My
ten-day Christmas leave began on the 20th of December. I still had not saved enough money for either
a bus or train ticket so I elected to hitch-hike home to Vancouver. To get out of the San Diego and Los Angeles
areas, I did buy a bus ticket to Bakersfield, California, then hitchhiked up
Highway 99. Men in uniform had very good luck hitch-hiking in those days and I
had the good fortune of decent weather in the Siskiyou mountains. I arrived in Portland, Oregon, the morning of
the 22nd and caught the interurban bus to Vancouver.
My
first leave in uniform was not the triumphant return I had envisioned and, in
the end, it emphasized the point that already my life and my interests had
diverged from those of my family and my old friends. It began with the fact that the family had
moved du9ring my absence of six months.
Instead of the familiar yellow house I had left in July, they now lived
in a small shingled house on the eastern outskirts of town. It was somehow not like “coming home”.
They
were all glad to see me, of course, and admired my tailored uniform (Richard
had come on boot leave in a regulation baggy blouse). It was nice to be there for Christmas, but
somehow there was a feeling that I no longer really belonged.
The
same was true of the close friends I had left behind. Dad still had the old Chevrolet and the first
evening home I drove it down to Gearhart’s.
The only ones I saw were David Schaeffer and Ariel. We had a Coca Cola and they asked me the
usual polite questions about life in the Navy, but it quicky became obvious
that they were not really all that interested.
I had been away and was not up to date on local happenings. Our acquaintance had become casual.
I
spent some time on evening with Shirley Mills and her family, but did not take
her out on a date. She had started to Oregon State College and was only home
for the Christmas holiday. Again, I
answered the usual questions about life in the Navy. Shirley and her sister Mary admired my
uniform, my suntan, and my muscles that had been hardened by daily
calisthenics. Mr. & Mrs. Mills asked
polite questions also, but then they would suddenly be discussing local events
or happening at OSC whih left me feeling very much the interloper. Before long I excused myself on the basis
that I had to get back to my family, but instead, I drove down to 13th
and Kaufman to see Patty Cross.
That
was one fo two gratifying instances during my leave. Pat wanted to hear everything I had been
doing and, unless she was an accomplished actress at the age of fifteen, was
truly interested. Her mother welcomed me
like a returning son and I spent a comfortable evening with them.
The
other gratification was a movie date with dear Elaine. She had enrolled at the University of Washington
in Seattle and was home for the holiday.
I recall that she wore a simple black dress for our date and the
scattershot high school girl was becoming a poised young lady. She, too, was truly interested in what I have
been doing and, with her rapid fire delivery, wanted to tell me all about the
university. She was a dear, sweet
friend, but I did not have the feeling that a serious relationship could
develop for us—I had too far to go out there in the world.
My
leave was to be up on December 30th. I decided to leave Vancouver on the morning of
the 27th to allow time for hitch-hiking in case rides were slow or
scarce. The weather had turned rainy in
Oregon with possible snow in the Siskiyou Mountains so, although he could not
afford a ticket to San Diego and it was my responsibility, Dad insisted on
buying me a cut-rate ticket on a small wildcat bus line in Portland that would
get me into Northern California. The
crowded little bus deposited me in Redding and from there, with less than five
dollars in my pocket, I was on my thumb.
I
had good luck with rides down the long valley through Sacramento and by dawn on
the 28th had been left near a truck stop café in Lodi. There my luck seemed to have run out. After an hour or more with very few cars and trucks
passing, I went to the café for a glass of milk and a doughnut (I still had not
developed a taste for coffee). The
driver of an automobile transport truck loaded with wrecked and used cars was
next to me at the café counter.
When
the truck driver heard that I was headed for San Diego, he made me an
offer. He said that he could ick up the
wreck of a Cadillac convertible in Modesto but that he had a full load of
cars. The rear car on his truck,
however, was a driveable Chevrolet sedan and would I drive it for him to Los
Angeles?
I
jumped at the chance. When he had
finished his breakfast we drove to Modesto, unloaded the black Chev sedan, and
loaded the wrecked Cadillac in its place.
He instructed me to simply stay on his tail and to flash my headlights
when I needed to pull off for gas.
The
drive was uneventful until we reached the top of that section of old Highway 99
past Bakersfield that was known as “The Grapevine”. It was sunset when we pulled off at a café
for some supper and was dark when we took to the road again.
That
truck driver took the twisting curves of that steep mountain grade considerably
faster than we comfortable for an inexperienced driver like me. I had to keep his taillights in sight,
however, because I did not have the address of the wrecking yard in L.A. that
was his destination. He had just said,
“Aw, you won’t have any trouble keeping me in sight. If I lose sight of you in my mirror, I’ll
just pull over until you catch up,” so, with sweating palms on the steering
wheel, I stayed glued to his tail.
The
worst part was when we got into Los Angeles and its traffic and stop
lights. It seemed to me that at every
stop light it would turn red while the truck was pulling through the
intersection. I was afraid that if I
lost him he might make a turn before I caught up so I got the front bumper of
the car as close to the truck as I dared and simply shot though the red
lights. It was fortunate that we did not
encounter a police car as I left exasperated motorists honking at fifteen or
twenty intersections, or so it seemed.
We
finally found the wrecking yard on the south side of L.A. and I heaved a sigh
of relief when I parked at the yard and, since he lived in Long Beach, I had hi
drop me at the bus station there. He had
paid for my supper andI had just enough money left to buy a ticket on the late
bus to San Diego. IT had only a few
passengers so I stretched out on the long rear seat and slept.
From
the downtown San Diego bus station, it was but a short walk down to the Broadway
Landing where I caught the “nickel snatcher” foot passenger ferry out to North
Island. I arrived on the Naval Air
Station dock just at morning colors and, as I walked to the barracks past the
tall flag pole with the stars and stripes waving against the blue sky in the warm
breeze, I had the feeling that I had truly come “home”. I belonged there. I loved my close knit family dearly and would
always be concerned for them; however, never once again would I feel any real
pangs of homesickness. For a long time
to come the Navy would be my real home and my squadron would be my “family”.
[I
would argue that the Navy remained what defined my father for his entire
life. Although only a relative short
part of his life in actuality he thought of himself as “an old Navy man” until
the day he died.]