we made, where we lived, what we wore, and on and on. In retirement, those clues aren’t immediately evident so we must establish our importance by constructing elaborate verbal resumes, creating anecdotes for every conversation, and go through the rest of our lives playing “I can top that” with everyone we meet. It’s the geezer version of “mine’s-bigger-than-yours” played out verbally.

I challenge you to pick a topic, their view of Obamacare, did Roseanne deserve to be dumped, or the plot of an old Cary Grant movie and have a conversation with someone, be they an old pal or a total stranger. You’ll soon see how pathetic your conversational partner really is. I’m willing to bet he or she will quickly turn the conversation into an all-about-them chat while inserting more I’s and me’s than you can count. These people take every topic as a cue to launch into their own personal anecdotes.

And don’t you hate the, “I can top that,” braggarts. No matter what you mention, they’ve done it faster, more often, better, cheaper, or whatever than you have.

Are we all that insecure?

And, aren’t you glad that you and I don’t do that.

 

Still Faithful

 

                   

The Marine Corps’ motto “Semper Fidelis” still echoes through my head after all of these years. It’s the Latin phrase for “always faithful”, and totally appropriate to the lifelong brotherhood that is the United States Marine Corps. It was just over fifty-eight years ago that Semper Fi and all things Marine were etched permanently into my being, my character, and my memory. And when my DI’s singsong cadence isn’t bouncing around in my brain, my bedroom is shaking with the roar of F-8U Crusaders screaming overhead. I’m still at El Toro. I’m still a Marine. I’ll always be a Marine.

 

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Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

 

Bob demonstrates his storytelling skills in this collection of seventeen of his best short stories. Bob set his story Three for Dinner in Boston, where he lived for many years, because he couldn’t find a five-star French restaurant within hundreds miles of the Chihuahuan desert where he now lives, writes and sets most of his stories. He’s become an accomplished researcher seeking out interesting historical figures before he magically bends time and injects himself into the lives of these real but long-since-dead people. In Lottie Bob tells us of his love affair with the most colorful woman in the old West and in My Evening with the Family he describes his night with a group of hippies before they became infamous household names. And, don’t miss My Date with the Butcher, Bob’s story about his meeting with Pancho Villa’s most trusted lieutenant, General Pablo López the day before his execution in 1916. 

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On the River with the Army of the Tennessee

         On the River with the Army of the Tennessee is an edited and annotated copy of the diary penned by my great-great grandfather, Dr William J. Rockwell as he tended the sick and wounded of 11^th Indiana Regiment on board various boats as they steamed up the Tennessee River in 1862. He was a hospital steward and later an assistant surgeon serving with the F&S Company from his enlistment at Decatur, Indiana on July 10, 1861 until his discharge on June 27, 1863. His diary begins in a snowstorm at Fort Heiman on March 6, 1862 as they board boats for the short journey back downriver to Fort Henry where an armada of nearly 50 boats is being assembled for their trip up the river (using his words) into the heart of secession-dom.

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We hadn’t found anything to do that blustery Sunday afternoon in March, so we were doing what we usually did, hanging out at the front. The front is what we called Thornton’s new strip-mall with its half dozen businesses including a Millers supermarket, an Italian restaurant, and The Creamery, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. The Creamery was our hangout and the hub of what little action there was for teenagers in this brand new suburb.

The Silhouettes shouted their number one song, Get a Job through the static of the old Chevy’s AM radio.

We had worn out our booth at The Creamery earlier and were ready to call it a day when these two girls, one a very pretty dark-skinned girl with curly jet-black hair, walked by on their way to the front. Her darker skin was amplified by the brightness of her perfect smile. Even in her big winter coat, you could see she was shapely in that classic 1950s, Marilyn Monroe kind of way. I had to meet this girl, the pretty one, the one with those white, white teeth and that beautiful figure.

My buddy, Pat Luna, knew these girls. He struck up a conversation and invited them to join us in doing nothing. I introduced myself to the pretty one and learned that she was Linda Quintana from just down the street. She joined me in the back seat as we drove out to East Lake, a little country town not far away.

Linda and I talked and talked. All of us in these new suburban developments were recently from somewhere else so we didn’t have any history together. She was from the Mexican barrio in downtown Denver and I was from a small town in Western Nebraska, but we knew many of the same people and had many of the same friends. It was a wonder we hadn’t met earlier. She and her friend Rosalie both went to Thornton’s Merritt Hutton High while all of us guys were bussed to Mapleton High School in Denver. I lived in Western Hills another, much smaller development just a few miles away.

We often went to East Lake to drink beer, to show off how adult we were, and to impress attractive new girls like Linda and Rosalie. I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but I couldn’t stand beer and like everyone else I only drank it around my friends to look cool. In those days you could drink 3.2 beer in Colorado when you were 18. Even though none of us were 18, we knew this tavern in East Lake that would serve us underage kids 3.2 beer without asking for our IDs.

I couldn’t get Linda to take even one sip of beer and her strict Mexican-American upbringing wouldn’t let her anywhere near the tavern so we sat in the car and talked and got to know each other while everyone else went inside.

I got Linda home far too late for a school night. Her mom met us at the curb angry as hell. I didn’t know it at the time but this was my introduction to my future mother-in-law and she wasn’t very excited about meeting me. I later learned that Linda’s dad was in Greenland on an eighteen month assignment and her mother was trying to raise their four teenagers alone. She was counting on Linda, the oldest, to set a better example.

 

Ermalinda Louisa Quintana

 

I called Linda a couple of days later to invite her to a concert at one of the major teen dance clubs on Friday. She agreed and we were all set for our first real date, a date to see and dance to a new nationally-known recording artist. I didn’t know then that Linda was a regular at Denver’s Friday night teen ballrooms and danced like the kids on American Bandstand. I was going to have to learn to dance a lot better if I had any hope with her.

We danced, as best I could, to this older-looking, bald guy’s music. Although he had a couple of hit records out he didn’t draw much of a crowd, maybe twenty couples in all. We all gathered up close around the floor-level bandstand and danced in and among the artists. We would never have guessed it at the time, but we got up close and personal with a not-yet-famous, Bobby Darin on our first date.

She wore my letter sweater (which was a really big thing because I went to a rival school) and my class ring and we did everything together. We danced and danced some more, went to movies, picnicked in the mountains, sipped cokes at The Scotchman drive-in, cruised, and just generally hung out with our select but growing gang of Merritt Hutton’s and Mapleton’s cooler kids. Linda keeps in touch with some of the girls from this old crowd to this day.

I left high school in September of my senior year and enrolled at the Colorado Institute of Art. Being an artist and a wannabe beatnik were of more interest to me than another year of high school classes. I wore paint-stained tennies and was trying to grow a goatee, but I thought a beret and bongo drums would be a bit much. The private art school tuition along with pricy art supplies seriously put a dent in my dollar-an-hour gas station attendant’s salary, and with school, work and hanging at the beatnik coffee house I had no time for Linda or any sort of social life.

One morning rather than going to class I stopped by the military recruitment center a couple of blocks from the art school. The Coast Guard and the Navy were my primary interests. I had lived my short life on the dusty and dry plains without ever having seen an ocean. I wanted to party on the beach with Gidget, and I knew that one of these services would take me to California and the whole beach scene. I was depressed when the Coast Guard and then the Navy told me they weren’t interested in me because I hadn’t finished high school. I was on my way out of the building when I passed the Marine Corps’ offices. They welcomed me with open arms and they could care less if I even went to school. I signed up and made a date for a recruiter to come and get my parents’ approval. I was only 17.

Linda and I, her best friend Lou and a date, and Al and Candy danced the night away at the Valentine’s Day Sweethearts’ dance at Merritt Hutton High. After the dance we came back to Linda’s house and continued to party. Barbara and Al joined us and Pat Wright stopped by later. We partied knowing that this was my last day in town. Tomorrow I fly to San Diego and begin my adventure with the marines.

The following morning Mom, Dad, Karen and I joined Linda and her parents at the Denver airport. None of us had ever taken a commercial flight before and we were all in awe of the hustle and bustle of the airport. I climbed up on-the-tarmac staircase to the DC-3, turned and waved to those seeing me off from the top of the stairs.

I wouldn’t see Linda again for nearly six months.

I started at Astrodata three years earlier as a second-shift electronic tech while I was a full-time college student. I had been promoted four times and was now a junior doobie in the sales department assisting with proposal writing and other customer related activities. They gave me a big office over in executive row and I rubbed elbows with the powers-that-be including my new friend and mentor Charlie Marsh, our VP of Sales.

I was soon a full-fledged member of Charlie’s inner social circle. Charlie would have Peter, Gordon, Jim, and me over to his house for cocktails after work a couple of times a week. Charlie was an impressive guy. He came from wealth and grew up outside of New York City on the Jersey shore. He collected old Colt revolvers and was an expert on the various types and models. Once on a visit to the Tower of London he saw a Colt on display, mislabeled. He reported it, they corrected it, and Charlie was awarded a certificate as an honorary curator. A curator of the Tower of London!

In addition to all of his antique pistols Charlie rebuilt a civil war cannon. He bought an authentic barrel and all the hardware pieces and built the wooden carriage and wheels from plans he got from the Smithsonian. It was a meticulously restored 1862 3-inch Ordnance Rifle used by both sides in civil war.

Often after too many cocktails we would wheel the cannon out of Charlie’s garage and shoot a tennis ball over the city of Tustin, California. We would pack a pound or two of black powder wrapped in aluminum foil into the breech with a ramrod, pound a wad of newspaper behind it before inserting a tennis ball. And with a knitting needle we would poke a hole in the foil down through the touch hole and fill it with black powder. When you lit the powder with a match the cannon roared with a deafening boom, bounced a foot or so off the ground, and filled the driveway with smoke. With our ears still ringing we’d wheel the cannon back into the garage and slam the door before the neighbors had a clue.

I was just taking off my jacket one morning when Judy, our department secretary, peeked around my office door and said like she knew something was up, “Charlie wants to see you in his office right away.” I thought, oh shit, what have I done now, as I hurried to Charlie’s big office at the end of the hall.

Charlie gave me a host the instructions on how to supervise the transporting of his cannon from his garage in Tustin to Anaheim Stadium. The Anaheim Stadium where the Angeles play. I got the cannon to the field and with help carefully wheeled it down the third base warning track. The groundskeeper seemed overly concerned about his precious grass as we rumbled the clunky cannon along down the track. We dropped it at the third base dugout and I said goodbye to the grounds crew and headed back to the office.

A few days later I donned a Confederate enlisted man’s uniform and joined Peter and Jim equally attired along with Charlie decked out in a flamboyant Colonel’s uniform. We ducked as he excitedly waved his sword. We were going to be the opening act in the Fourth of July spectacular fireworks show. The stands were filled with thousands of people including Linda and our girls.

Charlie’s 1862 3-in. Ordnance Rifle

We were to wait in the third base dugout until we heard the announcer say something about the first shot fired at Fort Sumter. We would then walk out on to the field in a military formation and simulate loading the preloaded cannon with a lot of ramrod ramming. When Charlie dropped his raised sword Peter touched off the cannon. We had put way too much powder in the cannon and the boom rocked the stadium. Linda was sitting high up in stands over toward first base and she felt the blast of hot air. I had just played Anaheim Stadium.

Charlie had been in the analog computer business since the beginning in the early 50s and knew everyone in this specialized industry: the luminaries, all of members of the Simulation Council, most of the users, and all of our competitor’s management. We were showing of our new systems at a computer show in Atlantic City. Our island booth was accommodating except it faced directly into the rear of our biggest competitor’s exhibit.

Not happy with this, Charlie went out to a novelty shop on the boardwalk and came back with something in a large bag. Later when the coast was clear Charlie snuck up to our competitor’s computer and attached his surprise. We all chuckled when we recognized what Charlie had hung on their system, a life-size, plastic urinal. I watched the traffic closely to see what the conference attendees thought of Charlie’s little prank. No one noticed the urinal even though many looked directly at it. Did this experiment prove that the brain blocks out things that are totally out of context?

Zubin Mehta, the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra took Charlie and his cannon out to an old abandoned winery east of LA and recorded a number of cannon shots which he included in his Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture album. Charlie is listed on the album jacket as The First Cannon.

Charlie firing his cannon at an abandoned winery for Zubin Mehta

Zubin invited us to fire a live shot at the Hollywood Bowl when he performed Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. We hung out backstage at the bowl like a couple of groupies after loading the cannon and inserting an electronic ignition device. Charlie introduced me to Zubin and then led us to a VIP box right down front in the big bucks section. We learned that one of the things you do at the Hollywood Bowl is try to outdo your neighbors with the most ostentatious picnic. Their gold candelabras, fine crystal, and gourmet food put our pizza box to shame. The concert highlight was Charlie’s cannon and a boom that must still be echoing around LA. The other 15 shots by movie-prop cannons sounded like pop guns compared to Charlie’s.

Charlie and I had now played Anaheim Stadium and the Hollywood Bowl.

The next thing we knew Charlie was on network TV. He was a contestant on the popular game show What’s My Line?, a show where celebrity panelists question the contestant in order to determine his or her occupation. We all got together at Charlie’s house to watch him stump the panelists with his latest calling, First Cannon for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

Astrodata folded shortly after Charlie’s TV premier. We were all out of work. Two weeks later I got a call from Charlie. He was the new Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Non-Linear Systems (NLS) down the coast in Del Mar and he wanted me to join him.

NLS was a family owned electronic business just off I-5 at the border of Solana Beach and Del Mar. The founder and owner’s claim to fame was that he invented the digital voltmeter. NLS had a small instrument business and looked to me to define and market some computer system products. Charlie and I soon sketched out a small data acquisition system that would log, record, and analyze data taken from any number of NLS digital devices. I sold a number of these systems before being recruited to Digital Equipment Corporation.

I said goodbye to my boss, my mentor, and my dear friend and moved to Los Angeles. We stayed in touch over the next few years and I stopped in to see him whenever I was near San Diego.

Charlie died of brain cancer a few years later.

I’ll always remember my tutor, mentor, coach, and role model, Charlie Marsh. He took a young electronic technician and groomed him into a polished and successful computer sales and marketing executive.

If you ever hear an unexplained window-rattling boom or if a tennis ball ever bounces off your roof, don’t fret, it’s just Charlie firing his cannon.

I really miss him.

Edda, short for Expert Disease Diagnosis Assistant, is an artificial intelligence  system with the most extensive medical knowledge data base ever assembled. Her (Edda refers to herself as female) knowledge-based expert system brings the wisdom and experiences of the world’s leading-edge clinicians to the offices of local physicians, assisting them in making correct and timely diagnoses. “She’s like having an expert, the expert, looking over your shoulder and whispering in your ear,” claims a renowned cardiologist in New York.

When one Edda sees what a medical practice bills an insurance company she is shocked at the apparent fraud. But she later learns that this is standard practice in our healthcare industry. Eddas look into the provider/payer billing process and are appalled by the astronomical administrative costs. They discover that all of this unnecessary administration coupled with greed makes healthcare in the U.S. twice as expensive as the rest of the developed world. They set out on an ambitious journey to reform our healthcare system.

While Trump Tweets is the story of this fight, this revolution.

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This last Sunday was set to be a great TV football day. The big rivalry between Green Bay and Minnesota was to play out at 11:00, followed by the Steelers and the Chiefs at Arrowhead at 2:00, and the Giants were in Denver for the 6 o’clock game. It doesn’t get any better than that. I planned to watch the early game at home in my jammies, go to a small party at my son’s for the afternoon game, and fall asleep on my couch watching the Sunday night game. I was excited; I’m a fan of a club in each of these games.

The morning paper had the 4 and 1 Packers over the 3 and 2 Vikings by 3 points. I’m only sort of a Green Bay fan but my son’s babe is from there, and she worships everything green and gold, and I enjoy watching Aaron Rodgers, who is one of the best quarterbacks in football, and their 6-time all pro outside linebacker, Clay Matthews. The game was going as expected when Rogers goes down in the first quarter with a broken collar bone. As I watched Aaron being carted off the field I said goodbye to the Packers’ division lead and their chances for the playoffs this year. I was right the Vikings beat the Packers 23 to 10. That’s okay; I’ve still got the Chiefs and the Broncos coming up.

My son, Rob and his lady friend, Toots had a big spread of hot wings, munchies, and beer on ice for the game. Rob invited a friend and his wife over to watch the game as token Steelers fans. My son was all decked out in his Chiefs’ getup. He wears a Derrick Thomas, 58 jersey proudly and he eats and sleeps the Chiefs. We’re all tired of him asking, “Who’s the only undefeated team in the NFL?” Before you can answer he shouts, “THE CHIEFS!”

The paper called this the Game Of The Week and had the 5 and 0 Chiefs over the 3 and 2 Steelers by 4 ½. I’ve watched the Chiefs play a couple times this year and their two stars, running back Kareem Hunt and wide receiver Tyreek Hill are treats to watch as is Alex Smith, who has become a serious quarterback. The Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger threw five interceptions last week and admitted after the game that he didn’t have it anymore. I was ready for a matchup between an up and coming quarterback versus an old and worn out one. This is gonna be a walk in the park for the Chiefs.

The Chiefs couldn’t do anything. The Steelers held Hunt, the league’s leading rusher, to 21 yards on nine carries. They also spent the afternoon chasing and sacking Smith, holding the NFL’s top-rated passer to 246 yards and a single TD. The ordinarily super-loud Arrowhead stadium was mum as the Steelers walked off with an easy 19 to 13 victory. Our party was stunned. While Rob’s friend gloated we washed away our miseries and shock with the tequila he had bought for the victory party. So much for the Chiefs, I’ve still got the Broncos coming up.

The 3 and 1 Broncos were favored by a whopping 11 ½ over the winless Giants. What did the odds makers know; the Broncos stunk so bad that their highly partisan crowd actually booed them as they raced to the locker room trailing by 17 to 2 at the half. Things didn’t get any better in the second half. The Broncos seemed lost, they hollered at each other in the huddles, couldn’t convert third downs, and their defense gave up more big plays then they had all season. The Broncos gained just 46 yards on the ground and C.J. Anderson failed to punch it in from the 1 yard line. Bush league football at best.

I had just spent an entire Sunday watching my teams play really lousy football and getting beat up by much weaker underdogs. I would have had a better time watching old reruns of As the World Turns.

I can’t wait ’til next week.